I’m about to give you some news about the results of a Pew Research Center study released this week on American news consumption trends. So, if this is the first you’ve heard of thePew study, consider your source to be an online blog.

Pew’s major finding is that Americans are spending more time following the news than they have over much of the past decade, as a consequence of the fact that there are many more ways to get the news.

According to Pew, instead of replacing traditional news platforms (television, radio and print newspapers), Americans are increasingly integrating Internet and mobile digital technologies into their news consumption habits.

“The net impact of digital platforms supplementing traditional sources is that Americans are spending more time with the news than was the case a decade ago. As was the case in 2000, people now say they spend 57 minutes on average getting the news from TV, radio or newspapers on a given day. But today, they also spend an additional 13 minutes getting news online, increasing the total time spent with the news to 70 minutes. This is one of the highest totals on this measure since the mid-1990s,” Pew said.

First thing I should say is – thanks for spending some of your 70 minutes on this blog. Before I run out of time, here are some tidbits from way down at the bottom of the Pew release that your other sources of news (traditional or digital) might not include in their reporting:

• In 2008 67% of liberal Democrats said they enjoyed the news a lot, compared with just 45% today.
• While 26% of all Americans say they read a print newspaper yesterday, that figure falls to just 8% among adults younger than 30.
• Most Facebook and Twitter users say they hardly ever or never get news there.
• The public struggled with a four-question current events quiz — just 14% answered all four correctly. But about half (51%) of regular Wall Street Journal readers aced the quiz, as did 42% of regular New York Times readers.

Tim Sansbury is Vice President of Public Relations at JZMcBride and Associates.

Editor’s Note: The interesting stats Tim shares in this post should make marketers think about how they should be planning their next communications campaign. What are your thoughts?

I’m about to give you some news about the results of a Pew Research Center study released this week on American news consumption trends. So, if this is the first you’ve heard of thePew study, consider your source to be an online blog.

Pew’s major finding is that Americans are spending more time following the news than they have over much of the past decade, as a consequence of the fact that there are many more ways to get the news.

According to Pew, instead of replacing traditional news platforms (television, radio and print newspapers), Americans are increasingly integrating Internet and mobile digital technologies into their news consumption habits.

“The net impact of digital platforms supplementing traditional sources is that Americans are spending more time with the news than was the case a decade ago. As was the case in 2000, people now say they spend 57 minutes on average getting the news from TV, radio or newspapers on a given day. But today, they also spend an additional 13 minutes getting news online, increasing the total time spent with the news to 70 minutes. This is one of the highest totals on this measure since the mid-1990s,” Pew said.

First thing I should say is – thanks for spending some of your 70 minutes on this blog. Before I run out of time, here are some tidbits from way down at the bottom of the Pew release that your other sources of news (traditional or digital) might not include in their reporting:

• In 2008 67% of liberal Democrats said they enjoyed the news a lot, compared with just 45% today.
• While 26% of all Americans say they read a print newspaper yesterday, that figure falls to just 8% among adults younger than 30.
• Most Facebook and Twitter users say they hardly ever or never get news there.
• The public struggled with a four-question current events quiz — just 14% answered all four correctly. But about half (51%) of regular Wall Street Journal readers aced the quiz, as did 42% of regular New York Times readers.

Tim Sansbury is Vice President of Public Relations at JZMcBride and Associates.

Editor’s Note: The interesting stats Tim shares in this post should make marketers think about how they should be planning their next communications campaign. What are your thoughts?

Online retailers have a uniquely difficult challenge in building relationships and creating customer loyalty. Without a store-front to rely upon, most online retailers lead with product selection and price to attract first time buyers.

This leaves many to rely on ad words and keyword search as their only acquisition funnel. Generating repeat business, building trusted relationships, and retaining valuable customers? Those three goals can become esoteric concepts to the marketing department as they  continually focus resources on acquisition for fear of muffling the principal sales driver that works.

The first wave of internet business placed the hurdle for marketing very low. Building traffic and gathering eyeballs was all that mattered and it seemed that selling this portfolio of traffic was more the goal than creating a business model on fundamental business principles.

