mStoner changes—and stays the same

Have you ever had the experience of something being simultaneously extraordinary and routine? That’s how I feel about mStoner’s recent big news. Last month we completed the acquisition of our long-time technical partner, Global Image.

This acquisition is extraordinary for us because it’s a big change in terms of mStoner’s corporate structure. In essence, our company just doubled in size. OTOH, it doesn’t seem as if anything has changed. To understand why I’m feeling so bipolar at the moment, some history might help.

I first met Rob Cima, Global Image’s (now-former!) CEO, in 1997 when GI acquired ArachNet, the company that had provided technical support on some of my first web projects. Shortly after that acquisition, ArachNet’s principals moved on to other things, leaving Rob and me to figure things out. We have worked together ever since, with his team providing software development and a variety of technical services for every web project I’ve done, either in my former practice or at mStoner.

For me, one of the interesting aspects of our partnership was that Global worked in businesses outside of education, giving me exposure to new horizons. For instance, they launched an inventory system for a startup that used PalmPilots and the web to sync orders for small retail stores: at the time, a very innovative project.

Also, GI’s work with banks, health care institutions, and other kinds of businesses brought them into contact with tools that hadn’t yet come on the radar of our .edu clients. Excited about what we were learning in these other venues, we attempted to bring some of those advancements to our clients in education. Some of these attempts didn’t stick, but, happily, our early experiments introducing content management systems hit the mark. Even though today most education websites use a content management system of some kind, a decade ago—when we built the first .edu websites using CMSs—that was unheard of.

In 2001, Rob joined Voltaire and me in founding mStoner, signing on as a partner but running Global Image as a separate business. He even financed our launch until we could bring in enough work to support ourselves (for a little while, Voltaire and I were actually Global Image employees).

As mStoner grew, our ties with Global Image became broader and deeper. More and more of Global’s work became focused on education as the needs of our clients expanded. Our companies worked together so well that some clients didn’t know we were actually two companies. Yet, over time, we realized that we could improve client service through even better coordination of processes across the two companies and even stronger collaboration between our teams. Finally, at some point, it became apparent to all of us that it just made sense to integrate mStoner and Global Image in fact, as well as operationally.

To be clear, this change isn’t really about corporate structure. Incorporating technology and software development as a core function within mStoner allows us to be more strategic and responsive in serving client needs. As a company, we’ve always emphasized that sound strategy precedes technology (or, for that matter, design or implementation of any kind). But today, great websites need sophisticated technology. We believe that our new configuration can provide that kind of integration for our clients—whether we’re building a website, an iPhone app, a marketing campaign, or something we haven’t yet dreamed up.

Posted by Michael Stoner
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Perspectives on mStoner and Our Business

[Note: this is the first of three posts sharing some perspective on mStoner’s business. Read about our experience in 2009 and what we’re looking forward to in 2010.]

Since we launched this blog in 2003, we’ve focused on sharing our perspectives on trends as they affect our industry, our practice, and our clients. We’ve tried to be transparent about some of the insights we’ve gained from our work on many different kinds of projects for a wide range of institutions.

But we’ve shied away from talking about the business side of mStoner, mostly because I don’t think anybody cares that much aside from our team and our families. Except maybe prospective clients who want to know that mStoner is a well-managed business that will deliver on its promises.

That kind of thinking was understandable in 2003 or 2005 or even 2008. But today is different. We live in difficult economic times. I believe it’s important to make a clear statement about where we are as a company in these times when there’s no certainty that even well-known institutions and companies will survive.

I’m reflecting on this because we heard some shocking news about one of our competitors. As a result, I wanted to share some perspectives on 2009 and how mStoner responded to the downturn. Then, I want to focus on 2010. And, finally, bid farewell to BigBad, one of the companies that didn’t make it.

I’m posting this in three parts to avoid a really huge post: this introduction, a report on how mStoner fared in 2009, and a brief look ahead at 2010.

