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The Evolution & Future of Consumer Relations in the Digital Age

Tue, 21 May 2013 12:58:00 -0400

A consumer’s relation to a brand is and always will be dynamic – so long as there is the need to evolve.

But one can surmise that how brands undertake consumer relations will only continue to get better, because the user-experience (UX) of a consumer’s journey ties heavily into brand advocacy and return purchases; happy customers = more money.

How customer relations has evolved over the past several decades

There was once a time when you would walk into a store with your complaint to a store manager about a faulty product. It was then the store manager’s responsibility to decide whether or not the accountability to fix the product rested with the store or was your own.

This process evolved as businesses got larger; brands began to rely less on stores and more on scalable solutions, such as Automated Telephone Call Centers, to handle product support.

While the consumer was granted the convenience of not leaving his or her home to voice their complaint, telephone calls were not able to express empathy the way a store manager could, thus cheapening the experience of the consumer in the process. This was further amplified by businesses who endorsed speaking to inexpensive, outsourced “experts” abroad.

By the mid 1990’s, it became clear that the internet was destined to replace Customer Service Contact Managers. Brands began to incorporate E-mail and Live-Chat Support options into their website. The emergence of e-commerce gave you - the consumer - the practical option of never leaving your home when making a purchase or to receive support.

However, for all of its innovations and conveniences, E-mail & Live-Chat Support fell short of perfection and formed disconnect where there shouldn’t be. It missed a vital component of customer service – empathy.

There is so much that is lost in text that is necessary to build a strong consumer relationship, especially one that’s on the ropes. When conveying through text, tone of voice or facial expression is incommunicable (smileys don’t count), and the process lacked affinity or compassion for the concern of the customer.

It seems that the internet would need to wait for technology to improve before brands would truly achieve a connection to their consumers via the web. Yet, a beacon of hope came with the emergence of social media.

Dawning the Facebook age, customer relations transcended to the social media. Being a social business meant placing yourself where your consumers “hang out.”

Social media gave brands the opportunity to lead the conversation by not only being a member, but a leader in their industries ecosystem. Community managers were able to answer queries or concerns via text in “real-time” on their owned media channels like Facebook and Twitter. But because this process still relied on text to convey empathy, it lacks a major component needed to bridge a connection with the agitated consumer.

The Future of Consumer Relations in the Digital Age

There’s a clear evolutionary path to the world of social consumer relationships that we live in today, yet the disconnect remains when trying to establish genuine empathy between a brand and consumer via text. Where does the solution lie? My guess would be in WebRTC.

WebRTC is an emerging technology that enables users to make voice and video calls directly from their browser without the need to download a plugin. Google Hangouts are an example.

What stirs me is the impact that WebRTC could have on social media. Imagine you could talk 1:1 to a customer service representative on Facebook or Twitter with a single click from your desktop computer or mobile device. Being able to speak face-to-face with a brand representative in real time could:

Speed up the conversation around a customer’s query
Convey genuine empathetic concern for your customers via body language/tone of voice (Brand)
Provide a more intimate experience that will impact and increase brand loyalty

This type of video communications has the potential to revolutionize the way that business is done. Here are just a few examples of how it could be utilized:

If a consumer’s product breaks, they should have the opportunity to come face to face with an expert who can help them repair it or give them a refund.
If a credit card gets stolen, a consumer should be reassured by a video call letting them know that their money is secure.
If a consumer wants to make a purchase on a new item your brand provides online, they should be greeted by a brand representative that can offer them support to assist with that sale.

The empathy element must be present to administer the greatest impact on customer relations, and while WebRTC’s integration as a Facebook/Twitter API is still a work-in-progress, I believe that it will and should be incorporated in all future forms of customer relations as a solution to the text-based limitations that have evolved from expediency over the past several decades.

-Written by Jeff Gencarelli, Associate Media Manager

Yahoo! Acquires Tumblr, Expanding Its Engagement

Mon, 20 May 2013 17:00:00 -0400

Late last night, the Twitterverse and trade press exploded when CEO Marissa Mayer confirmed that Yahoo! had acquired microblogging platform Tumblr for $1.1 billion.

A Tumblr acquisition has been speculated for an age, and it’s no wonder why with 300 million users and 900 posts per second, as well as brands like Topman, J Crew, Mashable, College Humour, EMI, Rolling Stone and Comedy Central taking to the platform in order to increase their engagement with target communities.

Back on Track

In the 90’s Yahoo! was, to many, synonymous with ‘the internet’. Once accessed, there was no reason to leave the web portal. You would chat, mail and consume all content under the Yahoo! umbrella.

Since then, there’s no arguing that Yahoo! has had its fair share of stumbling blocks, including several high-profile acquisitions. Remember the sad, slow demise of GeoCities? The growing irrelevance of Flickr? There’s also the question of Yahoo! failing to lead the charge when it comes to promoting creativity in online advertising. All of these setbacks have resulted in industry pundits questioning the company’s ability to keep up with competitors like Google and Bing.

Now, however, over a decade later, Yahoo! appears to be back on its original course for web supremacy, this time with solid leadership at the helm and a roadmap focused on content and social engagement.

5 C’s of Engagement

Yahoo’s acquisition of Tumblr is exciting on many levels, primarily in that it signifies a commitment and movement into the engagement space. With engagement comes stability; once again users have a reason to stay on Yahoo!, and with that comes revenue. Tumblr’s social nature (microblogging) will only serve to enhance engagement on Yahoo! and as a result drive an increase in revenue.

Using the ‘5 C’s of Engagement’, we can see where Tumblr and other recent acquisitions complement and enhance engagement on Yahoo!’s web portal:

Creating – users create their own content.

Critiquing – writing a review leaving a comment.

Chatting – sharing and discussion.

Collecting – archiving and sharing content.

Clicking – a page view, a click to read a blog post.