Web 2.0 is different. The online stores that are working operate like a traditional retailer in the sense that they have to provide product choice, quality, and good service as a minimum to succeed. The business models adopted are generally sound and the achilles heel for those single channel, pure online, retailers remains price. Price as in LOW price.

Hammer Nutrition is one pure online retailer that caught my eye. The company caters to a well defined passionate customer group, endurance athletes. But they are not allowed the privilege to compete in a vacuum as many of their supplement and fueling products (electrolyte drinks, energy bars, joint formulas) are sold by larger, heavily branded, and more widely marketed companies from GNC to Power Bar (owned by Nestle) and Clif Bar (distributed through major grocery chains, Costco, and specialty shops).

How does Hammer Nutrition compete? It stays true to the values of its founder, Brian Frank. Brian grew up in California in a progressively-minded household and caught the action sport bug early on, riding bikes, skateboards, swimming, and racing BMX and motocross bikes to the point where he won Montana State Motocross Championships in the late 90’s. Frustrated by the sparsity of quality, naturally formulated products to meet the needs of endurance athletes, he founded Hammer Nutrition during the 80’s.

His mantra from those days has survived the passage of time:  Deliver naturally formulated quality products and cement customers for life with product knowledge and trust.

A little guerrilla marketing was at the core of the Hammer strategy: provide “Race Bags” at events around the country as a cost effective way to meet the core audience for Hammer products at their moment of highest interest. If you’ve participated in any organized athletic event from a local 5K walk to an Ironman, one of the “bennies” received for your entry fee is the race day bag. The bag itself carries branding on the outside and is kind of like the athlete’s version of an Easter basket – lots of product samples and surprises inside. When I spoke with Brian a few months ago, he told me that the program now distributes over 750,000 bags across 2,200 events in North America. That’s some powerful grass roots marketing – Word of Mouth advertising at its best before the term was coined.

The impressive part of the marketing strategy at Hammer Nutrition is its constant flow of educational and product information materials, part of an overall communication stream designed to build engagement and increase customer retention. A first order will usually trigger sending of the “Little Red Book” (product descriptions and usage instructions) and a “Welcome to the Family” letter signed by Brian Frank or one of his guru partners Steve Born or Dr. William Misner.

Triggered by an array of qualifying metrics, new customers receive monthly product-focused brochures, quarterly Endurance News magazines with articles highlighting athletes of all types who have competed successfully using Hammer products, and reminder post cards with previous orders outlined to facilitate easy reorder. Invitation to join the Autoship program is packed with benefits and discounts and the Referral program has a dual benefit feature where both existing and new customer earn a discount.

An open call to any athlete to use Hammer products is made via the HammerBuck$ program which challenges customers to “Turn race day into Payday”. Over $36,000 in cash and credit was awarded to 36 winners during 2009. The program is simple, race in Hammer gear, place highly in your race, and win some cash or credits for future purchase. Talk about crowdsourcing, just think about motivating gobs of your best customers who fit your ideal profile to wear your logo on race day and give it their all to stand on the podium at the end of the day!

Granted that I may have lost some of you who hate to run, or for whom the idea of an open water swim, adventure race or ultra-marathon is greeted with a wry smile while muttering “they’re nuts!”

Look past the issue of endurance sports and you will see a sophisticated, if not home grown, communication stream that delivers on the company’s brand promise while driving business goals. There are lots of good lessons for any pure online retailer to take away from a visit to the Hammer Nutrition web site.

In case you’ve been going to sleep early these days and you’ve been missing all the buzz on both Facebook and Twitter about what’s going on in the late night TV world,  NBC “Promoted” Conan O’Brien to the big chair of late night, The Tonight Show.  But for some reason, they wanted to keep Jay Leno in the NBC fold and put him in a prime time 10 PM slot before the local news.  The reasoning for this is very simple.  Producing one show with one star is 100 times cheaper than producing five quality prime-time shows with multiple casts, crews, directors and teamsters for five 10 PM prime time slots.