If you want the short version, though, here it is:

After some worrisome months in 2009, mStoner emerged stronger than ever at year-end. We look forward to launching some great websites in 2010—and to launching some new products and services of our own. We remain committed to realizing our vision of being the smartest and most strategic integrated marketing, branding, and technology firm serving education. Period.

Posted by Michael Stoner
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Buh bye to 2009

[Note: this is the second of three posts sharing some perspective on mStoner’s business. Read the introduction to this series and what learn what we’re looking forward to in 2010.]

From a business perspective, I’m not sorry to see 2009 end. Ultimately, mStoner was fortunate: we didn’t suffer as much as other companies in our peer set. But that’s largely because we had a wake-up call in 2008, when we realized that we needed to tighten up our business practices and the way we managed projects. Or else.

So we entered 2009 much leaner and more disciplined. We also had a backlog of projects from 2008. It was a good thing, too: by March 2009, we looked ahead and worried about what we’d face for the rest of the year.

It will come as no surprise to you that schools, colleges, and universities faced major challenges in 2009. More than ever before, our clients were expected to do more with less. We’ve always been willing to tailor our services to a client’s needs, but several projects in 2009 required a new level of flexibility, with clients encouraging us to explore how to balance our own resources with theirs. We’ve always considered our clients to be our partners, but some of these collaborations have taken partnership to new levels in order to help make the most of available budgets.

By year’s end, the RFP flow picked up and some of our clients signed off on additional projects. We had managed to eke out a tiny profit. Mind you, no one on our team got a bonus. But, when many companies had to reduce size considerably or fold, we were fortunate to have wonderful clients who completed their projects with us and, in many cases, engaged us for additional work. To all of you: thank you. We’re very grateful!

Thriving creative and new projects

But 2009 wasn’t all gloom and doom. mStoner had an incredible year from a creative standpoint. The George School website won a Grand Gold in the national CASE Awards of Excellence competition, and William & Mary’s website) won EduStyle Awards for Best Website Redesign and Best Use of Photography.

We launched a number of great sites last year, and several of them exemplify how our work is taking significant new directions:

Progressive branding: In the age of authenticity, branding is a two-way street shaped by the dialogue between an institution and its constituencies. Storytelling and social media are the new pillars of branding because they allow real people and their stories to create and reinforce a brand’s meaning. In particular, four of our clients’ sites exemplify this approach: Boston College School of Social Work, Fashion Institute of Technology, College of Charleston, and the Northfield Mount Hermon School.

Social media: Most of our projects now incorporate social media in significant ways. For example, Northfield Mount Hermon’s website integrates social media feeds so that visitors can move back and forth between NMHSchool.org and various social media sites. We spoke and wrote about social media: our blog last year includes a half-dozen case studies relating to campaigns that integrate social media with other channels. (I presented on this topic at the CASE Summit, CASE VII, and CASE V.) Also, a whole series of posts focused on how independent schools are using (and excelling at) social media for an article published in CASE Currents. Doug Gapinski, one of our creative directors, developed a two-day workshop on social media that he presented at Kenyon College.

Collaboration: We developed a new model for an immersive, collaborative web strategy with Bethel University. Two of our client partners there, Michael Vedders and Mark Erickson, spent a couple of days in our Chicago office to work out information architecture, wireframes, sitemaps, and other significant aspects of Bethel’s new site, which will launch this year. [Read more about that process.]

Public Square: In another example of collaboration, we helped researchers at the Pennsylvania State University conceive, name, design, and build an interactive collection of research projects currently underway across campus. We named it “Public Square” to make it as clear as possible to the public that the work showcased is ongoing and participatory. The site’s tagline is “Public Square provides a place for the public to learn about and get involved in University projects that aim to make the community-and the world-a better place.” The site will launch in 2010.

Community Colleges: Institutions offering customized, flexible two- and four-year programs are experiencing rapid growth. Last year, we worked with several community colleges. We launched sites and provided training for Oakton Community College and many of the colleges in the Kentucky Community and Technical College System. And we worked with Nevada State College, a nimble four-year institution located in a suburb of Las Vegas.