Tumblr’s strength in engagement is via users creating, collecting and clicking. Popular microblogs like Kim Jong-Il Looking at Things are not only humorous, but also prime examples of this competitive advantage: snipping and collecting images from across the web so that users can browse and visually consume the content.

Creating, collecting and clicking are great for advertisers. The more we engage with the user-generated content (UGC), the more revenue Yahoo! makes. Hopefully recent acquisition Snip.it makes that experience more personal – ads included.

Buying Power

More revenue from ads will bring stability to Yahoo!’s books, making them more powerful by way of blending search, social and content, as well as opening up the possibility of further acquisitions. In my opinion, a company like Yahoo! is too old to ‘make’ anything–it takes them too long, won’t be proven, and they might not even have the skillset or passion to follow through– making acquisitions an easier route to innovation.

Natives

If I were to read the tea leaves, I’d say Yahoo! will monetize Tumblr through ads via their popular app first, but how will they look and where will they live? Native, that’s where.

Native ads (advertorials really), are discrete, relevant (read local) and are proven to work well for, I don’t know, Facebook. We all moaned about our newsfeeds, but got over it when we realized the product was still excellent.

Tumblr will stay excellent, but with ads. Some will flock to Wordpress, but they’ll remember why they chose Tumblr in the first place and return.

What does the Tumblr acquisition mean?

Yahoo!’s latest venture isn’t to compete with Google, Facebook, etc. but to continue carving its own market in the advertising world.

It feels as if Yahoo! almost wants to organize the web to make it easier to browse, but not like a search engine, more like a guide. Tumblr adds a more personable, social layer to that, much like Flickr but much more modern.

As a brand, I would be excited to see what Yahoo! does with Tumblr, not only to benefit from its community, but to see how it integrates with the rest of its services. For example, consider a personalized Yahoo! homepage with news and Tumblr posts from your favourite brands.

With the expansion of mobile and tablet, a future-Yahoo! doesn’t sound that bad.

-Written by Michael Thomson, Media Supervisor, Search

The Ritualized Self

Thu, 09 May 2013 14:05:00 -0400

As we rush to mine ‘big data’ for novel audience insights, we often overlook enduring social behaviors as time-tested as any research.

It should come as no surprise to any sentient human that we are creatures of habit. The everyday routine, the daily grind, the quotidian—our language is suffused with references to the dull repetitions of life. Urban planners discuss the “reproduction of daily life” in hushed tones. Politicians stage theatrical battles over whether to dispense with time-honored entitlements. And brand planners strategize ways to “repurpose” content on new platforms. Even the stories we tell draw on archetypal myths that we tirelessly rehearse.

Yet the ways in which we appeal to audiences often overlook our most customary habits.

Coca-Cola’s Retailing Research Council claimed there were only four social networking personas. Yahoo! Insights soon emerged with seven “mobile modes”. Not to be outdone, IBM unveiled four “digital personalities” that combined our online social and mobile behaviors into four comprehensive behavioral types. Even a savvy marketer could be forgiven for confusing her Creators with her Maestros.

But there is a deeper behavioral baseline that these newly invented grids sit atop. Five years ago, BBDO conducted a global ethnographic study on the prevalence of ritual in the lives of populations around the world. The agency found common ground, noting five core rituals observed by citizens of the world. You might quibble with the chosen names, but the rituals will all be familiar.

Preparing for battle—Essentially, preparing to face the day, with greater or lesser degrees of success.
Feasting—The cornerstone of community, eating together.
Sexing up—Self-transformation in anticipation of social activity, to phrase it modestly.
Returning to camp—The transition from the stresses of public life to the comforts of home, unwinding from the day.
Protecting yourself for the future—Bedtime rituals that prepare us for restful sleep and prepare us for coming day.

These rituals are distinct from the segmentations mentioned earlier in two critical ways. First, none of them are new. They are inscribed in the social history of all cultures, practiced as often in Neolithic times as today. Second, they are community behaviors and not individuated at a personal level. Yet they are all deeply personal rituals.

Healthy Essentials, an MRY account in the Johnson & Johnson portfolio, recently launched its new digital site, www.healthyessentials.com. In a new section of tips and tools designed to broaden brand engagement with content beyond digital couponing, our user experience and creative teams worked with the J&J brand team to parse the product portfolio based on a similar recognition of daily rituals. We found that the rituals aligned almost seamlessly with J&J’s health and beauty product lines. Our breakdown included:

Be Ready for Romance, headlined by a new K-Y® app that encourages couples to discover their “unique chemistry” inside and outside the bedroom.
The Morning Routine, highlighting skincare and allergy products.
Ready to Go, emphasis on portable products, best for tossing in the gym bag.
Smiles Around the Table, with a focus on oral care and dietary products.
Prepping and Pampering, skincare products designed for beautification.
Winding Down, sleep apps, oral care, and sleep aids.

With its focus on families and children, Healthy Essentials skews slightly towards the kid-focused aspects of these routines. In any case, the section unfolds in a series of routines that are instantly and universally recognizable to consumers in any market, across any demographic, and on any platform. There’s nothing radical about this use of ritual; it’s just good strategy—a big picture narrative broad enough to encompass a range of social strata, and to contextualize brands in the natural rhythms of a day. The concept has also been extended to a CRM initiative in which registered users recently received an email invitation shaped around the popular ritual of spring-cleaning.

In television, it’s common knowledge that product placements work best when threaded into the story of a show. Likewise, in the digital space, contexts can be uncovered for brands to align with the life narratives of consumers. Not a novel idea in its construction, but constructed to capture mindshare in a novel context.

-Jason Hirthler is a content strategist and writer with 17 years of experience in the marketing and communications industry. He cut his content strategy teeth working on Olympic bid campaigns, and is currently Content Strategy Director at MRY.-

Facebook goes emo: How new actions effect EdgeRank

Fri, 03 May 2013 12:06:00 -0400

Facebook emoticons saw a wide rollout this month, but why should brands care? New approaches to EdgeRank may be why.

