Wikipedia provides a very broad definition of personalization, which I do like: “using technology to accommodate the differences between individuals.” Specific to the groups that I am referring to, I believe that personalization can be more precisely defined as leveraging data to deliver relevant content to specific individuals.

That’s still pretty broad; what kind of data? what kind of content? what channels are being used? With this many constituencies looking to use personalization in their own ways to meet specific goals, those answers can range extensively. Furthermore, when these groups end up talking to each other about personalization, it can cause confusion and miscommunication. To clear the air, so-to-speak, I wanted to shed some light on the different ways personalization is being employed by these different groups.

• Cross-media Direct Marketing: You’re likely familiar with the personalization model for cross-media campaigns: a digitally-printed direct mail piece (or e-mail) with variable text and graphic elements and a personalized URL, which links to a personalized microsite with variable text and graphic elements, often highlighting the recipient’s name in some way. Personal and demographic data is primarily used to drive the personalization in these applications. Depending on the client/campaign, additional data may be used for more granular, relevant content.
• Digital Marketing: Personalization is popular with digital marketers. E-mail is a popular spot for personalization: according to a 2011 study by marketing technology provider Alterian, 72% of marketing professionals surveyed reported using personalization for their e-mail campaigns. E-mail marketing complexity ranges from mass blasts to segmentation to real-time individualization, typically using customer data and purchase history data to make recommendations. Another prominent personalization tactic for marketers is retargeting, which involves serving ads to a specific user after they have left a Website in efforts to raise brand awareness, recapture their attention, and drive people back to their Website.
• eCommerce: Business-to-consumer eCommerce was and still is a center of innovation in Web personalization, driven by Amazon.com and other eTailers looking to provide a custom-tailored experience for each individual user in hopes of getting them to buy more. For these sites, personalization often comes in the form of a recommendation engine, which tracks your browsing habits, shopping cart, wish list, reviews, purchase history, and other facets to deliver personalized recommendations on what the system thinks you would like. It should be noted that digital marketing goes hand-in-hand with eCommerce; real-time individualized e-mail marketing is common for eCommerce companies, and retargeting helps bring back shoppers that left the conversion funnel.
• Publishing: For print publishing, personalization often means mass customization, specifically in the print-on-demand model for books, where eCommerce orders trigger specific books to be printed, often in one-off fashion. Services like MagCloud and Time Inc’s Mine Magazine endeavor represent personalization efforts for magazines. On the Web and in digital media, personalization is geared more toward delivering relevant content based on an individual’s specific interests or preferences. Sometimes meeting this objective requires readers to input specific information about their tastes; other times, information like a Twitter, Facebook, or Google Reader account may be analyzed to assess your interests and deliver content based on who you’re friends with, who you follow, or what news you already read. A great example of this method is exhibited through Zite, a “personalized digital magazine” mobile app.
• Social Networking: Social networks are rife with different types of individuals’ data, making them ideal for personalization. Social networks typically employ personalization to deliver relevant content feeds from a user’s friends or connections on a network, as well as to deliver highly-targeted display advertising. For content delivery, networks may use algorithms to interpret connections, interactions, and profile information among users and deliver content based on what it believes is most relevant to each user. For advertising, networks typically act a facilitator between advertisers and users, presenting key profile characteristics of users that advertisers can choose to target.  Facebook generated over $3.5 billion in revenue through this type of advertising.
• Search: Search engines have always utilized algorithms to determine the display results of a user’s query, but these algorithms have recently started to take user information, such as profile or location data, into consideration before displaying results. Just recently, Google stepped up its game in this area, launching “Search, plus Your World“, which integrates a user’s Google+ data into everyday search queries. Advertising is a critical component to search, and generated over $35 billion in revenue worldwide for Google in 2011. Up until now, most search ads have been delivered based on the content of users’ search queries, but location information and even personal information are starting to be used to deliver more targeted search ads to users.

