The best place to fill your head with other folks’ baggage is on blogs. To be more specific, in the comments section on blogs. For this reason alone, I make a point of limiting how often I leave comments, as well as how often I read comments. However, the comments section of a blog can occasionally be a great place for discourse. Sometimes people actually have positive things to say, or better yet, there’s an actual exchange of truly valid ideas, and out of the exchange comes tiny unpopped kernels of enlightenment. At the very least, you get a quote you hadn’t heard before.

So today, I offer you this quote, originally posted on Brand New by Pentagram partner Michael Beirut, in response to the melee that has transpired in the comments section of a post about Paula Schere’s design for the packaging of new tea sweeten-o-fier Truvia.

“I happen to believe that the visual environment … improves each time a designer produces a good design and in no other way. We tend to overstate our case in the most complicated manner, and to confuse the simple purpose of our perfectly honest, useful little craft with the language of the sociologist, the psychiatrist, the scientist, the art critic and sometimes even the mystic. The obvious function of the designer is to design.”

It’s from Bill Golden, aka the dude who designed the logo that inspired such rap lyrics as Jay-Z’s “I keep one eye open like CBS.” It is also Beirut’s favorite design quote, which according to him, he pulls out once a year, and while it’s a little early in the year, I’m glad he didn’t hold back. As some of you know, I like to champion the idealists and sometimes go on and on about design changing the world but this quote by Bill Golden is like a smack in the back of the head from a wise old uncle who’s gone through enough to know a thing or two about a thing or two.

Reasonable Doubt. Arguably the greatest hip-hop album of all time.

If this hasn’t abated your appetite for comment banter even Paula Schere joins the fray, leaving a lengthy explanation about the decisions she made while designing the package.

Ad Tech ‘08 took place in San Francisco last week and I managed to make a few sessions and wander the exhibition hall. Ad Tech is a digital marketing conference for media, publishing, marketing, and technology professionals. Basically, anyone who’s interested in the tools, strategy, and opportunities of online marketing. Here are some observations and data points that may help inform your customer engagement efforts.

Session: “Social media marketing—the value proposition”

Panel featuring MySpace, Target, Electronic Arts
• eMarketer magazine reported that $1.6b will be spent on social media marketing this year, and $2.4b by 2010
• MySpace had 73 million unique visitors in March, an increase of 7%
• Facebook saw 35 million unique visitors in March, an increase of 9%
• EA and Target say they’re beyond the experimental phase and plan bigger social media marketing investments (details on Target’s successful ‘07 Facebook back to school campaign can be found in my April Tendo View article)

My take:
• The early adopter marketers have learned “what works”
• Social media audiences will embrace a campaign, if it’s done right
• Social media networks are growing in size and audience demographics
• Companies should investigate social media

Session: “Marketing with downloadable media” (podcasts)

Panel featuring Jim Louderback, former editor of PC magazine, now CEO of Revision3; Kin Robles, a producer at National Podcasting System; Mark McCrery of Podtrac, a podcast ad-serving network; and Roxanne Darling, host of “Beachwalks with Rox,” a popular daily podcast in which she ruminates on anything and everything while walking her black Labrador on the beaches of Hawaii.

My take on podcasts:
• The time is right to investigate
• They can help you engage a hard-to-reach, highly desirable audience
• They present a low-cost way to reach a broad audience with viral content
• Their popularity reflects the rise in user-controlled “on demand” media

Here are some stats from a recently released Edison Media research report, “The Podcast Consumer Revealed: An Exclusive Early Look at the Growing Podcast Audience.”

• Podcast listeners are generally more affluent, well-educated, and spend more money online
• Podcast listeners represent a 50/50 split among men and women and demonstrate high levels of avoidance behavior—they know how to evade marketing
• 40% increase in consumption of audio podcasts between ’07 and ‘08
• 21% of Americans (54 million) have watched or listened to downloadable media
• Ad recall rates from podcasts are 47% higher than traditional ad spots—a highly engaged audience!
• 75% of podcasts are accessed through iTunes
• The most viewed/listened to iTunes shows get between 160,000 and 250,000 views/listens per episode

—Bill Golden, managing editor

If all the excitement around Web-based social media has you nervous about whether people can still hold a conversation in person, fear not. Social networking site Meetup.com has combined the ease and community-building capabilities of the Web with the primal need for in-person interaction.

Meetup.com reports more than 5 million regular users, facilitates more than 37,000 groups, and helps arrange about 80,000 physical events monthly. That’s a large group of motivated consumers, segmented by very specific interests—two attributes that typically make marketers salivate.

As reported by The New York Times on March 19, Meetup.com has found an interesting sponsorship model to support its various special interest groups. The site has signed both American Express Open and Kimberly Clarke, parent company to brands Huggies and Pull-ups, to underwrite and support Meetup.com groups for new mothers and entrepreneurs. Meetup.com’s sponsorships allow brands to provide valuable services to potential customers and opportunities to interact with their brands in meaningful ways. What’s interesting about Meetup.com’s approach is that it combines the best of two worlds: the convenience and ubiquity of the Web and the impact and intimacy of in-person interaction. —Bill Golden, managing editor

I was reminded recently of a Web site faux pas that’s possibly one of the worst. A colleague sitting across from me suddenly cringed, crumpled in her chair, and then angrily tore off her headphones. Not knowing the cause, I was a bit startled. But no sooner was she cursing the computer screen, than the culprit was revealed. That obnoxious auto volume feature.