Posted by Michael Stoner
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2010: A Renewed Focus on Values

[Note: this is the third of three posts sharing some perspective on mStoner’s business. Read the introduction to the series and learn about our experience in 2009.]

We began 2010 excited about the future of mStoner. Not just because it’s clear that business is picking up, but because we took some major steps last year to invest in our growth and stability.

First, we developed a two-year process to prepare one of our valued team members, Patrick DiMichele, to join Rob Cima, Voltaire Santos Miran, and me as an equity partner in mStoner. Patrick is not only a smart and dedicated consultant—as anyone who has worked with him knows—but he always asks how he, and we, could do better. We’re excited about his future as a leader in the firm.

In December 2009, we invested a good deal of time in soul-searching and asking ourselves and our clients how we could be create an even stronger, more focused, more service-oriented company.

Our first big decision was to strengthen our focus on education even more. So what, you might ask, considering that more than 90 percent of our work has been for schools, colleges, and universities? The big change is that we’re committing to serving the education market exclusively. We’ve always done some work for non-education nonprofits, foundations, associations, and even businesses. No longer: from now on, we’ll serve education institutions.

Simply put, we get feedback from our clients that a big part of the reason they engage us is that our broad and deep experience offers enormous value. We understand how to operate within a complex and sometimes challenging culture. We know how to get things done. And we want to leverage our experience even more than we have, offering even greater value to our clients. Focusing our practice on education—and just education—allows us to do this to an even greater extent.

Plus, this isn’t just about business for us. Playing some small role in strengthening education institutions that provide opportunities and do research that better the lives of many people is really important to each member of our team.

New products and services to come

We also talked about the services we offer. Though mStoner is renowned for our websites, we’ve always considered our company a full-service marketing consulting firm. Later this year, we’ll announce new products and services that expand and enhance our ability to provide institutions with smart, sustainable solutions.

We also clarified our values. mStoner has always been a values-driven company, but we wanted to be explicit about what those values are. Simply:

• We’re committed to partnership: We treat each other, and our client partners, with respect. We communicate clearly. We’re collaborators with a can-do attitude who can give up the need to be right.


• We are committed to doing great work.


• We are focused on innovation and creativity—but not just for the sake of being innovative or creative.


• We’re committed to learning about how to do our work better—and to teaching others about what we’ve learned.


• We conduct ourselves with the utmost integrity. We tell our clients the truth and avoid apparent (and real) conflicts of interest. We keep confidential data and strategic information confidential. We avoid working for direct competitors of current clients.

I don’t believe that people who’ve worked with us will be surprised by any of this. But it was important to us to spell out more clearly and explicitly exactly what we stand for.

Looking ahead to 2010

We’ve seen lots of signs in the first quarter of the year that the economy is picking up—not least of which is the number of RFPs we’ve received so far. We’re expecting a better (and more profitable!) year. Some of the highlights of the year to come:

Acquisition of Global Image: Last year, we set in motion a plan to acquire our long-time technical partner and sister company Global Image. We’ve been working together since 1997 and operating as one company since last year, when we began to integrate our teams even more closely. We’ll complete this acquisition within the next quarter.

A significant partnership: We’ve developed a close partnership with Slover Linett Strategies, a Chicago-base research firm with significant experience in education. This relationship will allow our clients to take advantage of experienced, professional researchers. In addition to working with several mStoner clients, Slover Linett is partnering with mStoner on a significant research project to benchmark institutional investment in social media and explore outcomes from that investment. You’ll hear more about this later in the year.

Branding: We’ve taken on a significant branding project with Hofstra Law School to conduct in-depth research followed by creative and technical work. We know this project will involve a new website and implementation of a content management system—and other elements determined by what we learn from our focus groups and surveys.

Video: Our work increasingly involves video. Last year, we teamed up with Sean Presley in the Kenyon College communications office and a faculty member to help students develop videos that support a sense of place. This year, we’re working on a series of videos for Hofstra Law School that will help prospective students understand how their degrees can prepare them for a range of career options.