Because there’s always better, more comprehensive ways to “like” something, Facebook this month rolled out what’s being called “visual sharing” - and emoticons - directly into status updates.

The shortlist for what Zuckerberg’s crew thinks users may be doing includes drinking and eating; reading, listening or watching; and feeling. This, naturally, could lead to increased shares of brand Facebook pages. And, to most online/social marketers, that should be good enough bait to herald this new development.

HOWEVER, there’s an added layer of complexity that should be considered when looking at Facebook’s new, expressive statuses.

How emotions & actions may effect EdgeRank

EdgeRank, the algorithm that dictates when and if stories appear in newsfeeds, remains unrevealed in its entirety. Facebook offered a glimpse into EdgeRank in 2010, though, so we know time, relationships and engagement all factor in.

In regards to the latter, it’s been suggested a comment might outweigh a like, and a share could outweigh a comment. (These are all referred to as Edges.) For Facebook statuses, it stands to reason - in an amended EdgeRank taking into account emotion - they could take precedent over all three.

To put that in context, let’s look at my post again:

EdgeRank knows I took the time of selecting the “listening to” option, searching the band and writing the status. Given the effort, an amended version of the algorithm may place an Edge like mine ahead of a simple status like “AC/DC rulz” or an empty status tagged “listening to music”.

So, let’s take a look at just who EdgeRank would be prone to show this to:

People who stalk me on Facebook

Friends who ‘like’ AC/DC

People who like things similar to AC/DC based on Facebook’s informed opinion:

However, the new activity types bake in another ingredient to the pie, where - very likely - it might display to:

Friends who frequently post listening activity

In a more broad way, this could extend to target particular stories to:

People who interact when you more when you’re [sad] [happy] [lazy]

Graph Search

Although Facebook’s recommendation engine is definitely still in its infancy, these new actions and emotions will likely play into it, especially as the Graph Search becomes more robust.

For example, if we take my post about feeling amazing, Graph Search would probably rank me highly in “Friends who like AC/DC”. In fact, I’d probably rank higher than people who merely ‘like’ the page, making me a brand champion.

Graph Search could eventually pick up on sentiment through wording as well, making this a valuable endorsement, even if I don’t ‘like’ the page:

Further implications of Facebook emotions

Finally, we can also see emoticons/activities integrated into check-ins (only available on desktop at publication time). For example, someone could be “happy” they checked into a restaurant with their friends. Facebook could then leverage that information to develop its own quality rankings of the location. (It could also be more prone to show that to close mutual friends you didn’t invite - so watch out.)

Additionally, Facebook could begin to associate things in new ways. For example, if I posted something like this:

Facebook could start suggesting The Trash Bar to friends of mine who like AC/DC - OR, perhaps more importantly, people who like AC/DC who live in Brooklyn.

So, despite it seeming like a cosmetic move or extraneous Facebook ‘improvement’, these new emotions and actions could become significant for business rankings, plus for how EdgeRank and Graph Search determine placement, and which local businesses get promoted.

-Jason Morton works for MRY’s owned media department in New York City and provides strategy for search and community management. He hopes if AC/DC shared this post, they’d put a ‘Happy’ emoticon next to it.

Fishkeeping & #TheFuture

Wed, 01 May 2013 15:52:00 -0400

I’m passionate about two things in my life: the future and fish. To start with the future, I think we’re heading into the most exciting 50 years in human history. Things like 3D printing (buildings, CPG, body parts), recreational space travel and driverless cars are among the short list of innovations that will become ubiquitous in my lifetime and are so insanely science fiction that the effects will be nothing short of life-changing for all of us. I’ve been incredibly excited about the future for a long time, so much so that as a fifth grader I gave my Jr. Toastmaster speech on how the computer was going to change the world. These are not the kinds of speeches that attract female fifth graders… but I persisted.

Now for the fish. Since I was a toddler I’ve been fascinated with animals. Frogs, snakes, lizards, turtles - anything I could catch I would keep by building elaborate habitat recreations in cardboard boxes with cut-out holes covered in saran wrap for viewing areas. Fast forward a bit and as an adult I have developed a rather serious fishkeeping hobby. I currently have close to 400 gallons of tanks that replicate the natural conditions of the Amazon River, complete with over 70 species of fish and ten species of plants native to various channels and tributaries of the largest river system in the world. This is not the kind of hobby, by the way, that attracts female twenty somethings. But hey… I persist.

My blog is about the 3 lessons I’ve learned that are my basis for the future of fishkeeping and why they will help you change the world.

1. Challenge the status quo. If you go to any pet store you’ll see a wall full of betta fish living in cups. By all conventional logic this must mean that this is a humane way to treat this animal if the practice is so widespread…right? Wrong. This topic will get its own blog post next week but suffice to say the biggest pet store chain in the world is hopelessly caught up in misconceptions and old habits that are both inhumane and, frankly, do not allow them to properly capitalize on a beautiful fish with tons of popularity. Every company has their betta fish… it’s up to us to never stop digging until we help them change because in the end it will be better for all of us.

2. Know the underlying principles. Did you know that I can build you a fish tank that needs almost zero maintenance except for the addition of extra water? This fish tank will also grow everything you need for a salad, or make your houseplants grow on overdrive. While trying to create the most efficient filtration system for my tanks I learned some very enlightening facts about nature. Fish eat and produce waste that makes conventional fish tanks dirty, but that “dirty” fish water is actually nutrient rich super-food for plants that, when given the proper lighting, will suck up every ounce of the bad stuff and return the water cleaner than any conventional aquarium filter on the market. When learning something new it’s important to never be satisfied with knowing “how” because you’ll likely only be told the conventional way of doing things… Learning the “why” will help you dig deeper and build something truly innovative.

