National Honesty Day feels like a great opportunity to talk about strategy.

There is a perception that advertising can be icky. That, as marketers and advertisers, we try to convince people to buy things they don’t need. Unfortunately, perceptions come from somewhere and thus there is some icky truth to this. In some cases, it can certainly feel like some advertising is trying to sell things people don’t necessarily need. It is honesty day. Of any day, today I can honestly look at our industry. Read More

Here’s something you don’t see everyday – jumping FROM web TO print.

Today via snail mail I received a preview issue of AllRecipes Magazine.  I did a double take because it surprised me to see a web brand go paper.
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Are your passwords secure enough to protect your personal information? This week Scott and Nathan discuss passwords and give some great suggestions on how to protect yourself.

If you spent much time on Facebook last week you most likely saw a lot of pink and red as people around the country changed their profile photos in support for marriage equality.

It started with the Human Rights Campaign (HRC) in an effort to encourage supporters relative to the US Supreme Court meeting last week to begin the debate on the future of same-sex marriage in the US.

On Monday March 25th at about 1pm EST, the day before the Supreme Court’s deliberation of California’s same-sex marriage ban, the HRC posted a Facebook status urging followers to change their Facebook profiles to its official “equal sign” logo in pink and red color scheme as a show of support.

The ‘red equal sign’ photo quickly spread across the social networking sites, reaching more than 9 million people and 77,000 shares directly from HRC’s Facebook page. Then, several celebrities and public figures picked up on the trend by switching their profile photos from actor George Takei and singer Lance Bass to Beyonce to Maryland governor Martin O’Malley and at least 13 United States Congress members.

By the morning of March 26th, the Facebook profile trend had been picked up by dozens of media outlets including TIME Magazine, ABC, CNN, Mashable, MSNBC, Forbes and more.

More celebrities and brands/companies jumped on board with derivations of the symbol.

Martha Stewart

Absolut Vodka

Bud Light

Lots and lots of creative versions were posted.

By Friday March 29, it was reported that nearly 3 million people had changed their profile photo on Facebook alone. It was so popular that researchers at Facebook crunched the numbers to figure out exactly how many people changed their profile photos for the event and more about them.

From that analysis you can see the bump in profile updates below. “Using a time series model, we can decompose the trend we’d like to examine from the seasonality in the data. We find that the increase in uploads does indeed start around the time when HRC began urging their Facebook followers to change their profile photos at 1 p.m. EST (dashed line).”

Who changed their profile photos?

Thirty-somethings showed the greatest increase in updating their profile photo (see below). “This suggests that on average, roughly 3.5% of 30-year-old Facebook users updated their profiles in response to the events surrounding the HRC campaign. We also found a small, but significant difference expression between genders. On average, 2.3% more self-reported female users updated their profile photo, compared to 2.1% more self-reported males.”

Where were the heaviest concentration of those that changed their profile photo?

The geographic divides are fairly apparent in this map: same-sex marriage gets more support in the Northeast and West, less in the South. The data also showed that, unsurprisingly, those living in college towns were the most likely to change their profile pictures.

A Washington Post-ABC News poll showed that “58 percent of Americans now believe it should be legal for gay and lesbian couples to get married; 36 percent say it should be illegal. Public attitudes toward gay marriage are a mirror image of what they were a decade ago: in 2003, 37 percent favored gay nuptials, and 55 percent opposed them.” The following chart illustrates results by political party.

This PBS story does a good job of telling the story of how Facebook went pink and red.

Watch Why Facebook Went Red and Pink Over Same-Sex Marriage on PBS. See more from PBS NewsHour.

Will all this silent support matter? Maybe, maybe not. Whether it impacts the decision of SCOTUS is yet to be seen (if you haven’t read the SCOTUS blog, it’s worth a look), but I certainly thought this article from Scientific American about the power of “norms” was pretty interesting.

In this episode, Scott and Nathan discuss the top five things to consider when selecting a content management system for your next project.

Scott Rowe, partner in charge of digital marketing, will be speaking to Alpha Kappa Psi students at Creighton University on Saturday, April 6, 2013, about the agency business and his experience in digital marketing. Alpha Kappa Psi focuses on providing ethical leadership and professional development. Through educational programs, community service and a hands-on application of formal education, Alpha Kappa Psi students use the business skills they are taught in the classroom to acquire life skills such as the art of compromise, consensus building, project management, interviewing and networking. Read More

We are all online, but there are some difference in what we do. I found this snapshot from eMarketer to be pretty interesting.

Millennials

Not surprising, millennials have the highest social networking penetration of any generation and they make up over one-half of all twitter users.

Gen X

Gen X makes up over 30% of all smartphone users and over 78% of all gen xer’s download or stream video at least once per month.

Boomers

For boomers, use of mobile internet and smartphones are lower ompared to other groups, nonetheless growing.

While the divorce rate has gone down since the 1980s, the U.S. marriage rate is at an all-time low —only 51% of adults were married in 2011, according to U.S. Census Bureau statistics.

Americans aren’t rushing to the altar anymore and the recent decline in the number of Americans getting married shows no signs of reversing.

Some delay marriage to finish their educations, launch their work lives and try to achieve economic security. Marriage is something they do after they have all their other ducks in a row.

Marriage increasingly is being replaced by other lifestyles, such as living alone or living with an unmarried partner and other adult living arrangements.

 Interesting stats from PewResearch Social & Demographic Trends

Scott Rowe, partner in charge of digital marketing, will be presenting to Knacktive students at Northwest Missouri State University on Monday, March 18, 2013, about how to pitch to a client. Knacktive is a student-run, full-service agency combining the departments of Communications, Mass Communication, Marketing/Management, Art and Computer Science/Information Systems. Read More

• Facebook Exchange (FBX) is Facebook’s real-time bidding exchange of selected ad inventory.
• FBX is currently the only opportunity in Facebook to offer retargeted ads or behaviorally targeted ads.
• Announced in February 2012, but not really used until summer.
• Currently, the clickthrough rate is about 40% lower than traditional web retargeting.
• Price per click for real-time bidding on the web is about 80% less than on Facebook.
• Only 12.8% of US marketers have used the opportunity, but more than 60% have bought some form of Facebook advertising.

The effectiveness of FBX is still under scrutiny. According to Facebook, the return is higher and Shutterfly feels their return is four times higher. As with all marketing efforts, success most likely lies within each campaign. If a desired audience is active in Facebook, that space can be important to leverage, with our without FBX.