We bid farewell to BigBad

Last week, I heard from a colleague who was in the midst of a project with the Boston-based interactive firm BigBad that BigBad’s staff had received termination notices and that the firm was closing. For good. I was shocked at the news. I’d like to say farewell to a tough competitor whom we first encountered when they entered the education market in a big way in 2004.

You’ve probably heard about the Apple/Microsoft rivalry. Since we at mStoner humbly compare ourselves to Apple, we often viewed BigBad as our Microsoft.

As Microsoft did for Apple, BigBad served as a foil for us—and they inspired us to be better. We thought more carefully about how we marketed mStoner. A lot of what we actually did didn’t change, but we were more intentional about doing it. And BigBad inspired us to enhance our design practice.

I’m reminded of the Dalai Lama’s words: “If we truly wish to learn, we should consider enemies to be our best teacher.” Thanks for the lessons—and best wishes to Ty Glasgow, BigBad’s (former) CEO, and the rest of the staff.

If you’ve read this far, I appreciate your patience! And I’d like to close by thanking our incredible, dedicated, and hardworking team—I’m blessed to work with such outstanding professionals—and our clients, who consistently challenge us to expand our thinking in unexpected ways as we create, together, smart, sustainable solutions.

Posted by Michael Stoner
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Human RSS

Need another reason to work with smart, interesting people? They act as a living feed reader. Hook your coworkers up to a quick-communication tool like Yammer and Hello! A human filter for your Internet. That’s pretty much the setup here. Below is some of what the mStoner hive mind fed itself recently:

From Volt: Harvard professor and staff writer for The New Yorker, Louis Menand has a new book out titled The Marketplace of Ideas. In it he argues that the intellectual sanctuary currently occupied by the American liberal arts professoriate has turned their main task into one of increasingly pointless self-replication (e.g. English Literature professors are best at making more English Literature professors). Oh snap!

From Rob: Tech evangelist Robert Scoble interviews George Revutsky and Dustin Kittelson of ROI.works on how search engines like Google and Bing are getting wise to the tricks of SEO hacks and giving content its throne back bit by bit.

From Jeremiah: PDF My URL. Aside from sounding oddly inappropriate, it does what it says and turns a webpage into a handy PDF.

From Kevin Z.: The New Rubik’s Cube is now weirder to use and more expensive! If the ability to retain the mental list of algorithms required to solve the original cube wasn’t alienating enough, you can now own a version of the puzzle intended for use in a dark room by rich people!

From Doug: How much did your iPod cost…the planet? Sourcemap, a collaboration-based online tool can feed your guilt the facts about where the things you carry came from and how much carbon it took to put it in your hands. (You’re welcome.)

From Patrick: Disney/Pixar’s Up plus some Australian guy’s genius for mixing samples = a convincing argument for easing up on copyright restrictions. The seemingly sanctioned “Upular” borders on magical.

From Kevin R.: “Here we are now, entertain us…” Through submitted photos and short quotes, Jason Lazarus’s Nirvana documents the moment people were introduced to the iconic Seattle band. It’s a great look at the less broadcasted side of pop culture—the side of the receptors.

From Beth: Lastly, a WikiHow on “Deskercise”. Self-explanatory, I believe. You probably don’t even have to consult your physician. As a bonus, the video at the end can be viewed on its own as a scathing dissection of what it means to be a 21st century office worker.

Posted by Laurel Hechanova
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Learning from Teens About Social Media

Not surprisingly, teens are pretty smart about the way they use social media. Tim Nekritz wrote about this in a smart blog post on 22 October:what 15 freshmen taught me about social media. Here’s one of the most telling lines of Tim’s post:

I asked if they would feel different joining a group started by an institution vs. one started by a student. The enlightening response: We don’t even look for that or care. We just want to meet other students. Some even said they would prefer the groups be created by the college because they would trust the information more.

