_Jay Aber, is President of “24/7 Canada Inc.”:http://www.247canada.com and one of the industries most influential leaders. He is a member of the Board of Directors and the Internet Best Practices Task Force, and Chairs the Emarketing Council for the “Canadian Marketing Association”:http://www.the-cma.org. He is also on the Board of the “Interactive Advertising Bureau of Canada”:http://www.iabcanada.com. He is the founder and past president of “AIMS”:http://www.aimscanada.com/ (Association of Internet Marketing & Sales), Canada’s largest association of Internet sales professionals and marketers. He is also a regular columnist with “Canadian Direct Marketing News”:http://www.dmn.ca/ ._
_As division president, Jay has built 24/7 Canada into the leading permission-based email list manager/broker and Internet advertising sales company in Canada._
*One Degree: Congratulations on the launch of 24/7 Search in Canada. How has the market responded so far?*
The market has been very positive. Many of our clients are first timers, or are in traditional marketing vs. IT, so the fact that we are solid marketers introducing them to search marketing means that there is already a connection or comfort level established. Our clients so far run the gamut from universities looking to attract applications from a wider population and encouraging people to apply on line, to tour companies trying to fill charter flights to the UK, to professional sports teams looking to sell incremental tickets. All have found paid search to be a great way too boost their acquisition campaigns. And with our proprietary Decide DNA technology, we are able to automatically optimize bids, rank and creative to achieve ROI targets across multiple search engines. We’re also helping Canadians take advantage of the Yahoo! Search Paid Inclusion opportunity — another pay per clickthrough search channel that ensures hard to index Web pages and content are listed in the Yahoo! Search (ex-Overture) engine.
*One Degree: Some people (and by that I mean me) have questioned the value of e-mail as an acquisition tool. How do you answer concerns about poor ROI and possible brand damage from ill-conceived e-mail acquisition campaigns?*
Category: Five Questions
_Mark Kingdon has served as “Organic Inc.’s”:http://www.organic.com/ CEO since January 2001. In addition to spearheading the company’s remarkable turnaround and repositioning, he also leads business development and client strategy for significant accounts. Founded in 1993, Organic creates “exceptional online experiences” for Fortune 1000 clients by delivering comprehensive web development and interactive marketing programs that drive more profitable customer relationships. Organic has offices in Detroit, Los Angeles, New York, San Francisco, and Toronto._
*Organic prides itself on having a very user-centric design approach. Does starting with the user and working out make sense to large corporations or do you still need to sell this concept?*
It’s extraordinarily important for brands to adopt a user-centered design approach, especially for large corporations, because many stakeholders and agencies are responsible for representing their brand to consumers. Successful user-centered design always starts with a keen understanding of the user, often represented as a persona, or a fictitious person that represents the target market – their habits, media consumption patterns, preferences, pet peeves, and influencers. Three-dimensional personas give all marketers, working toward building awareness around a particular brand, a common framework – a language – that helps to create a cohesive brand identity, regardless of channel. The key is to make sure that your personas are based in real research and that they are actually used.
*Janice Fraser of Adaptive Path’s article “A Whole New Internet”:http://www.adaptivepath.com/publications/essays/archives/000430.php has drawn both praise and criticism for its assertion that things are getting very interesting online right now and we’re about to see a real change in the way things are done online. Do you agree with Janice that we’re at the cusp of “a whole new Internet”?*
“John Battelle”:http://www.battellemedia.com/ is a noted “author”:http://www.battellemedia.com/archives/001194.php, “event organizer”:http://www.web2con.com/, “columnist”:http://www.battellemedia.com/archives/cat_columns.php, and “entrepreneur”:http://www.fmpub.net. In his spare time he acts as “Ruben Kincaid”:http://www.boingboing.net/2004/12/22/battelle_looks_back_.html to the “Partridge Family of the Internet”:http://www.boingboing.net/ (“Xeni”:http://xeni.net/ even says they’ve got the web equivalent of “bubblegum cards”:http://www.boingboing.net/2005/07/11/john_battelle_interv.html).
Interestingly, John’s brevity leaves us with a 305 word interview that is 57% questions and 43% answers – a ratio only slightly better than if I’d asked “boxers or briefs” and he’d answered “briefs”.
*One Degree: Your “endemic advertising post”:http://battellemedia.com/archives/000678.php was a big part of the inspiration for One Degree. Can you explain a bit more about what you mean by endemic advertising and why you think it is a natural match for blogs?*
Publications are conversations between three parties – authors, audience, and advertiser. I believe that advertising works best when the advertiser is also a conversant – someone who naturally belongs in the conversation. My term for that kind of an advertiser is “endemic.” You see a lot of them on boingboing.net, for example.
*One Degree: I’ve been assuming that your new venture FM Publishing would be modelled around endemic advertising. Is this the case?*