At its core, all that is needed to enable personalization is data, content, and a mechanism to have one drive the other. As has been covered, applying personalization for different use cases has a substantial impact on the type of data being used, the content that is being tied to that data, and the types of delivery mechanisms that enable that personalization. Understanding these differences and requirements for each application can help different stakeholders communicate more effectively when pursuing personalization, as well as open the door to new opportunities

To that point, research firm eMarketer estimates that U.S. mobile ad spending topped $1 billion in 2011, and expects spending in this channel to grow to over $4 billion by 2015. While various forms of mobile marketing have been around for well over a decade, only in the past few years have marketers started dedicating a more substantial percentage of their budgets to mobile in conjunction with other shifts to digital spending. Despite growth in these newer channels, it is important to remember that marketers are still dedicating a substantial percentage of their budgets to traditional media, including print, television, radio, sponsorships, and much more. Even so, marketers are focused on return-on-investment more than ever before, and they are constantly looking at ways to make their marketing across all media types more measureable and impactful.

In particular, a slew of mobile technologies are now being employed to integrate print and other media types with mobile and online channels, including mobile response codes, short code prompts for mobile messaging, augmented reality, and much more. InfoTrends recently completed a study entitled Mobile Technology: Making Print Interactive, which  investigates how mobile is being integrated with print and other media types. In this study, we captured consumer, marketer, and service provider perspectives to understand how mobile technology can be effectively utilized within traditional, offline media to drive audiences to engaging online experiences.

One key finding from our study highlights that, especially for mobile response codes, marketers are turning to their print service provider partners to help them create, deploy, and manage integrated mobile campaigns. Print service providers have a tremendous opportunity to develop domain expertise in the mobile channel through integrated campaigns and programs, but they need to make sure they have the right strategy, provide the right mix of services, and have the tools and technology to support their efforts. Below are some key considerations for service providers looking to build out mobile marketing services:

1. The mobile channel is still relatively new for many marketers and advertisers, and they are looking for guidance how they should approach mobile in a way that will meet their goals and resonate with their target audience. Providers need to take a consultative approach to mobile, capturing key characteristics of the client, its products and services, and the audience it is trying to reach to make recommendations. For instance, mobile apps are hot right now, and many clients may ask for them, but it’s up to the service provider to help guide clients to solutions that fit their specific needs… and then execute appropriately.
2. Understanding how to design, deliver, and manage digital content designed for mobile devices is a requirement, not an option. There have been too many times where a QR code is slapped on a printed piece that links to content that doesn’t render well on mobile devices, ultimately delivering a bad user experience. In our study, we found that once consumers interact with mobile response codes and other mobile technologies, they tend to interact again and again. The end-to-end user experience is a critical component of any mobile marketing campaign; a good experience will help drive future interaction and engagement in the mobile channel.
3. To that point, when you’re getting into mobile, it is important to note that a wide range of tools and technologies are on the market that help companies create and deliver mobile content, generate and track mobile response codes, perform campaign management, and much more. In other words, don’t start from scratch! Many software platforms allow service providers and agencies to whitelabel their solutions to use as the backbone for their integrated mobile campaigns. Technology from the likes of 3Seventy, Blink Capture, iFlyMobi, NetBiscuits, Print2D, ScanBuy, ShareSquare, SumoText, Tatango, and many others can be utilized to help power your mobile marketing services.
4. As mentioned, marketers don’t want to have to wait for sales figures to see if their marketing investment paid off. They need actionable insights that can help them optimize campaigns in real time to have maximum impact. As such, measurement and optimization are table stakes when it comes to mobile marketing (and digital marketing in general). Mobile technology can provide marketers with a wealth of data, including location information, which can help personalize content and also influence campaign optimization to ensure that campaigns meet defined objectives.
5. Finally, don’t just limit yourself to mobile response codes. The ease at which people can generate QR codes has been a catalyst for substantial growth in marketers and service providers integrating them across different media types. Nevertheless, mobile message marketing, mobile advertising, and more are becoming much easier to get involved with; providers need to consider these types of services when developing their mobile services strategy.

Mobile will undoubtedly continue its upward trajectory in terms of adoption and share of ad spend. Service providers need to, at a minimum, investigate if and how they should include the mobile channel within their existing suite of product and service offerings. While the aforementioned considerations only scratch the surface, they can help guide you and your clients to success with mobile.