For these teens, it’s pretty clear: Facebook is a social experience. Tim’s small sample confirms what lots of other researchers, including danah boyd have to say. Karlyn Morrisette made a similar point:

Teenagers have always made a really clear distinction between things they use for their social lives and things they use for “business”. Friends are for social media. Colleges are “business.”

Disentangling professional and personal

So I’ve decided that I need to emulate those teens and straighten out my social networks. Maybe it’s because I’m trying to avoid engagement fatigue, or just organize my online life more effectively. Or maybe because my inner introvert nature is asserting itself.

But, whatever. Here are some of the changes I’ll be making.

Facebook: I resisted Facebook for a long time. Now that I’m using it regularly, I’ve become aware that its value is for me to communicate with friends and family. I really like the fact that a lot of people from my local, physical community are on Facebook. It’s a reality of my life that I can’t be as involved as I’d like to be with some of my neighbors in FTF relationships and Facebook offers a way for us to keep in touch: it’s better for me than the telephone. Same with family and more far-flung friends.

Some of my Facebook friends are people I’ve met professionally—folks with whom I have a relationship that goes well beyond what LinkedIn can offer. I’ve learned about their spouses and kids and it’s nice to have the glimpse of their lives that Facebook affords.

But the truth is that I’ve also friended a lot of folks I barely know, for the vaguest of reasons. So in the next week or so, I’m going to unfriend a slew of people and resign from a mess of fan pages. No offense to anyone: but I need to keep Facebook as a place where I stay in touch with people that I know fairly well.

LinkedIn: Yeah, I agree: LinkedIn has some deficiencies, but it’s the best we’ve got right now for professional networking. And it’s what I’m going to rely on for business relationships. If you are primarily a business friend/acquaintance, I’d welcome the opportunity to connect with you LinkedIn if we aren’t already connected. But not on Facebook.

Twitter: If you follow me on Twitter, you’ve probably guessed that I’ve grown to like it. [Thank you once again for the incentive to join, @KarineJoly!] It’s amazing to see how much you can communicate in 140 characters. I work alone some of the time, so Twitter provides a bit of a watercooler experience for me. And I really like the fact that Twitter provides the opportunity to segment one’s identity.

I have three Twitter IDs; most people reading this blog post will be interested in following either mStonerblog, which I use for business-related tweeting, or, for the next few months, CASE5sm. We set this up to communicate around the pre-conference workshop on social media at CASE V. I’m going to do some selective pruning of the people I follow on @mStonerblog: nothing drastic, but shedding some people whose insights are less valuable to me than others.

Making choices
I’m focused on these three tools because I’ve already found them personally valuable and, for now, they’re where I want to focus my activity. I am well aware that there are hundreds, if not thousands, of other communities in which I can participate if I choose to do so. I’m not much of a photographer, for example, so I’m really not into Flickr, and though I watch videos on YouTube like any netizen, I don’t spend a whole lot of time commenting on them. So Facebook, LinkedIn, and Twitter offer the best possible options for connecting with the other people I value in my personal and professional life.

Others are making similar choices. For example, I was interested to see last week that even Mr. .Edu Social Networking himself, Brad J. Ward, pruned his Twitter account. The blog post explaining the how and why makes fascinating reading.

One of my continuing realizations is that I just don’t have enough time to have a healthy marriage, do my work, stay connected with my mStoner colleagues, our clients, and the people I value in my personal life, and try every new tool or social networking trend that surfaces.

And, you know what? As social networking mania fades, people will make the same kinds of choices I’m making. Our audiences, members, supporters, alumni, donors, prospective students, etc.: they will also experience their own “a ha” moment, if they haven’t already, and start to think a lot more carefully about how they manage their online social life.

Can they really follow every fan page for every group they’ve had a tangential association with? How many updates from people they barely know are they willing to read when they open their Facebook page? How many Facebook games can they play? How many tweets from how many sporting events can they stomach on a Sunday morning when they log into TweetDeck or Nambu?