It’s one thing to knowingly subject yourself to painful music on MySpace profiles, but another thing when a commercial Web site (that presumably wants visitors) blasts music at you without notice or permission. Think about it. It’s like the proprietor of a brick-and-mortar store blasting music in your ear just as you enter.

Using audio to engage customers online is a perfectly fine and useful feature. Just make sure it’s muted and the audio is easy to find and control. A good model for user-controlled audio is YouTube. —Bill Golden, managing editor

Yesterday, two colleagues and I started the day at BtoB Magazine’s NetMarketing breakfast down the street here in San Francisco.

The event featured three high-tech marketing executives who spoke about how they’re engaging customers on the Web. Aside from a sponsor’s painfully long pitch at the outset, which ironically led to quite a few people suddenly spreading out their free copies of the New York Times, the well-attended event was worth checking out.

Speakers included Scott Anderson, VP of customer communications at HP (our very own client and by far the most impressive); Martyn Etherington, VP of worldwide field marketing, Tektronix; and Stephanie Dillard, global media manager, integrated marketing group, Intel. While they didn’t have time to outline their entire Web marketing strategy, it was interesting to see the differences in each company’s approach. They each shared more than a few nuggets of good information.

Scott Anderson began by presenting HP’s customer engagement strategy in the broader context of the media’s evolution in the US. First was the “merchant to customer” era, which I presume means merchants talking directly (in person?) to their customers. Then the “mass marketing age.” And finally the current era, which he refers to as the “dialogue age.”

In other words, companies that want to engage and deepen their relationships with customers need to facilitate a dialogue with them. The old communication strategy of “polish and push” ain’t gonna cut it today. And I wholeheartedly agree. Consumers are too smart and have too many media options now–as well as tools to filter or delete the noise they don’t want to hear.

Scott’s alternative is “engage and get out of the way.” In other words, break down the marketing filters and talk directly and honestly with your customers, even if it means hearing things that may not put a smile on your face. But wouldn’t you rather know what your customers think about your product or service rather than chugging along, ignorantly unaware?

One successful marketing program Scott mentioned was Change Artists. With it, HP produced a series of webcasts featuring CIOs speaking with their CEOs on the topic of business and technology. Aside from some slick branding, the program had nothing to do with pitching HP products, but rather showcased customers as the main draw. And guess what? It worked. The program generated a lot of leads. The take away: Think about spending less time and energy “polishing and pushing” your product message, and let your customers do the talking.

Martyn Etherington gave a concise overview of Tektronix’ Web marketing strategy. Based on the number of dashboards he showed (to his credit, he explained he didn’t expect anyone to read them), Tektronix is a metrics-driven company. And my guess is that he’s tracking his online campaigns effectively.

His presentation was good, but there were a lot of numbers on his slides, so I admit I tuned out a little. One thing I found interesting, though, was his summary of Tektronix’ most effective marketing channels. Not too surprisingly, it was the Web (search) 1st, word of mouth 2nd (hey, that’s customers talking to customers), 3rd PR, 4th the direct channel, which I guess means their sales force, and 5th was content. Interesting to see that customers finding Tektronix and customers talking with one another lead the pack. Again, Martyn seems like a bright guy and was good at getting to the point quickly, unlike the sponsor at the beginning. If you have a chance to hear him speak, check him out.

Stephanie Dillard from Intel was last, and she discussed Intel Island, the virtual island that the chip giant has paid for and built in the virtual reality Web site Second Life, which is becoming more and more of a reality. It must have cost Intel a pretty penny, or Linden dollar (that’s Second Life lingo for dinero) because it was fancy.

Stephanie showed a virtual tour of the island from her laptop, complete with speaking avatars, aerial views of the island, and presentations on Intel products in Second Life. It was hard not to be impressed. But at the same time, you can’t help but wonder: Is it worth all the effort in time and money? Stephanie said Intel was drawn to the opportunity to engage a technology-savvy, fast-growing global audience that was right in Intel’s sweet spot.

I believe Second Life is populated by a 60% male audience aged 20 to 32…something like that. But wait a minute, we’re talking avatars here, not humans. And who knows how old they are or whether they even use computers. The ones I saw on the screen had wings and were half human..oh, well, whatever.

Actually, Stephanie had some great things to say about Intel’s experience in Second Life and you have to laud them for taking the leap and experimenting. She said her measures for success are:

1. dwell time, or how long avatars hang out on Intel Island;
2. action taken, which again I take to be avatar action;
3. number of participants (avatars) in world surveys, which presumably means you can survey avatars;
4. and lastly, blog mentions and the buzz/PR factor (I presume this would take place in first life).

Another key bit of advice that Stephanie offered is that you can’t launch a Second Life presence and then slack off. It takes constant attention and refreshing of content–not too unlike most content-focused marketing efforts. Apparently avatars get irked with stale content just like humans. And as far as targeting and engaging the influential early adopters in its market, Intel couldn’t have picked a better reality.

Stephanie cautioned the audience to be cognizant of Linden Labs’ technology infrastructure. That’s the company that hosts Second Life. The number of residents in Second Life is growing at a rapid clip. I just checked and as of Friday, November 16, there were 10,923,896 residents in Second Life. That’s a lot of avatars. In other words, the site has been known to crash pretty frequently. When I created an avatar a few months ago to check the whole thing out, my computer crashed for the first time in a couple years.

Anyway, all three speakers shared some great ideas and experiences, plus BtoB magazine puts on a good event and serves good coffee. If you have a chance to hear any of these execs speak, or attend a BtoB magazine event, give it a go. And remember, don’t “polish and push.” Instead, “engage and get out of the way.” —Bill Golden, managing editor