Has your company expanded its service offerings to include mobile marketing and advertising? Share your experiences and your own key considerations in the comments!

At a financial analyst briefing in November, Adobe made a number of announcements about what it is doing with those acquisitions, and more broadly, the direction in which the company is headed. Most of the news coverage in the tech community that surrounded this briefing was Adobe’s intention to stop any future development of its Flash for mobile platform. Instead, the company is opting to focus on leveraging HTML5 and other standard Web technologies in the mobile arena. Adobe is also putting more emphasis on these technologies in general, as showcased by some of its concept products it has released for testing, including Muse (aimed at helping users design and publish HTML websites without the need to write code) and Edge (an application that is meant to help people create animated Web content using HTML5, CSS3, and JavaScript).

Some noted the scaling back of Flash as a posthumous win for the late Apple CEO Steve Jobs, who was adamantly opposed to putting Flash on Apple’s iDevices because of what he felt were flaws that made Flash inferior in the mobile realm. What was substantially under-reported in the tech world was Adobe’s clear shift in direction, as highlighted by a reorganization that re-targets the company to focus on two main areas: digital media and digital marketing.

The company is also pushing its users to get out of a perpetual licensing model of buying and upgrading its Creative Suite product line to a cloud-based subscription pricing model that lets users pay for access to Creative Suite tools on a monthly basis. To do this, Adobe has developed the Creative Cloud, a Web-based community and portal for users to manage their Creative Suite applications and connect with other creative professionals. While the company will continue to sell perpetual licenses in the near future, it has very clear plans to fully migrate 100% of Creative Suite users to the Creative Cloud over time.

With the Creative Cloud on the Digital Media side, there is also Adobe’s cloud-based Digital Marketing Suite, which is geared toward the company’s solutions for digital marketing, including Web and social analytics, content management, digital asset management, eCommerce, display advertising, e-mail marketing, and customer relationship management. Adobe’s goal is to provide a suite of solutions for marketing professionals that can help them compete effectively in the online channel.

Furthermore, Adobe is shifting its business strategy from simply being a technology provider to a company that also provides services to help businesses with things like content monetization. In this sense, Adobe’s transformation pushes it closer to competing with some of its customers and partners; it will be interesting to see how this plays out in the near future. Just weeks after its financial analyst briefing, the company announced the acquisition of Efficient Frontier, a provider of digital ad buying and performance management solutions. This acquisition is further proof that Adobe is intent on not just providing tools to create content, but that it fully wants to provide solutions to help its customer monetize the content they are creating.

All in all, Adobe’s changes are much more substantial than no longer developing Flash for mobile; the company is totally revamping its strategy to focus on digital media and digital marketing, and expanding its scope to offer companies help with content monetization. As an unfortunate by-product of this reorganization, Adobe is also laying off about 750 people, or around 7% of its workforce. Layoffs aside, the company is, of course, painting a compelling future for itself, as well as digital media and marketing in general. With the marketing and media landscapes still undergoing a high degree of transformation, it may not be a bad bet.

What do you think of Adobe’s recent moves? Can it refocus its business while maintaining trust and good relationships with its long-standing customer base? Have you already moved from a perpetual licensing model to a monthly subscription via the Creative Cloud? We’d love to hear your thoughts.

Indeed, by offering self-service tools and a broad array of vertically-focused templates, these companies have grown tremendously and their services are used by millions of businesses worldwide to do everything from buy business cards and manage e-mail newsletters to launching full-blown direct marketing campaigns. While we often talk in terms of business-to-business (B2B) and business-to-consumers (B2C) models, these types of services have blurred these lines by making businesses buy more like consumers, while keeping the systems open enough to even attract consumer users.

Why are these services popularized and still growing? According to the Small Business Association, there are over 27 million small and medium businesses in the United States, accounting for between 60% and 80% of all U.S. jobs. SMBs are typically characterized as establishments with fewer than 500 full-time employees. Thus, the market opportunity is tremendous, even if you are only able to reach a fraction of SMBs in the country. The power and flexibility of the Web, and in the case of Vistaprint and other online print businesses, the power of a highly-automated production environment, have enabled companies to service large volumes of small orders, something which is becoming more common even in larger organizations.