It all comes down to relevance. How relevant the content we’re consuming-in the form of tweets, blog posts, YouTube videos, Flickr images-is to our personal needs and interests. Time and attention are my most precious resources and I want to use them as wisely as possible.

Posted by Michael Stoner
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Redeveloping Your Website: Asking the Right Questions, Finding the Right Partner

How do you know when you need to do something about your website?

Maybe you’ve heard from your admissions team that the site doesn’t stack up against your peer or competitor institutions. Maybe faculty members have spoken up about much-needed services. Incoming freshman may have pointed out holes in the information they were searching for last spring. Maybe visitors aren’t using the site the way you want them to. Or maybe the site is just dated and ready for attention.

For many of our colleagues in education, deciding that it’s time for a website redesign isn’t hard. The challenge is figuring out how to get started. A successful website redesign requires funding, executive-level support, campus-wide buy-in, and thousands of hours of involvement from faculty, staff, and students from throughout the community. For the small group or individual charged with getting the ball rolling, the hurdles can seem impossibly high, even if your institution is a small and close-knit independent or professional school.

mStoner has completed hundreds of web development projects with schools, colleges, and universities of all sizes, and we’re the first to admit that there’s no single, magic solution.

To help clarify some of the basic decisions you need to make-and to help you know where to go from there-we wrote “Redeveloping Your Website: Asking the Right Questions, Finding the Right Partner.” Our white paper lays out some of the questions you need to ask about your needs and how you might begin to approach them. Some projects don’t need help from outside vendors or consultants, but if yours does, the white paper suggests how you can find the right partner to meet your needs.

For a copy of this white paper, contact Katie Jennings (katie.jennings(at)mStoner.com) and she’ll be happy to send you one.

And if you’ve read “Redeveloping Your Website: Asking the Right Questions, Finding the Right Partner,” please contribute your thoughts and comments about the issues it addresses in the comments to this post.

Posted by Michael Stoner
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Michael Stone Moves On

I got an email yesterday from my friend Michael Stone announcing that he was retiring after more than 35 years at UCLA. It took me back, way back, to 1995 and my first big consulting gig.

In 1995, UCLA’s vice chancellor John Kobara liked my idea of a “communications audit” of UCLA.edu. He thought it would be a really good idea to think about how all the separate websites in the UCLA domain could link up and how University Relations could work with other units to be proactive in developing UCLA’s site. He hired me to lead the intake and charged staff member Michael Stone with leading the project. Imagine, if you will, the administrative assistant who was making calls and telling people-among them, faculty-that she was making an appointment for Michael Stone and Michael Stoner to talk with them about the university’s website. I’ve imagined the responses she received and chortled over them many times in the years since.

Michael and I spent days meeting with units all over campus from academic units to students. I’d worked at Lehigh and Princeton (and attended a liberal arts college, a state university, and the University of Pennsylvania), so I had some idea of what what higher ed was like. But I often felt as if I was back in a folklore or anthropology class, doing fieldwork for an ethnography of kinship systems and power dynamics in a feudal state.

Our work led to a report and an approach that helped University Relations structure a relationship with other units on campus and create a new approach to UCLA.edu. According to Michael,

Our early work together on the UCLA web site was instrumental in my building credibility for what was then called University Relations to take over the UCLA Gateway and to work effectively with colleagues across the campus.

As for me, I learned a great deal from that project. I didn’t know much about marketing then, certainly at the level that Michael had practiced it as head of marketing for the UCLA Extension, and I gained some great insights from questions he asked and observations he made. And the process we used for that project-including the necessity of involving many people in listening and feedback sessions-became a cornerstone of the process that mStoner still uses.

Michael and I haven’t kept up with each other much over the years, though I knew that he remained at UCLA and continued to contribute to marketing efforts there. In his email to me, he noted that, “Old marketing guys never die, they just start to transform themselves.” He’s already worked out a gig with a marketing company that works with the travel industry: I can see that there are going to be horizons a bit more interesting and scenic than the ones in Westwood in his future.

