Earlier this week, Sapient announced the findings from its annual interactive marketing survey. Included in the results was this gem of a quote:

“In 2008, analytics will become the new black – the absolute, must-have essential for all marketing teams.”

The most encouraging thing about this quote is that it’s from Sapient’s Chief Creative Officer, Gaston Legorburu.

Key findings from the annual survey:

• Marketers feel confident in their ability to track search and email campaigns.
• Measuring across channels … not so much.
• Making changes to campaigns, based on metrics, takes time.

As you’re thinking about your professional resolutions for 2008 — do you see “more attention for analytics” on your list?

by Meghan Wilker and Nancy Lyons of Clockwork Active Media Systems (aka The Geek Girls).

One of the most disturbing things about the Web 2.0 Summit in San Francisco last October (aside from the small number of women in attendance) was a panel discussion by what one might call “average users.” The theme of this year’s Summit was “Discovering the Web’s Edge.” The organizers took that theme and explored the edges of gaming, technology, social networking, and–in this case–the edge of the Web’s users. Namely, older users (at the mid-to-high end of the baby boomer spectrum).

The panel consisted of three men and two women and began as good, clean fun. One of the couples already had a YouTube presence, which was discovered partway through the panel and then broadcast on the big screen to the delight of the audience. The facilitator asked questions about how they used the Internet which, not surprisingly, consisted mostly of emailing, personal ads, and Craigslist–which one user had recently discovered and was extremely excited about. Her excitement was amusing to everyone. (In fact, she seemed to think Craigslist was the Internet.)

But, what started out as a few giggles from the audience over one user’s Craigslist enthusiasm soon grew into uproarious laughter over just about everything that came out of the panelists’ mouths. At that point, we looked at each other in horror and realized that the audience was no longer laughing with this panel, but at them. Everything at the Summit up until then had been a lot of preaching to the choir: designers and developers talking to each other, about each other and for each other. At that moment, the Summit audience should have been listening more closely than ever. Sure, some of the panelists’ statements sounded naive or silly or uniformed. But, like it or not, these “technically impaired” users represent a far greater portion of our audience than those that are more “like us.”

It’s easy to insulate ourselves from the real world and ignore the needs of the average user. But, we’re not building experiences for each other, we’re building them for a particular target. And we would venture to guess that 9 times out of 10 a target audience is made up of those “average” users. As developers, we run the risk of contributing to the lack of usability on the web by building for ourselves in spite of the research or user information we uncover in the process. Admit it. We’re all guilty of it. You want your clients to “think outside of the box” or grasp your brilliant “creative.” We’ve heard more than one irritated Creative Director suggest, at one time or another, that the client just doesn’t “get” the big idea or can’t possibly embrace this cutting edge technology? We know they are out there. We’ve worked with them.

Yes, we have a responsibility to push our clients to think about their business and the Internet in ways that may seem new and unexplored. But, at the end of the day its not really about them, or us; its about the user. The user that thinks that Craig’s List is the internet. We don’t work with the average user. We’re barely aware of them any more. We gorge ourselves on the latest trends as dictated by our favorite blogs and news sources and summits and conferences and we get farther and farther away from that user. But who says we’re really the experts and we get to decide what’s bleeding edge? We’re just as guilty of insulating ourselves by reading the same blogs, the same feeds, using the same technology and not exploring anything outside of our technological comfort zone. This leads to an unhealthy sense of what’s happening in the world around us and what our mission as creators of Interactive experiences is really about.

So, does every site need to be created with your mom (or grandma) in mind? No. But we need to make real efforts to define and understand our site audiences — even when their technology skills may not be as good as ours. There are generations of people that aren’t “here” yet. But that doesn’t make them stupid. If we don’t reach them, we’re missing out on a significant faction of our commercial targets. And we’re doing our clients a disservice by not reaching their intended audience.

MIMA’s first monthly event of 2008 at the prestigious Minneapolis Grand Hotel was new and different in a few big ways. So it looks like we’re off to another great year.

First of all, the event was free. According to new president, Matt Wilson, after the event was officially announced to members, it only took two hours for all available seats to be reserved – and that many people had to be turned away. (I counted about 180 people in the room, which means there were some no-shows, but this was still an extremely well attended session.)

Second, Matt remarked that MIMA membership doubled in 2007 to nearly 750 members by year end, adding “the overwhelming response for event registration is a good problem to have.” He also recognized the outgoing board members for their outstanding leadership during their terms and thanked them for their hard work with the committee volunteers to help make MIMA one of the strongest professional associations of its kind in the country.

Third, it had a co-sponsor (Microsoft). Fourth, it started earlier than usual (4 o’clock) and fifth, it had more information than usual: it featured a keynote speaker, a Microsoft presentation and a panel discussion. So it was kind of like a “mini Summit.” (Plus, there was lots of good cheer afterwards at Martini Blu.)