InfoTrends saw this trend becoming prominent and in 2009, conducted an in-depth study on the topic entitled Capturing the SMB Business Communication Services Opportunity, which surveyed over 2,000 small and medium business across 13 major vertical markets to understand how these companies were utilizing some of the very services just mentioned. We found that just like larger companies, SMBs were diversifying their marketing mix, with traditional media still being an important component but also heavily emphasizing the use of the Web and e-mail to reach their target audiences. Social media was also increasing in importance. At the time, 32.1% of SMBs indicated using Facebook to promote their businesses, while 16.9% indicated using Twitter to do the same. We hypothesize that these numbers have increased substantially in just the last few years.

Furthermore, we found that SMBs had a preference for a “one stop shop” type of experience for printing needs, and we feel that also translates into marketing services, as well. There are a number of vertically-focused services and service providers on the market that cater to a specific set of small and medium businesses. For instance, GuestEngine and Fishbowl provide turnkey marketing services and tools to restaurant owners. Demandforce originally focused on automotive services and dentists, but has expanded its marketing platform to personal services and other healthcare specialists. SharperAgent provides self-service, cross-media marketing campaigns to independent real estate agents, and was recently acquired by real estate software developer Market Leader.

These types of vertical-focused platforms are the next step in the evolution of SMB marketing services. InfoTrends is referring to them as SMB marketing automation services, as many of them aim to automate various aspects of the marketing process for companies while tailoring the services to meet the intricate needs of a particular market. Focusing on one or a particular set of vertical markets also equals more replicable applications. We are currently conducting a follow-up study to our 2009 research on this topic with a study entitled Capturing the SMB Marketing Automation Opportunity, which will be sure to glean valuable insight into how this market continues to evolve.

As it is often said, small and medium businesses are the backbone of the U.S. economy, and they want to succeed and be effective in their marketing just as much as a large enterprise corporation does. Through the power of the Web, many SMBs now have the tools to market smarter. Nevertheless, there is always room for improvement and plenty of opportunity exists for service providers that want to take on the task of making print and marketing services more effective for a particular market.

According to a recently released study by IBM, complexity is a top challenge for the world’s CMOs, largely driven by the explosion of data,  social media platforms, the proliferation of channels & devices available, and the shifting nature of consumer demographics. For this study, IBM conducted face-to-face interviews with over 1,700 marketing executives from around the world as part of series on understanding C-level challenges and opportunities. The resulting report, entitled “From Stretched to Strengthened”, paints a picture of chief marketers that need to do more with less, deal with technology on a more intimate level, and ensure that the marketing strategies and tactics they use are effective and measurable.

Regarding the topic of complexity, IBM found that CMOs face a a “complexity gap”; almost 80% of CMOs believe that the world will become more complex over the next five years, but only 48% feel that they are prepared to handle this increase in complexity. Other important insights from the study include:

• CMOs and their marketing organizations are making strategic decisions based on broad market information versus information from individual customers. For instance, 74% of CMOs reported using customer analytics to understand their individual customers, but other sources like consumer-generated reviews, third-party reviews/ratings, and online communications fell below the 50% mark. Marketers need to be more customer-focused, and leveraging these types of data sources can help them do that.
• Technology is a much more important factor in marketing organizations these days, but there are two primary barriers to leveraging technology more effectively: cost and lack of ROI certainty. Furthermore, end-user skill sets and marketing’s alignment with IT are key concerns for CMOs looking to make greater use of technology.

IBM, of course, has made significant investments in acquiring data and marketing technology providers over the last few years, including Cognos, Coremetrics, and Unica, so this research fits quite nicely into the company’s narrative of helping marketers conquer some of these challenges through IBM’s technology. That being said, this also means that there is a substantial opportunity for service providers to help marketers solve some of these problems by utilizing data, making marketing more measurable, and ultimately simplifying the complex nature of this new world of marketing and communications. What are you doing to help your clients simplify the complex while driving strong return on marketing investment?