After a very short run, a simple domino effect is in play.  Leno “failed” in the 10PM time slot which led to lower ratings for the local news and lower ratings for The Tonight Show. NBC Failed to provide good shows before the local news. And now, it seems that rather than accept responsibility, the NBC execs have thrown the blame on Conan.

Was this Conan’s fault?  Maybe a little.  He didn’t ask about the prime-time line up and his lawyers didn’t go through his contract with a fine tooth comb.  Conan has a pretty iron clad contract BUT they missed the detail of what time the new Tonight Show was supposed to start.

“I believe that delaying The Tonight Show into the next day to accommodate another comedy program will seriously damage what I consider to be the greatest franchise in the history of broadcasting. The Tonight Show at 12:05 simply isn’t the Tonight Show.”  - Conan O’Brien

“I left NBC prime-time the same way I found it: a complete disaster.” – Jay Leno

Considering what happened when Johnny Carson left the Tonight Show and the fallout between Letterman and Leno and now with the flip flop between Leno and Conan and back to Leno again, NBC is losing trust within the industry and Loyalty with its viewers.  And if NBC screws over Conan after what they did to Letterman the last go around, who’s going to want replace Leno AGAIN?  If Leno failed in a prime time slot why is NBC giving him a 30 min show at 11:35 going to help the Tonight Show or NBC?  What’s the point?  Carson didn’t do anything to compete directly with the Tonight Show when he left.  Why let Leno compete at all?

I'm with Coco

This can either go down as the biggest disaster in TV history; bigger than when NBC passed Letterman over for the Tonight Show gig, bigger than when NBC Let Star Trek the original series die in 60s, or it’s a fiendishly brilliant viral marketing plan to boost NBC’s lagging ratings (wishful thinking on my part, but we can hope right?).

Where is everyone’s Brand Loyalty?  Is it with NBC, Leno or Conan?  There’s no apparent popular effort to bring Leno back to the Tonight Show – but there is a whole lot of buzz on the Social Media web sites in support of Conan.  Simply put, NBC would be stupid to let Conan go. He would most likely end up on either Fox, ABC or, even worse CBS, where he could team up with Letterman and later on replace him on his show.  Everyone in Late Night is getting a leg up except for Leno and NBC.  Needless to say, I’m with Coco.

Dean Bairaktaris – The Greatest Living American Dude: Evil Power Digger, SEO Consultant, Social Media Maverick, Web Developer and Elite Space Monkey in Fort Lauderdale, FL. Think Green.

In case you’ve been going to sleep early these days and you’ve been missing all the buzz on both Facebook and Twitter about what’s going on in the late night TV world,  NBC “Promoted” Conan O’Brien to the big chair of late night, The Tonight Show.  But for some reason, they wanted to keep Jay Leno in the NBC fold and put him in a prime time 10 PM slot before the local news.  The reasoning for this is very simple.  Producing one show with one star is 100 times cheaper than producing five quality prime-time shows with multiple casts, crews, directors and teamsters for five 10 PM prime time slots.

After a very short run, a simple domino effect is in play.  Leno “failed” in the 10PM time slot which led to lower ratings for the local news and lower ratings for The Tonight Show. NBC Failed to provide good shows before the local news. And now, it seems that rather than accept responsibility, the NBC execs have thrown the blame on Conan.

Was this Conan’s fault?  Maybe a little.  He didn’t ask about the prime-time line up and his lawyers didn’t go through his contract with a fine tooth comb.  Conan has a pretty iron clad contract BUT they missed the detail of what time the new Tonight Show was supposed to start.

“I believe that delaying The Tonight Show into the next day to accommodate another comedy program will seriously damage what I consider to be the greatest franchise in the history of broadcasting. The Tonight Show at 12:05 simply isn’t the Tonight Show.”  - Conan O’Brien

“I left NBC prime-time the same way I found it: a complete disaster.” – Jay Leno

Considering what happened when Johnny Carson left the Tonight Show and the fallout between Letterman and Leno and now with the flip flop between Leno and Conan and back to Leno again, NBC is losing trust within the industry and Loyalty with its viewers.  And if NBC screws over Conan after what they did to Letterman the last go around, who’s going to want replace Leno AGAIN?  If Leno failed in a prime time slot why is NBC giving him a 30 min show at 11:35 going to help the Tonight Show or NBC?  What’s the point?  Carson didn’t do anything to compete directly with the Tonight Show when he left.  Why let Leno compete at all?

