by John Cataldi | Sep 22, 2010 | Brand Strategy, Internet Marketing, Media Convergence, Politics, Technology Innovations, The Real Mad Men
Will Paying for Voter Action Rather than Gross Media Spending Be the New Measuring Stick for Political Campaigns?
With less than 20 days left until the gubernatorial election, tens of millions of political campaign dollars will be spent in last minute media purchases. The hope is to sway voter favor to the political candidate of choice by flooding the market with the most media. Ironically, over 65-80% of political spending is ineffective and will not reach most voters or drive polling results, as a consensus among top brand managers. Political campaigns are now embracing pay per voter action also referred to as pay per performance marketing as an effective means to reach and engage registered voters, prior to their campaign dollars running out. According to McKinsey Research, “Multi-channel marketing can increase effective consumer reach by 200-400%”.
Given the growing trend in tracking voter actions in relation to a campaign’s media spend, Adreka announced today the launch of their Pay for Voter Action Platform. “This is the first pay for performance media platform designed for the political space,” says project manager Alicia Armstrong. Adreka measures voter engagement by tracking voter actions directly related to a campaign’s traditional and social media interactions which include phone calls of donors and volunteers. Moreover, Adreka’s platform also engages online influencers (those having a large online following), from Facebook, Twitter, You Tube, and localized political blogs. The goal is to create voter action that is predictable and measurable in our clients favor, says John Cataldi, Media ROI Evangelist for Adreka Advertising.
Adreka’s, Pay Per Action Political Platform works by 1) understanding what is really important to the majority of the voting populous through social analytics; 2) creating and syndicating relevant media across TV, Radio, Internet, Social Media, and Mobile Media; and 3) measuring what media channels are effectively affecting voter options. The end result is a political media campaign that only allocates media spending on the media that sways polls into the candidate’s favor. As an added benefit, many voters responding to Adreka’s political adverts can be legally tracked and marketed to via their mobile device and social media network. Depending on the campaign, costs can run from $10-$250 per voter action. “I have seen Adreka in action; this type of political and media convergence is a game changer for any election”, says leading political consultant, Gabe Winslow.
Not understanding how the media conversions can be directly correlated to voter response is prevalent even in campaign watchdog groups. Ross Johnson, Chairman of the Fair Political Practices Commission of California stated, “More campaign spending means greater influence. To believe otherwise, is to presume that candidates for public office live in a cave”. According to Cataldi, “If political campaigns were compared to corporations with similar media spends; the end result would be the destruction of most top brands. Ross Johnson is correct in that more spend equates to more media, but an effective spend can outperform an opposing campaign by a factor of 10x. I believe that the future of not only political, but all media spending will be measured on performance and end result, anything less is a waste of dollars and time.”
About Adreka, Inc.
Adreka provides the leading media monitoring and engagement platform for marketing, communications and customer support professionals. The company's new digital listing technologies allows the monitoring of all forms of social media, mobile, and traditional media, with a heavy emphasis on analytics, predictability, and media effectiveness. Visit www.Adreka.com, call 678-804-7144, or email sales@adreka.com for more information.
About John Cataldi
An avid technophile, serial entrepreneur, and media spokesperson, John Cataldi is the CEO of Adreka, an open media exchange to allow agencies and advertisers to target, create, syndicate, and track their traditional and interactive advertising. Visit www.JohnCataldi.com for more information.
by John Cataldi | Sep 17, 2010 | Media Funding, Mobile Technologies, Rainmaking / Deal Making, Social Media, Social Mobilization, Technology Innovations
Post mortem of “dot com bomb”, I raised almost $1,000,000 using Social Media With a staff of 2, we spent our days and nights on bulletin boards, dating sites, directories, and even ICQ (old school chat). The end result, we received investment dollars as close as Atlanta and as far away as the Netherlands. It was an experience that I will never forget, and will hopefully attempt to repeat, just not in my living room, and at a larger dollar amount.
Being a little older now, and a veteran within the social space, with over 16 years of internet media, with 6 of those years engaged in social media, I have a new vision, revenues, and an operating organization that I plan to take to the next level. Moreover, the archaic nature of yesteryear’s socialscape has greatly changed, as have the proliferation of more affluent users and ways to communicate. With that said I just completed my private placement (legal documentation to raise capital), filed my corporate taxes, and I am about to charge to the world of angel capital.