So, Michael: Thanks for that important early partnership and what you taught me. Have fun reinventing yourself. And best wishes.

Posted by Michael Stoner
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The Recession: the Prospective’s Perspective

According to a survey conducted by the National Association for Business Economics, leading forecasters predict the end of the recession to be imminent: “About 74 percent of the forecasters expect the recession-which started in December 2007 and is the longest since World War II-to end in the third quarter. Another 19 percent predict the turning point will come in the final three months of this year, and the remaining 7 percent believe the recession will end in the first quarter of 2010.”

But while it lasts-and even after it’s over-what kind of impact will the economic downturn have on college enrollment? We marketing and admissions consultants and institutional professionals have had plenty of time to think about our points of view and ponder some of the big questions, such as: What will happen to admission trends in the next 10 years? Is there going to be a marked shift in the admissions landscape?

Meanwhile, consider the perspective of future students and families looking to send one or more children to college. They are worried about their own challenges. Loans have been much harder to come by and many households have one or more breadwinners out of work, so finding affordable ways to send students to college is a common source of frustration for American families.

Sometimes hearing personal stories is the best way to understand how the recession is affecting the people our institutions serve.

I found this collection of NPR stories and streaming audio from the last 11 months. If you’re interested in hearing a series that takes an empathetic approach to telling the story of the recession from the point of view of students and families who want to send their child to college at a bleak point in the American economy, check out the link. The streaming audio gives you the freedom to listen while you work .. after all, we’re not out of the recession yet!

Posted by Doug Gapinski
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Teens to Advertisers: We Don’t Want Your Texts (and Other Insights from YPulse Mashup)

I’m attending the YPulse Youth Marketing mashup in San Francisco, hoping to learn how top brands among teens and tweens manage to be successful in marketing to this incredibly discriminating audience. [You can follow #ypulse09 on Twitter if you’re interested.]

One of the best panels I’ve heard so far was a presentation by Bill Carter, a partner in Fuse Marketing, who talked about a study that Fuse did in conjunction with the University of Massachusetts on brand advertising aimed at teens. The survey-done with teens in “Sarah Palin’s America” (e.g. not just teens from the coasts and big cities)-aimed at whether advertising was memorable and presented in a channel that appealed to teens.

Carter emphasized the disconnects between what marketers believe is true about the power of various channels and what teens and tweens think, using these examples:

• TV is not dead to teens: 75% prefer and/or believe it’s appropriate for brands to reach them via TV ads.


• Teens are not interested in interacting with brands on social networks-at least the way brands represent themselves currently. Teens use social networking sites to connect with friends and do things that are fun-they don’t relate to brands online. Only 30% of teens have “friended a brand” on a social network.


• Official company websites aren’t dead: 80% of teens have gone to a official company’s product site and used them to make purchase decisions.


• Only 10% of teens approve of advertising in video games—teens just don’t believe that having advertisers in a game makes it more realistic. Carter said that ads for Burton snow boards in a videogame about snowboarding could make sense, but only because they’re in context.


• Teens aren’t interested in or receptive to ads in text messages: only 10% of teens approve of texting by advertisers; this ranked dead last in approval ratings by teens in what was acceptable in communications. Carter said that he believes this is mostly due to the way that current advertisers are using the medium, but it’s currently the case.


• Teens still read magazines: magazine ads receive high approvals and are the second-most-effective medium in reaching them.


• Teens say that the most effective advertising includes “people who look like me.” Only 20% prefer ads with celebrities or athletes as endorsers. The most memorable ad among teens was Verizon’s “can you hear me now” guy, Carter said.

In the Fuse study, 83% of those surveyed were average or heavy users of the Internet; 80% were average or heavy users of TV; 63% were average or heavy users of email; and 47% were average or heavy users of social networks.

Of the 80% of those surveyed who visited an official product website, 80% somewhat or strongly agreed that the site was valuable.

Posted by Michael Stoner
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