MIT may be inventing future technology, but it’s up to us to decide how we use it

Once again I’m indebted to the print edition of Wired UK for news of a couple of things which will be a real boon to people in the world of marketing.
The November issue (sorry, no link as its content isn’t online to avoid cannibalizing sales of the print edition) is entirely devoted to the work of the MIT Media Lab, which the cover headline rather grandly describes as “inventing the future”. Hyperbole aside, it’s come up with some cool stuff over the years — from e-ink (think Kindle) and Lego Mindstorms to the XO Laptop.
Among the latest things its team of world-leading researchers have developed are two pieces of technology of particular interest to marketers.
The first, Video Response codes, are basically like the QR codes we’ve seen in print for a number of years, but are instead embedded invisibly in video displayed on screens.
The idea is that you use your smartphone to take a photo of the screen and the software grabs the VR code, decodes it and links you to text, images, coupons, whatever, to be downloaded to your phone. Presumably, as the codes are imperceptible to anyone watching the screen, the video will have to have some kind of ‘snap this for cool stuff’ message included so you know there’s a VR code there to be captured.
Straight off the top of my head I can imagine this being used to create interactive cinema and TV adverts (QR codes have already been tried on TV, but there’s been a mixed reaction to them from consumers for various reasons). Or embedded in YouTube videos to link to other Web-based content.
As with so many technologies, their use is limited only by your imagination.
The second technology is Affdex. Originally developed in the Media Lab, it’s been spun off into its own company, Affectiva.
Put simply, the software tells you what the emotional state is of the person your camera is looking at by measuring key parameters on their face.
The original algorithm was built on autism research to help sufferers read the emotions of other people, It was first used to create “Mindreader” spectacles which told the wearer, via a tiny LCD screen, whether the person in front of them was happy, sad or whatever.
Rosalind Picard and her team took it further by training it recognize the emotions of more people from around the world by showing it videos. The goal — so a computer could recognize their emotional states.
It’s now so successful that marketing research giant Millward Brown has partnered with Affectiva to use it to get accurate real-time feedback from consumers and research subjects on TV adverts. The result is more accurate data where subjects may feel socially constrained from saying how they feel — not everyone’s comfortable telling someone their ad sucks.
But, as with almost any technology, the other possible uses are huge. Imagine having it for when you Skype a key journalist about whether they’re going to use a story you’ve pitched (think lie detector!) or are following up a business pitch with a potential customer (are they really as interested as they say?)
Unsurprisingly, pollsters are already excited about Affdex’s potential for more accurately judging voters’ reactions to candidates’ TV ads and debates. And the US National Security Agency has already expressed interest in using it for obvious reasons, although Affectiva aren’t keen to licence it for military use.
As much as we may legitimately want to know what others really feel in certain work circumstances, we also sometimes want to keep our own emotions private.
The article quotes other possible uses including allowing Facebook or YouTube to read your emotion (via your laptop webcam) as you watch a video (e.g. of a friend’s baby) and post your reaction online automatically. But what if you’re secretly jealous of your friend’s joyful event but don’t want to upset her? What if you don’t really think your friend’s new outfit is lovely?
Do you really want Facebook and YouTube, or your government if you live in a repressive country, to know how you truly feel about certain articles or videos online?
Clearly this technology has great potential for ethical uses, but given its claimed ability to get behind social barriers in the communication of feelings it has to be used within a strict set of opt-in guidelines and licenced carefully.
MIT may be inventing technologies of the future, but it’s up to us to decide how they’re used.

Fake fans and likes are no fake risk to Facebook's reputation

The BBC’s expose that up to 6% (that’s 54 million) Facebook profiles may be fakes created by fraudsters using software to generate fake likes for ads and brand pages could represent a significant risk both to Facebook and its customers — advertisers, marketers and PR firms —.if both it and them don’t take appropriate action.
Facebook’s reaction seems, a little complacent, although their point about building in proper targetting is well made.

The question for marketers and PRs is how to play this with clients. If you play it down as a small proportion of users outweighed by a vast majority of genuine fans and likes, what do you say if the problem grows, as spam has done – to represent more significant numbers and in the geographic areas and demographic groups you’re targetting?

How can you recommend a Facebook campaign if the credibility of it as a channel through which to interact with target customers is under question? Would they be happy that up to 6% of their money spent on Facebook would be wasted on fake fans and likes? Those with a glass-half-full mindset may be happy to carry on given that, as per Lord Lever’s adage, you rarely know which bit of your marketing spend is wasted and which working (although these days monitoring as a lot better than it was then, if you can pay for the right tools). But what about the others who aren’t happy that some of their budget will be wasted on fake likes?

Perhaps, at least for now, the line with clients will just to be accentuate the positive — concentrate on the 94% of fans who will be real and to whom your carefully-wrought messages will reach and hopefully have the desired effect.

But for that line, and your advice, to continue to have any credibility, Facebook has to be seen to tackling this problem seriously and soon. If it doesn’t, it won’t just be its reputation which takes a hit — it’ll also be those of marketers and PRs recommending it unreservedly for marketing to undifferentiated groups to their clients.

Some clients might see such recommendations as evidence of you being just another firm recommending expensive campaigns which benefit you financially regardless of how effective they may actually be for them. And that would only lead to more client churn, less stability in revenues and profits and more time acquiring new clients rather than organic growth by building long-term relationships (and hopefully campaign spend) with those who can totally trust your recommendations.

The question for you, then, is are you doing transactional or relationship marketing? The answer will partly depend on how much you see client churn as inevitable, not matter what you do. Sure, some clients will never be happy and will always go off in search of their perfect agency which they’ll never find. But for the rest, surely retaining as many as you can, particularly in these tough times, makes sense. Ok, some may not be that profitable now, but once a recovery comes, as it surely must, that situation should change as marketing budgets increase. And that’s when your reputation as a source of trusted advice will help you compete against your many rivals and maximize your revenues and profits.

As ever, your reputation will be a key source of competitive advantage if you look after it properly. So absolute transparency with clients over what Facebook can and can’t do for them and what it takes to use it effectively will be essential, for both them and you.

It may prove to be a coincidence that the story surfaced on Friday the 13^th, but for Facebook that may prove to be an unhappy omen unless they can take sufficient action soon to shore up their service’s credibility with the marketing, PR and advertising communities and stop the damage extending to those who recommend using it.

Combined print and web stats provide an interesting picture

http://www.guardian.co.uk/media/greenslade/2011/may/09/digital-media-abcs
Will Sturgeon’s work has, as Roy says, provided an interesting picture of how some of the national titles compare in their print and web channels.
But, as some of the commenters have pointed out, there are some methodological anomalies.
This would count more than once a print reader who’s also a web reader (as many News International titles subscribers are) or Facebook fan.
It also undercounts the print contribution because all titles have more readers than sales — through sharing of papers. So using the titles’ NRS readership would have been a better comparison with web users and Facebook fans and given some idea of total reach. That’s best measured by randomized qualitative and quantitative research.
This also looks at all web users and fans, but if you’re a UK advertiser selling products mainly in the UK you want to know how many of the Web readers are here, not, as with many of the Guardian and Daily Mail’s, abroad. Unless you have some way of monetizing them too, you need that breakdown.
The Facebook stats are of particular interest as they show a relationship commitment beyond casual sales, may hint at values and, combined with Facebook profile data, allow each title’s fans to be counted on the basis of demographic tools such as MOSAIC profiles, enabling better targeting of messages.
If they aren’t doing already, expect the media packs of the titles to include all this kid of thing in the future.