3. It’s all in the details. Imagine if some alien species collected a large bare room full of humans for fun and they took an American woman, a Brazilian grandmother, two men from China and a Kenyan boy. While it would be possible to cohabitate, it would be quite likely that there would be a bit of culture clashing, and communication would no doubt be limited. Now I don’t have proof that animals speak different languages but I don’t see why they wouldn’t. My fish may be as different as a New Yorker and a Texan but at least they all speak Portuguese. This quest for perfection is what separates the good from the great… especially in the digital era where the size and placement of a button can mean vast differences in actual revenue or impressions. Don’t be afraid to deal with the seemingly unimportant details because to my fish - and your customers - the details make all the difference.

Seems an unlikely pairing… an obsession with the potential of technology and simultaneously life lessons rooted in the natural world. But this isn’t so unlikely… just like my natural filter trumps any existing technology, scientists are discovering new and exciting ways where the natural world creates systems that are more efficient and effective than anything modeled purely on human thought. To cure cancer scientists feel the solution lies in replicating the cell by cell target system of viruses; to climb walls like Spiderman mechanical engineers realized the grooves on gecko feet trump any existing suction cup method, and the bumps on humpback whale fins may be the future of aeronautics. So my last lesson is this: learn all you can from nature because our future depends on it.

Call me- I’m still single.

-Written by Zac Waldman, Youth Strategist, Mr Youth

Social Search in Action: Google's Reaction to Some Unexpected NYC Fireworks

Mon, 29 Apr 2013 10:51:00 -0400

I was brushing my teeth the other night before bed and all of a sudden I heard loud unexpected explosions from the Westside Highway near Hell’s Kitchen; some sort of attack raced through my mind.

Reassuring myself that was unlikely, I brushed away, but the explosions kept coming, and coming, and coming.

Not native to these shores, my imagination got the better of me so I dropped my toothbrush and ran through to my living room (which is also my kitchen, hall and dining room, etc. – its NYC!) and looked out the windows – nothing.

With no identification of the source, I took to search to find answers.

Specializing in owned media, especially search, what was interesting to me about this event was when I turned to Google for answers my [nyc fireworks] query answered nothing; Macy’s 4^th of July, an April 10^th fireworks show in CP, Boston Bombers news, and old images were what Google returned for me.

However, my second search choice Twitter accurately answered my thirst for information, and in real-time.

Turns out, I wasn’t the only one with an imagination. Luckily (and prettily for some), the explosions were coming from some unexpected fireworks over the Hudson River.

Inquisitive tweets soon turned to streams of pictures and Vines of fireworks, and rants about unexpected noise pollution.

Twitter search provided me with an experience where I could read, see and watch exactly what was going on. It provided me with faces and avatars I could look at as peer-verifications; Google did not. This is a problem for Google.

Noticeably though, Twitter users soon started sharing the source of the fireworks on NYC.gov. By the morning, as I search for more information on the fireworks at work, guess who’s ranking first for [nyc fireworks]? NYC.gov. And sure enough, my re-search quest reveals the fireworks were sponsored by North Shore L.I.J. on Pier 84 (Intrepid museum).

This is a fine example of social search in action.

Yes it could be coincidence, yes it could be personalized search, yes it could be Google monitoring click-through rates (CTR) or searches, but what makes me believe this is Google crawling, indexing and using social signals from Twitter is that the NYC.gov webpage that ranks has a WebTrends tracking code (WT.mc_id=311_twtr) common for Twitter, which we can attributed back to the 311 Twitter profile. Internal links from within NYC.gov don’t host this tag.

Although Google’s deal to access Twitter’s data expired a while ago now, let’s remember:

“…information on Twitter that’s publicly available to our crawlers will still be searchable and discoverable on Google.”

This isn’t the first nor will it be the last example of social search, but it’s more important than ever to be aware how omnichannel impacts your field of digital and traditional media.

-Written by Michael Thomson, Media Supervisor, Search

A shot from last night’s all-agency meeting - you could...

Fri, 26 Apr 2013 10:56:22 -0400

A shot from last night’s all-agency meeting - you could say #TheNewMRY team has grown a little bit over the past few months! (And to that end, we’re hiring!)

Reaching Doctors: How to Get More Bang for Your Marketing Buck

Tue, 23 Apr 2013 11:07:00 -0400

Looking to impact your healthcare professional audience more effectively? Or maybe you’re simply trying to get their attention and differentiate yourself from the sea of emails, healthcare apps, detail aids, and other educational materials and tools that already exist. In either case, there are a few basic tenants to follow when it comes to digital marketing to HCPs.

Get To the Point. It’s no secret that HCPs are short on time. Increasing bureaucratic and administrative demands and decreasing reimbursements have reduced the time of a typical office visit with a primary care provider to less than 15 minutes. Physicians are loathe to spend valuable time out of their day having lengthy chats with sales reps and pouring through complicated detail aids and other materials. Many of those carefully crafted lengthy e-newsletters (often times with valuable content) get deleted before they ever get opened. In a time-crunched environment of information overload, it’s best to quickly get to the point. Think of the 2-3 bullet points that you want your customer to remember, and get to those points as quickly as possible.

Keep It Simple. Marketers often times lose sight of the fact that they live and breathe one product or category for months or years, while physicians, especially primary care providers can see dozens of different disease states and prescribe hundreds of different drugs in any given day. I was once in a market research session for a novel Alzheimer’s drug and one of the marketers remarked he was surprised all the participating physicians couldn’t name the 4 major competitor drugs in the Alzheimer’s space and the differences between them. From his perspective, this is something he had learned in week one of his job. But from a physician’s perspective, he or she sees and treats dozens of patients with different ailments, which means they utilize hundreds of drugs, treatments, and tests weekly- so the details of your particular drug may or may not be top of mind. So if you want to reach these docs in a meaningful way that won’t annoy, keep your message simple and focused – it’s the easiest way to cut through the noise.