The project will perfect the art of automated social listening, consumer individualistic engagement, and social mobilization, on an unprecedented scale.
The practical applications such a technology are endless from putting butts in seats at a baseball game, generating political activism, real time polling, and even fund raising.
Considering that my corporate strategy involves the identification, create engagement, and socially mobilize consumers, targeting angel investors should be easy.. or at least I will keep telling myself that until I believe it to be true… LOL.
I will add a social funding widget to my blog, so you and I can keep track of my progress over the next 90 days. So raising a few million dollars in angel capital, doubling last years revenues, and doing it on a shoe string budget… yea, it sounds like an idea that could only come together on a Friday as I stare into the devilish eyes of Q4.
Happy Friday, John
by John Cataldi | Sep 16, 2010 | Marketing Mishaps, PR Crisis, Social Media, Software Industry
Could a Stock Buyback of 2.9 million shares be a factor in TuCow’s Slow Response?
TuCows (NYSE AMEX:TCX, TSX:TC) , out in the pasture?! With possibly 6M consumers affected my Malware spread through popular web portals, ground zero for the Malware attacks came from a known vulnerability in OpenX’s Ad server. Among the affected carriers, TuCows, Pirate Bay, ESarcasm And AfterDawn among the effected carriers. According to Web security vendor Dasient, an estimated 1.6M ads may have been served daily. According to Adreka social analytics, appearances of social reports, earmarking the malware attack may have started as early as the over the past 96 hours, and may have begun it’s proliferation as easily as midnight, 11th of September 2010.
CyberInsecure reported that the malicious code was being loaded from external domains registered to an address in Russia and was targeted the Microsoft Windows Help Center vulnerability patched earlier this year, the successful exploitation led to a variant of the Bredolab trojan being installed on the victim’s computer. This threat is known a distribution platform for rogue antivirus programs.
TuCows general manager, Andy Walker, confirmed for ParetoLogic that the incident was the result of hackers compromising the OpenX server used by the company to deliver ads. “We detected the intrusion, patched the vulnerability in OpenX and resolved the issue quickly,” the company representative noted. According to Adreka’s Social Monitoring, the OpenX vulnerability issue was known as early as May, 2010, as reported by dozens of active OpenX communities, programmers, and malware boards.
Moreover, less than 12 hours ago, my attempts to access the TuCow’s main site and affiliate pages resulted in AVG halting my systems infection. So exactly why was the largest software company in North America, out to pasture when their systems, webmasters, and millions of consumers were being affected by a massive malware attack?
Granted it a cow’s top speed, is 5.5 mph, so TuCow’s should get there in ½ the time? – LOL
As a question, NOT AS AN ACQUISITATION, could the deadline for TuCow’s slow response come in the wake of the company trying to push their existing investor base to sell 2.9 million shares back to the company in a Dutch auction, what expires on September 17th 2010? According to their own financial release, dated September 9th 2010, TuCow’s intends to commence a modified “Dutch auction” tender offer to repurchase up to 2,900,000 shares of common stock, representing approximately 5.1% of Tucows’ outstanding shares. The tender offer is expected to commence on Friday, September 17, 2010 and to expire, unless extended, at 5:00 P.M., New York City Time, on Tuesday, October 19, 2010. Tucows also announced that it has terminated its normal course issuer bid commenced in February 2010 pursuant to which Tucows has repurchased 3,409,300 shares of common stock.
As a past investment banker and now current media evangelist, you have to ask the question, unless their technology team was completely out to pasture, could long term financial gain been the catalyst for a Cow Speed Response, in relation for all other systems effected?
by John Cataldi | Sep 16, 2010 | Marketing Mishaps, PR Crisis, Software Industry, Viral Marketing
Digital Social Listening Detects a Global Attack of One of the Webs Largest Software Sites!
Reports began coming in September 14th that TuCow’s (AMEX: TCX) may have been affected via Ad Malware from blog sphere reports as detected by Adreka, Inc, using social digital listing tools. Tucows (originally an acronym for The Ultimate Collection of Winsock Software, a name which has long since been dropped) has been is one of the few companies that survived the destruction of the dot bombs, only to now fall victim to a new enemy, 3rd party malware, which their systems are, at this moment, currently distributing, possibly either undetected or not being discussed by their management given their publicly traded status. At this hour, the company has not made any statements, shutdown their Ad Servers, or hosting network.