As a creative copywriter and marketing professional, I was most excited by the presentation by keynote speaker, Lou Carbone – founder and chief experience officer of Experience Engineering and author of the best-selling book, “Clued In – How to Keep Customers Coming Back Again and Again.”

The main point of his presentation was to avoid falling into the trap of trying to extract value from customer relationships and to instead focus on creating value. He observed that the business landscape is changing and that creating value offers an important competitive advantage. However, most companies are putting all their energy into the former, with little thought given to the latter.

He also cited a fundamental business principle that almost seems radical these days: the purpose of a business is to create value for a customer – and the reward is profit. And to underscore this point, he shared examples of companies that “get value creation” (along with some that don’t).

The underlying message to marketers: don’t confuse the product or service delivered with the value delivered. They can be two separate things – and the successful companies promote the value proposition. Starbucks isn’t selling coffee, it’s selling an experience. Blockbuster isn’t in the video rental business, it’s in the business of bringing loved ones together through home entertainment.

A corollary to value creation is the emotional connection marketers need to make to bridge the gap between their brands and their customers’ feelings.

Anyone in creative services will tell you to focus on creating a proprietary, emotional response. But as marketers, we need to make strategic decisions about which emotional connections we create and how they are managed. A brief film clip from FedEx about rescuing the penguins at the New Orleans zoo after hurricane Katrina by flying them to the Monterey Bay Aquarium was an exceptional example of marketing and creative savvy in the experience arena.

If you have a chance, take time to download the podcast and the presentation materials. Lou was an engaging, entertaining and thoughtful speaker. And this keynote was packed with great ideas too long to list here for marketers who want to build more meaningful, longer lasting relationships between their brands and their customers.

Also, remember that the monthly events are now free for members – which makes your MIMA membership an even better value. And hats off to the programming committee, for their fine work planning events like this and lining up great speakers like Lou Carbone.

Like Matt said, MIMA has grown. So if you want to volunteer for one of the committees, there are lots of opportunities for you to “connect” with other MIMA members and “create value” for your own personal brand.

New year, new words. Here are three neologisms for all you smart digital natives to use in 2008:

Friendors: Vendors who become friends. You’ll find the word “friendors” in Merriam-Webster’s Open Dictionary, which outsources the once-sacred role of lexicographer to folks like you and me.

She attended MIMA with two of her friendors.

Wait, you say, here in the interactive world, we’re not vendors, we’re partners, agencies, or clients. Hmmm. “Frartners?” Don’t think so. How about “Fragencies” or “Flients”?

Plan on deepening friendships with friendors, fragencies, and flients at all the great programs MIMA has in store this year.

The next word is a little less friendly:

Frenemies: A blend of “friends” and “enemies.” In other words, business associates or agencies who work together, but are actually competitors.

Though not a new word, frenemies is gaining traction in the business world, especially now that Sir Martin Sorrell, founder and CEO of the global agency WPP, used it to describe his agency’s relationship with Google, who is both ally and rival to WPP.

I’ve been intrigued with the word because it provides a handy label for discussing ambiguous business relationships that involve two or more agencies working together as partners — when they might otherwise be competitors.

Over at MarketingProfs Daily Fix, I offer examples of frenemies in the interactive space, when a client assigns, for example, the interactive portion of a campaign to one agency and the print portion to another, when both agencies could potentially handle the entire span of work. And I offer tips for successfully managing frenemies, if that’s your role.

For me, the only problem with the word frenemies is a touch of negativity. Enemy is a bit strong, a bit militaristic. And to succeed, frenemies need to focus on collaboration, not competition.

Frenemies has yet to make it into the standard dictionaries. You won’t find it in Merriam-Webster, although it is in Wikipedia and the Urban Dictionary. (Although the latter definition is purely personal, describing two-faced friends.)

And our last word:

Froes: Synonymous with frenemies. A blend of “friend” plus “foe.” For a great discussion on frenemies and froes, see Bill Taylor’s, post at Harvard Business Online: The New Language of Competition: Are You Friend or Froe?

“Froes” was coined by Sir Martin Sorrell (so far as I can tell), and its use as a business word is not yet in Wikipedia. Before you write the entry, you should know that a froe is also a cleaving tool for splitting cask staves and shingles from the block.

We don’t have much call for that in interactive marketing.

Do you have examples of new words — to describe all of us? Please share.

MIMA is pleased to announce a special one-time event to kick off an entire year of free programming for MIMA members. MIMA and Microsoft are co-hosting Light Up Your Brand: Building a Memorable Online Experience, featuring speakers from Experience Engineering, Microsoft and frog design, inc.

Join us on January 17, 2008 at The Grand Hotel Minneapolis and Martini Blu and learn how to build your brand online using new technologies and user experience strategies.

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