Don’t Force A Message. There are certain messages that just don’t resonate or that physicians just aren’t buying, regardless of the amazing technology or cool new channel it’s delivered in. For example, if most of your customers perceive your product to be at parity in terms of efficacy, then bombarding them how well your drug works may not make a dent (unless you have some new, compelling data). If it’s a perception, this can sometimes be corrected, but often times, you may be better off reinforcing a completely different aspect of the drug, one that they may be more open to.

Tell Me Something I Don’t Know. It’s really important to monitor message fatigue. Repetition has its value (and it’s important to promote in multiple channels), but after a while, it’s easy to become numb to the same message/data/information. Unless it’s adding real value, and it’s something they haven’t heard before, think twice about bombarding already busy professionals with more materials. The goal is quality and relevance, not quantity.

Using these points as a guidepost will help you deliver on what busy healthcare professionals are really looking for - tools and materials that will help simplify their lives, make learning fun but efficient, and improve the quality of care they can deliver to their patients.

-Written by Himani Kulkarni, MD, Medical Content Director, MRY Health

Happy #EarthDay from #TheNewMRY team! We kicked off the holiday...

Mon, 22 Apr 2013 12:37:00 -0400

Happy #EarthDay from #TheNewMRY team! We kicked off the holiday early this year by joining over 4,000 fellow volunteers in cleaning up our city’s open green spaces for New York Cares Day Spring!

Our hearts are with Boston during this difficult time.

Fri, 19 Apr 2013 16:35:32 -0400

Our hearts are with Boston during this difficult time.

#NowPlaying Twitter #music

Fri, 19 Apr 2013 10:34:00 -0400

Twitter finally launched their standalone music app yesterday morning, dubbed Twitter #music. As you probably heard, the folks at Twitter skipped the early adopter approach and took to Good Morning America for a very mainstream launch of their latest product. The app is now available on your desktop and, perhaps more importantly for the large majority of us that like our music to be as on-the-go as we are, on iOS.

So what does the app actually do? As expected, Twitter #music leans heavily on its recently acquired predecessor, We Are Hunted, to serve as a music discovery service. Twitter #music helps you find new songs and artists via Twitter activity, “detecting and surfacing” both music that’s trending on the social network and music related to the artists that you and your friends already listen to and follow. Twitter collates this activity and aggregates it into a beautiful checkerboard interface, each square containing the album cover, handle, and Twitter profile pic of the corresponding artist. The music is played directly from the app itself via the listener’s iTunes, Spotify, or Rdio account. Subscriptions to Spotify and Rdio are essential to listening to songs in their entirety, reinforcing the app’s focus on music discovery rather than lengthy listening sessions.

The app is centered around four tabs – Popular, which shows you what’s trending on Twitter; Emerging, aimed at helping you find new artists; Suggested, showing music that is targeted according to the artists you follow on Twitter and who those artists follow in return; and #NowPlaying, which displays the music your friends are listing to and engaging with on Twitter. You can also search for specific artists, follow new artists, and tweet songs directly from the app while listening, all of which unsurprisingly fuels Twitter #music itself with more engagements for more accurate collation.

The app itself is slick and easy to use, but the actual functionality beyond music discovery remains to be seen, especially if its aim is to become as heavily used as Pandora, Rdio, and other popular music discovery platforms of the world. For example, there’s currently no way to tag songs for future listening sessions other than aggregating them through your own Twitter handle. You also can’t “follow” an artist on Twitter #music without following the artist on Twitter itself, objecting you to all of their inane tweets rather than just those related to their music. As anyone who follows musicians on Twitter knows, music is only a small percentage of what they are actually tweeting about on a daily basis. And finally, in perhaps our biggest critic of the app in the words of UX Lead Thomas Strickland, “An artist with a presence on iTunes can’t be all that unknown, and this short-changes a number of incredibly talented indie artists slinging songs from SoundCloud and BandCamp.”

So, in conclusion, after day one of Twitter #music, we’re in love with the pure discovery aspect of Twitter #music, but also skeptical of how the limiting the app seems to be, at least as it exists at launch. In this writer’s opinion, it’s got a way to go before it makes me forget my love affair with Spotify and Rdio. However, I have no doubt that, as Twitter #music and its capabilities evolve, I’ll be listening along with everyone else.

-Written by Kate Bryan, Associate Manager, Marketing

Keepin’ It Real: Kobe Bryant & Facebook Venting

Thu, 18 Apr 2013 11:57:00 -0400

Raw. Transparent. Insightful. Just some of the adjectives that come to mind after reading the @kobebryant post-injury rant on his Facebook page last weekend. A must read if you haven’t done so yet, the post offers a rare peak-behind-the-curtain inside the mind of one of the greatest active basketball players to ever play the game on the heels of learning that he suffered a season ending torn Achilles.

Kobe Bryant, nicknamed “Black Mamba,” has transformed his career (and himself) from that of a perceived selfish, childish, entitled player to that of one of the most respected elder statesmen of the game and a pillar for the Lakers organization who now leads by example. In fact, this season - his 18^th - was shaping up to be one of his best and arguably his “swan song,” averaging 27.3 points, 5.6 rebounds and 6.0 assists. With five NBA championships, 4th place on the all-time scoring list and a shot to catch MJ in both of those categories, what Bryant was doing at age 34 made this season one of his most impressive, age-defying accomplishments. With just two games to play, the stage was set for Bryant and the Lakers to secure the 8^th and final spot in the Western Conference playoffs (as of last night, they officially made the playoffs, as the No. 7 seed no-less).

Then, with less than two-minutes left to play in a game against the Golden State Warriors on Friday night, Kobe’s march to the playoffs came to a painful, grinding hault. Worse yet, the nature of his injury - at this time, at his age - could mark the end of his career.

After a post-game interview with members of the press game where he confirmed his worst fears, Kobe, apparently wrestling with his emotions, took to social media to “Facebook Vent” and bring it to us “Real, No Image.”