Compounding the danger, TwoCows is perhaps best known for its popular website directory of shareware, freeware, and demo software packages available to download. A system of mirror sites is maintained to allow the traffic to the site to be distributed among several worldwide server locations. The 3rdparty Malware may have effected it’s an extensive reseller network, which services over ten million domain names, millions of mailboxes for a network of over 10,000 web hosts, ISPs (Internet Service Providers), and other resellers around the world. It can only be speculated that in the past 48 hours, TuCows, may have inadvertently infected millions of computers of Windows visitors to their software, email, and associated websites though a vendibility exploited via a 3rd party advert being served across TuCow’s entire network. The exploit will download and run a malicious file, a variant of the Bredolab Trojan. Upon execution it will unpack its code and try to connect to various remote addresses through the HTTP protocol for downloading and executing other Trojans, which results in a pop up frenzy of advertisements then usually fake antivirus or antispyware scanners (like PC Antispyware 2010). This potentially leads to a second problem of potential credit card fraud.
This is not the first time we see a high-traffic website being used to distribute malware. The bad guys always go for Achilles’ heel, and what looks like an innocuous advert can trigger a wave of nasties. This is why for networks big and small, third-party advertisements must be verified carefully, otherwise this is the kind of things that can happen. Though the lack of response, admittance, or lack of actions on behalf of TuCow’s is very unsettling. As of this evening TuCow’s systems still remain affected with the Malware spreading, and TuCow’s traffic base is exponentially decreasing as virus scanners and web browsers begins to alert web traffic of the potential danager. As a publicly traded company, news travels from the social sphere, to consumers, to Wall Street fast than most think.
by John Cataldi | Sep 16, 2010 | Marketing Mishaps, Mobile Technologies, Social Mobilization, The Real Mad Men
Damn You Twitter SMS for Getting My Hopes Up!
I was experimenting with twitter’s tweet to mobile platform, and what started out as a great user experience, quickly turned into a reenactment of Laurel and Hardy famous 1927, Who’s on First. Like ICQ, Apple, Friendster, YouTube, and even Google, started with a simple user experience and heavy beta testing prior to releasing their “non-beta” version of their products.
In a world so socially connected, incredibly impatient, and highly competitive, there is rarely a second change for those that perform poorly of a better alternative. Luckily for twitter, very few companies are in the position to compete well, with the exception of the notables in the social space, Facebook, Google Buzz, etc.
So, this was my great Tweet to Short Message Service (SMS) experience…..
Me (John Cataldi): I texted “JohnCataldi to 40404”
Twitter: Johncataldi Welcome to Twitter! Reply with SIGNUP to begin. Already on Twitter? Reply with your USERNAME. (Std msg rates apply. Reply with HELP for more)
Me: SignUp
Twitter: Great! You just need a username. This is how you’ll be known on Twitter. Reply w/ the username you want to use. (max 15 characters, no spaces, like Tweetie113)
Me: Johncataldi
Twitter: Johncataldi is taken ( Is it yours? Reply w/ ITS MINE How about Johncataldi1? Reply w/ YES if that works, or a different username you want to use.
Me: It’s mine
(This is where my personal Twitter/ SMS train wreck was about to begin…. my Iphone, Iscrewed the text by auto correcting the spelling, and added the ‘s to “it’s”, instead if “Its”)
Twitter: It’s mine is taken ( Is it yours? Reply w/ ITS MINE How about Mine327? Reply w/ YES if that works, or a different username you want to use.
Twitter: Hi, @Mine. Reply w/ your password to register this phone to your Twitter account. (Password is case sensitive! Phone may capitalize the 1st letter)
Me: Ahhhhhhhh no
Twitter: Oops! That password is not correct, try again. Reply w/ your password. Forgot your password? Go to twitter.com to recover it.
Me: No not mine… JohnCataldi
Twitter: Oops! That password is not correct, try again. Reply w/ your password. Forgot your password? Go to twitter.com to recover it.
Me: JohnCataldi
Twitter: Oops! That password is not correct, try again. Reply w/ your password. Forgot your password? Go to twitter.com to recover it.