I'm with Coco

This can either go down as the biggest disaster in TV history; bigger than when NBC passed Letterman over for the Tonight Show gig, bigger than when NBC Let Star Trek the original series die in 60s, or it’s a fiendishly brilliant viral marketing plan to boost NBC’s lagging ratings (wishful thinking on my part, but we can hope right?).

Where is everyone’s Brand Loyalty?  Is it with NBC, Leno or Conan?  There’s no apparent popular effort to bring Leno back to the Tonight Show – but there is a whole lot of buzz on the Social Media web sites in support of Conan.  Simply put, NBC would be stupid to let Conan go. He would most likely end up on either Fox, ABC or, even worse CBS, where he could team up with Letterman and later on replace him on his show.  Everyone in Late Night is getting a leg up except for Leno and NBC.  Needless to say, I’m with Coco.

Dean Bairaktaris – The Greatest Living American Dude: Evil Power Digger, SEO Consultant, Social Media Maverick, Web Developer and Elite Space Monkey in Fort Lauderdale, FL. Think Green.

There have been a number of viral marketing campaigns that have created a vortex of attention online and, today being Mother’s Day, I have to add MomsRising to the list.

I innocently clicked through an invitation to celebrate Mother’s Day in a unique way and was surprised at what I found. The link landed me on the “Mother of the Year” video which I easily customized and sent to several of my favorite “Moms”. It was easy, funny, and I got positive feedback from several of the recipients.

At last look on the MomsRising web site, there have been over 7 million views of the video, making it officially a viral marketing success.

What’s behind the organization? According to the web site, “MomsRising is working to bring together millions of people who share a common concern about the need to build a more family-friendly America. Started in May of 2006, MomsRising has gained over 150,000 citizen members and is rapidly growing”.

This is a great example of a group that knows what its about and consciously crafted a campaign that was compelling enough to drive engagement and subtle in its effort to raise awareness for its mission.

I can’t vouch in more detail for their intentions, but raising awareness for the importance of Motherhood can’t be all bad.  They’re on Twitter and can be followed @MomsRising.

I’m headed to the Word of Mouth Marketing Association event in South Beach this week and can’t wait to get more feedback on this, the latest, of viral marketing campaigns to solidly hit the bulls-eye.

Let me know what you think of this effort and send me suggestions for your favorite viral campaign from the past year.

Happy Mother’s Day!

There have been a number of viral marketing campaigns that have created a vortex of attention online and, today being Mother’s Day, I have to add MomsRising to the list.

I innocently clicked through an invitation to celebrate Mother’s Day in a unique way and was surprised at what I found. The link landed me on the “Mother of the Year” video which I easily customized and sent to several of my favorite “Moms”. It was easy, funny, and I got positive feedback from several of the recipients.

At last look on the MomsRising web site, there have been over 7 million views of the video, making it officially a viral marketing success.

What’s behind the organization? According to the web site, “MomsRising is working to bring together millions of people who share a common concern about the need to build a more family-friendly America. Started in May of 2006, MomsRising has gained over 150,000 citizen members and is rapidly growing”.

This is a great example of a group that knows what its about and consciously crafted a campaign that was compelling enough to drive engagement and subtle in its effort to raise awareness for its mission.

I can’t vouch in more detail for their intentions, but raising awareness for the importance of Motherhood can’t be all bad.  They’re on Twitter and can be followed @MomsRising.

I’m headed to the Word of Mouth Marketing Association event in South Beach this week and can’t wait to get more feedback on this, the latest, of viral marketing campaigns to solidly hit the bulls-eye.

Let me know what you think of this effort and send me suggestions for your favorite viral campaign from the past year.

Happy Mother’s Day!