In a time where athletes, celebrities, influencers and the everyman take to social media to either prop-up, feed and fuel their image or post comments on subjects outside of their knowledge in a manner that does irrevocable damage to themselves and others, the rant by Kobe Bryant is as good as it gets, and could be the very thing that cements his legend. The post is an emotional journey and a metaphor for Kobe’s self-discovery at his darkest hour as a pro basketball player, and hits on themes of pessimism, questioning, anger, doubt, and reality before finally ending with grit and determination.

While the post speaks to the true nature of “real-time” social media and the psychology of athletes, it also speaks to the nature of humanizing the Kobe Bryant “brand” in a way that creates a powerful narrative that connects to people in a visceral way. And that, at the end of it all, is what Social Media is all about.

-Written by Christian Borges, SVP, Marketing

Happy #4sqDay from #TheNewMRY!

Tue, 16 Apr 2013 14:29:00 -0400

It’s April 16^th, which can only mean one thing – it’s the 4^th Annual Foursquare Day! (Four squared = 4^4 = 16. 4/16. Get it?)

In honor of this special occasion for one of our favorite social networks, we’ve gone local and dropped tips at some of our favorite, must-visit spots in the MRY NYC hood. Check out our list of the places where we eat, drink, procrastinate, exercise, get inspired to be remarkable and more below, then go out and check-in like crazy at your favorite locations. You never know where you may find one of those special #4sqDay deals…

1. Squeeze Truck : Can’t afford an $11 juice every day? We’re hiring!

2. Fishs Eddy: High-five as many ceramic hands as you can! Our record: 47

3. Uncle Moe’s: They have a salsa bar! Shots, shots, shots, shots, shots!

4. Beecher’s Handmade Cheese: Love free samples? Bring fake moustaches to maximize your curdage.

5. The Protein Bakery: Eat a bunch of protein packed cookies, and then rip a mailbox from the pavement.

6. Tiger Cafe: FYI does not allow real tigers on the premises.

7. Barry’s Bootcamp: The only good excuse for being late to work in the morning.

8. Paper Presentation: Here at MRY, we call it procrasticrafting. Try it today!

9. Taim Truck: Those things on the truck? They look like butts, but they’re not butts. We all thought they were butts.

10. Artichoke: The first step to every perfect nap.

11. Food Depot: Proud sponsor of eating lunch at your desk.

12. American Apparel: Need a costume? They’ve got you covered. Or uncovered…

13. Shake Shack: Do some burpees in line so you can feel less bad ordering the Shack Stack.

-List compiled by the MRY Creative Team

Retargeting and the Connection Between Offline and Online

Mon, 15 Apr 2013 10:32:00 -0400

I recently bought a pair of ADRIC plim soles from ALDO only minutes from the MRY office. Prior to purchase, I researched the styles on their website so I knew what I was looking for in-store.

When I went to buy, they were out of my size so I placed an order, paid, and had ALDO deliver my shoes to the store for pick-up. As part of the process, ALDO required my email address and phone number so they could contact me when they arrived.

Sure enough, five days later I received an email that my shoes were ready to be picked up.

Wearing my new shoes a week later, I checked the Weather Channel’s website to find out when New York City was finally going to become hot again. Much to my surprise, I’m being retargeted by ALDO to buy the shoes I just recently bought and am already physically wearing.

Isn’t this an inefficient way to spend ad dollars - why retarget me for what I have already purchased? There is a clear disconnect here between online and offline that hasn’t yet been made.

This isn’t ALDO’s fault. They are likely one of many who’ve been subject to this form of waste when it comes to retargeting. However, ALDO could resolve this.

When I purchased offline, I gave them my email – a vital piece of information that links me to an array of online accounts, profiles and websites. It is this customer relationship management (CRM) data that ALDO could use – in theory – to stop retargeting me once I made that offline purchase.

ALDO would first need my permission to do this (i.e. small print). They could then start to feed the offline data I provided - like my email and purchased SKU - so that it connects and interacts with online retargeting. Simple? Not really, but possible.

How excellent would it be if ALDO retargeted an ad to ask me to review my new shows or share my experience with my connections? How terrible would it be if ALDO reduced the price of the shoes and then served me that ad? Computer, screen, fist, is what springs to mind.

The key point here for me stems from user-scenarios and leaning on User Experience (UX) to establish just how people use a website and purchase a product. Ignoring offline in user-scenarios greatly narrows your online potential.

Connecting and introducing offline scenarios can be difficult, but, as highlighted, when ‘systems’ start talking with ‘other systems’ and you have a connection between both – email, in this case – you can start to really make online and offline happen for you.

Written by Michael Thomson, Media Supervisor, Search

Is That a Pebble?

Fri, 12 Apr 2013 14:09:00 -0400

Unless you’ve been living under a rock…err pebble…you’ve probably heard of the epic Kickstarter campaign that raised over $10 million in crowdsourced funds on the promise of an e-paper watch that connects via Bluetooth to iPhone and Android phones. Introducing Pebble.

I stumbled upon this incredible fundraising frenzy—the Kickstarter project hit $1MM in only 28 hours—on April 19^th, 2012, about a week after the campaign launched. I opted in for the $115 pre-order of the Jet Black Pebble, which offered the discount of $35 off the full MSRP of $150 and the promise that it would supposedly be shipped several months later.

Eleven months later, as I was packing for SXSW Interactive in early March, my Pebble arrived, just in time for me to geek out in Austin. Now that I’ve had a month under my belt with this new technology, I figured it was time to share my thoughts on what could be a game changer for the appcessory market.

Overall, it’s really concept over form and function for this early entrant into the space. Pebble is certainly a very early stage product, but it is an excellent starting point for what promises to be the next big thing in wireless devices.

Pebble makes it easy to imagine the future of the category and products that more established electronics manufacturers will likely create - color touchscreens, audio in/out for taking calls or voice-activated commands, broader notification capabilities, location-based apps, and tons of other cool features and utilities that take advantage of the magnetometer, accelerometer, and other sensors inside the device.