Me: JohnCataldi
Me: JohnCataldi
Twitter: (And then the Twitter Whale Grew Silent, never to txt me again)
In a perfect world the application would have worked flawlessly! However in my world, I am guilty of texting while driving, during on a conference, with sticky thumbs from my latte, in the midst of changing lanes, and pondering if I can reach my notebook in the back seat. So I am sure, a tiny bit of the error may have been with me….. BUT, “The Twitter”… LOL, should have given me a reset button… a newbie mobile mistake… which bring me to John’s 10 rules of mobile development.
John’s 10 Rules for Mobile Marketing and Application Development
1) Most phone platforms have specific testing tools included in the (System Developer’s Kits), which makes it easy to install, run, and TEST your applications.
2) Always test your application on top carriers and mobile platforms. Does that mean you have to go out and by a crap ton of phones on multiple carriers, No! You can use mobile emulators to get you 99% of the way there, though I would highly suggest heavy beta testing using the android, iphone, and blackberry devices. The auto text correcting MAY cause a large % or your users to curse your name, but this would have been missed by an emulator.
3) AVOID ANY SYSTEM RESPONSES THAT IS MORE THAN ONE WORD <<<OR>>> THAT TRIGGERS MY FREAKEN AUTO-SPELLER TO ADD IN AN APOSTROPHE!
4) Never go over 160 characters, at least not in 2010. First, if you have more to say, use the phone…. Hmmm, I don’t know…AS A PHONE! Secondly, some phones can do extended text but this is achieved by stringing 3 normal messages together giving you a total of 480 charcters, what you may not know is that the recipients carrier (your customer) and your mobile gateway (your mobile service provider) will charge both of you as if they were 3 messages, which is good for AT&T, bad for anyone not on a unlimited texting plan. Moreover, If you push your client over their mobile limit, your customer could be charges $0.20 per text message, which may not seem like much… but it adds up quick.
5) Everyone needs a “GET OUT OF APPLICATION HELL CARD”, so as part of the system auto-response, I would have said…
Twitter: Oops! That password not correct, try again. Reply w/your password. Forgot your password? Go to twitter.com to recover it. Reply w/RESTART to restart the session”
As exampled above, we are still at the standard SMS is 160 characters, and it gives your consumer the coveted out.
6) Don’t do MMS (multimedia messages), as a mass marketing tool, at least not yet. Yes, MMS is cute, and I love getting them… ok, not really, but I love sending them by the tens of thousands, so no MMS’s please, but unlike SMS, there is no standard for MMS cross carrier, which means that a majority of your MMS messages may not be delivered, cut off, distorted, or sent to the user as a downloadable link. This means if they do not have a smart phone, with web browsing capabilities, they may have to wait until they get home to download via the carrier’s website. But if you’re set on MMSing the masses, do it by carrier, and in this case, purchase a phone from each carrier for testing.
7) Always make it EASY to opt-out of the database. PLEASE PAY ATTENTION KGB.com, once I opt-out of your database your dead to me, there is no reason to be a clingy, creepy, text stalking, ex-girl friend.
8 ) NEVER, EVER SELL YOUR DATABASE! I don’t care what your terms of conditions say, your consumer will always agree with them, because they NEVER read them. Anyway with that said, the mobile phone is sacred, if you upset your consumer and they find out it’s you, it does not take a rocket scientist to know regardless if your legally right, you’re going to kill your brand name and most likely your revenues from your consumer base virally spreading your bad reputation via their mobile device. Moreover, it’s going to harm those that do mobile marketing illegitimately.
9) Have at least 5 people read your test message before you send it out. Depending on age, gender, and a few other factors, your message could get a giggle at your expense.
“OMG, M8 u 1, a drwing 2mro 4, 4 tix 2 Ldy Gaga, b 10th 2 call…..”
Did someone go to the wiki SMS short code directory and attempt to text SMSease? The scary thing is that this message was actually sent to over 3,500 listeners!
10) Lastly, less is more. There is no need to text your customer base 3x a day, not only will they get upset, but your message loses its effectiveness and sincerity.
There are many other things that can be done to grow your mobile database exponentially, but we’ll leave that for another day. If you liked the article, please feel free to comment, use, and share the knowledge.
All the best, John
Recent Comments