Surprisingly, the most valuable utility of the Pebble for me is the notification of calls and SMS/texts. I have an iPhone 5 and choose to leave it on vibrate, which I rarely feel and results in about a 5-10% success rate for answering calls. When paired with Pebble, however, I’m at 100%. It provides a powerful vibration on a sensitive part of your wrist and thus creates an immediate and effective alert of inbound calls or messages. Other cool features include the ability to change watchfaces with the click of a button, controlling music, and the fact that it’s water resistant. Even with all that, the Pebble is not the must-have device it was hyped as and will only live up to it’s potential when app developers step in and make some apps that matter.

In summary, I’m a big fan of Pebble and can’t wait to see what the future holds for the category.

Written by Evan Kraut, Executive Director, Brand Development

MRY Gets Glass

Tue, 02 Apr 2013 14:58:00 -0400

It’s official – MRY is entering the Google Glass game! Three members of our team – Senior Strategist David Trahan, UX Designer Lana Voynova, and Atlanta’s Lead UX Designer Thomas Strickland – have all been invited by Project Glass to be among the first consumers to get their hands on the coveted headsets. Our overwhelming senses of jealousy aside, we could not be more excited for our Glass Explorers to get their augmented reality on.

We sat down with David, Lana, and Thomas to get their initial thoughts on their Project Glass and their plans for testing out this new technology. First up, their invitation-winning tweets…

David Trahan, Senior Strategist

Lana Voynova, UX Designer

Thomas Strickland, Lead UX Designer, Atlanta

-In more than those 140 characters, describe your real mission statement in using the product

David: My main mission is to more easily capture video of my everyday life. I love home movies, but they aren’t something that I make much because holding my phone camera is annoying. Now I can record things like bike rides, Christmas mornings, and clouds outside my airplane window easily.

Lana: To me, it’s about augmented reality and being able to see the intangible world that surrounds us. Glass is technology that gets out of our way, so that instead of looking down at phones and tablets we are looking ahead. The idea of using it for the invisible human emotional experience was inspired by my graduate thesis, which showed a real lack of understanding for people and treatments of mood disorders and emotional communication. What if we could see the things others feel to be able to engage and react to them properly and quickly? There is data out there on it, but it lives in documents and infographics instead of being seen in reality. I think there is a real need for empathy in design, and using technology that allows you to actually see and understand how someone feels could have great implications in wellness. This can be as big as understanding mood disorders to understanding our users and their wants and needs.

Thomas: When I’m not doing UX work, I run a theatre company in North Atlanta. Since January 2006, we’ve been performing the works of Shakespeare on the lawn of a historic home in Roswell. Most of these plays have been directed by me. Part of my directing process involves using my DSLR to frame scenes. It is too easy to get caught up in the small moving parts of a scene, so I use my camera to step back and capture what our audience will see come opening night. This allows me to have an immediate grasp on stage composition, while also giving me a photographic archive of the work done during a particular rehearsal. The only problem is that the camera can serve as a physical barrier between me and my actors, and try as they might, even the most focused actor cannot help but notice when I take a shot. So perhaps Google Glass will allow me to capture those same views with much less intrusion.

-What’s the first thing you’ll do once you have Glass?

D: I call my Mom almost every day on the way to or home from work. I want to record those daily walks, so that she can see what I see while I talk to her.

L: Learn how it works! I got to play with it at Google’s Creative Sandbox event and it was a great new experience, but the voice commands and head movements were a bit jarring. Then, I would make sure it tracks everything I find useful and review the data later. Once on my face, using it to get around would be great, too, as I tend to get lost a lot.

T: Knowing me, I’ll likely go find a mirror and make some kind of a ridiculous, check-it-out, isn’t-this-cool vlog post and tweet about it. (#humblebrag)

-How do you think Google Glass can be used to make brands remarkable?

D: Because of the hands-free nature of Google Glass, I think brands have an opportunity for content creation that gives their audiences a first-hand experience of the brand and/or the products. The brand itself can use the technology to create better video content through sponsorships, events, and promotions.

L: User testing! How amazing would it be to see our potential clients and users’ interactions with websites, apps and prototypes so that we could learn more about what they are interested in and looking at? On top of that, empathy and user wants and needs are a huge part of design. What could be better than understanding our users and seeing their loves, frustrations, stresses, etc? The implications are endless, especially when it comes to healthcare and wellness. Oh, and maybe I would go skydiving…again!

T: It is another platform, isn’t it? With every year, we step into a future once only imagined. While this might not bring the personally-focused billboards of a Minority Report, I can see surely how location-aware promotions will become somewhat of a norm. The challenge will be finding the happy medium between convenient immediacy and horrible intrusion.

-Will you be a loud and proud “glasshole”, or are you a little nervous about rocking the Cyborg look?

D: I don’t see any reason to have them on all the time. I won’t be wearing them at dinner with my friends or riding the subway. I’m sure I’ll make a good amount of people uncomfortable, but in instances where I’m filming friends and family moments I actually think it will make people more comfortable than if I was holding a phone camera up.

L: I am very picky with having wires behind my ears, so I found them a bit uncomfortable. But seeing how far they came from the original designs (the Sandbox event presented prototypes and explanations of the design journey) is very impressive. It’s clear, though, that the Glass we have today will further evolve.

T: Life is a little too short to worry about being embarrassed, much less to be ashamed of something so future-forward. A few years back, a dear friend of mine was conducting a study in wearable computing, trying to determine what gestures are typical for a user’s given day. I participated by wearing a cap with a downward pointing camera in the brim attached to a tiny netbook in a sling bag. If I can deal with something recording my hands all day, I don’t think Google Glass will be a problem.

From Pinning to Winning: The Business Case for Pinterest Just Got Better

Wed, 13 Mar 2013 10:23:00 -0400

Digital marketers have long lobbied for the implementation of active Pinterest accounts for clients, but the case for Brands A through Z maintaining pinboards got a little stronger with the introduction of Pinterest Web Analytics.

No longer running the risk of grievous injury with wild pins in the dark, businesses using Pinterest as a promotional tool will now have the benefit of seeing data from their websites as collected by the social platform.

According to the official announcement by the Big P, such data will include pins from a company website, repins, and the number of pinners and repinners. This will feed directly into the total number of impressions and reach of the pins, plus clicks and visitors to pins from a business site.

You can check out a walk-through of the new analytics tool here: http://vimeo.com/61580880

The pinboard magnates say this will go a long way toward helping marketers analyze what content pinners like and share, plus what gets them to a company website. It will also document what content naturally falls around a company’s offerings, giving them better insights into how to position assets. What it means for third-party developers and a long-rumored API – well, that still stands to be determined, but this introduction of the analytics tool is certainly another step in a more business-friendly and revenue-centric direction for the social network.

In order to gain access to Pinterest Analytics, users will need to supply an official, verified website to associate with their account. Website verification by Pinterest launched last fall, though salivating marketers and data-hounds will need to keep curiosities somewhat at bay, as the system only supports top-level domains for the time being.

One fringe benefit for early adopters of Pinterest Analytics is early access to Pinterest’s new look…not that the promise of new, rich data from the site won’t be tempting enough.

Jason Morton works for MRY’s search department in New York City. He has been a digital marketing professional for over three years, but dabbles in design, music and monkeyshines.

Have you seen the #hotness that is the new MRY.com yet?...

Fri, 08 Mar 2013 09:54:00 -0500

Have you seen the #hotness that is the new MRY.com yet? #TheNewMRY #remarkable

Facebook News Feed Update - MRY Quick Take

Thu, 07 Mar 2013 17:01:00 -0500

Today Facebook announced the latest update to the News Feed, after its introduction 7 years ago, including the EdgeRank algorithm in 2010. The News Feed is Facebook’s most important feature, the hub where over 97% of its content is consumed on a daily basis. It’s also the stream that allows Facebook to target its users with ads.

The latest change to News Feed is designed to showcase the growing shift to visual consumption within the Facebook landscape but also a unified look and feel across platforms and devices from mobile apps to the mobile web and of course the desktop. But what does all this mean for users and brands? Let’s find out.

Feeds

Facebook will give users more control over the content they see on the News Feed through new feed subscriptions. The new feeds will allow users to see the content they want in a streamlined manner, unlike the current option, which is determined by Facebook using the EdgeRank algorithm based on user activity.

Some examples of the new feed options are:

Most Recent
All Friends
Photos
Music
Following
Games
Groups

For brand pages, status updates will still be filtered through the EdgeRank algorithm under the “Most Recent” feed but will also be included in the “Following” feed.

Content included in the “Following” feed, according to Facebook, will be shown in the exact order it happened. If that’s the case, then brands may see an increase in the Reach of status updates for users who subscribe to the “Following” feed.

Visual

With web content consumption shifting to the visually appealing variety, Facebook is determined to be the leader in the category by highlighting bigger and better images along with video on the News Feed. It’s a shift Facebook embarked on last year, with the introduction of Facebook Timeline. But the latest change removes clutter from the page and brings the focus to every piece of visual content. This means users will be greeted with the latest pictures from friends and family in their full high-resolution glory.

For brand pages, visually appealing content will be at the heart of content development and distribution now more than ever. Brands that don’t utilize visually appealing content, may not get high reach or engagement, as users will be trained to look for amazing pictures and videos popping up in their News Feeds.

The latest visual elements to the News Feed will also allow Facebook to be flexible with advertising – new targeted opportunities within each new feed.

Consistency

Facebook’s News Feed will now be consistent across every available platform – mobile, mobile web and applications. This means users will have the same look and feel across every channel, blurring the lines between mobile and web consumption, especially since many of its users log in from a mobile device.

The latest News Feed will slowly rollout to users starting today. MRY will continue to provide updates on the latest changes and its impacts, so stay tuned!

-Written By Kashem Miah, Media Supervisor

@KashMiah

My Thoughts on 10 Years at Mr Youth/MRY

Thu, 28 Feb 2013 10:36:00 -0500

10 years flies fast. When we founded Mr Youth Facebook and Twitter failed to exist, our social networks were on the streets and we would spread the word by giving them paper flyers. We saw a world on the verge of disruption and have been fortunate enough to thrive through it. From a youth marketing specialist, to a word of mouth boutique , to a social media specialist, and now a full-service digital and technology company; our evolution has only been outpaced by the market that has been our pursuit.

We have been fortunate to be touched by thousands of employees that have walked in and out of our doors who we still call family today. It is and always has been the people that have made this place special. When at its best at Mr Youth, there has been no better place in the industry. We’ve had boom times and bad times. Great clients and nightmare ones. We’ve survived being attacked by ferocious mommy bloggers and lived through technology gone wrong. Through it all we have managed to support and stick together through it all. That is where culture is bred.

Youth has always been the lifeblood of our agency. Over 20,000 college students have represented our clients through the years on their campuses. Many tell us their work with us changed their lives. The ability to harness the first outlet of entrepreneurial spirit in a young person is empowering and rejuvenating. We all strive to be young inside and our constant connection with the leaders of tomorrow have ensured we could remain leaders of today.

To all the big brand marketers who took chances on us in the early days and to those that have stuck with us to this very day, we thank you for the opportunity, support, and unwavering belief in disrupting the status quo. We all know this at times can be nearly impossible within complex organizations. Without our “internal champions” whom would fight past layers of paperwork to push through great work and new ideas our agency and others like us never would have made it.

In celebration of 10 years as an agency we are hosting a special celebration at SXSW, so if anyone is in town please do come by.

Here’s to celebrating an amazing journey in the rearview mirror and an amazing future ahead of us.

With the deepest gratitude,

Matt Britton

Founder & CEO