The major keynotes at DMA reflect its transformation. Biz Stone, co-founder of Twitter, spoke directly after Kimmel’s opener via Skype, which seemed to throw attendees off quite a bit as the perception was that Stone would be there live (his wife is expecting a child soon, which is why he couldn’t make it). Nevertheless, the entrepreneur gave a good, thoughtful talk about the founding of Twitter, its adoption by marketers, and the “a-ha” moment that marketers had about listening and engaging with people (in real-time, of course).

After Biz’s talk, his floating video presence was joined by Scott Kirsner, technology columnist and blogger for the Boston Globe, and Gary Vaynerchuk, owner of WineLibrary and consultant to brands about using social media. The crew discussed the finer points of how to leverage social media in smart ways to deliver a great customer experience. That afternoon, Facebook’s VP of Global Marketing Solutions, Grady Burnett, talked about similar concepts in how the social Web transforms business.

The session tracks more than hinted at an increased focus in digital marketing. These tracks included topics like “Acquisition & Lead Generation,” “Real-Time & Trigger Marketing,” “Mobile Strategies,” and “Data, Measurement, & Attribution.” Each track also had courses broken out by knowledge/skill level to help guide people to the most relevant ones. DMA had a pretty stringent submission and review process for sessions this year, resulting in higher quality content that provided real value to attendees.

The show floor also represented the continued shift to digital and cross-media marketing. More and more print service providers are coming to DMA, pitching their marketing-centric services to attendees. Quad/Graphics was showcasing its new Interactive Print Solution, which combines multiple mobile response technologies, including mobile barcodes, image recognition, augmented reality, and near-field communication, into one integrated solution. Many vendors in the digital print space were in attendance, presenting their solutions for direct marketers. There is also an influx of digital marketing solution providers large and small. On the large side is IBM, which has made many acquisitions in the digital marketing space including Unica and Coremetrics, which were on display. There were more niche vendors, as well, especially related to mobile marketing.

There was a sizable, enthusiastic crowd in attendance at DMA2011, and while I was only able to attend the show Monday, one thing remained crystal clear: those that want to continue to be successful with direct marketing, whether it be from the service provider or the marketer side, need to embrace digital and cross-media marketing. These areas are the fastest growing in the industry, and will be the future of direct marketing.

1. Integration, Automation for Print and Beyond

As Cary Sherburne reported in her Graph Expo retrospective, production automation is a critical technology that will help drive efficiency and scalability in print businesses. Collaboration among different vendors to help their customers meet their goals is happening at a greater rate than in the past, as evidenced by many of the larger OEM vendors showcasing partner solutions and integrations at their booths. Hybrid Software, which specializes in providing software technology that integrates disparate information and production systems, had a consistently packed booth. Enfocus also generated a lot of interest with the new release of its Switch automation tool. Regarding the “beyond” part of this trend, the inaugural marketing pavilion that featured a variety of marketing-related solution vendors exhibiting also generated a significant amount of traffic despite its somewhat undesirable location toward the back of the show floor.

2. The Next Wave of Web Enablement

There were a number of developments and even some new entrants at Graph Expo related to the Web services space. As I mentioned in my original post, I was anticipating the launch of a new print eCommerce solution from Keen Systems. I was able to grab a pre-show briefing/demo, and the solution definitely has some potential; it also won a “Worth-a-look” award, which is great for a first-time exhibitor. Another company that has been around for a few years but just started exhibiting again was PrintNow, which offers three easy-to-understand software packages that service providers can leverage. Aleyant Systems, creators of the Pressero system, debuted their updated online interactive design tool, which was rebuilt on HTML5 instead of Adobe Flex/Flash for broader device support. EFI also previewed the latest version of its Digital StoreFront product, which included a revamped interface and ordering workflow. All in all, the future of Web enablement is shaping up quite nicely, and was on display at Graph Expo 2011.

3. Taking a Fresh Look at Print MIS

While production automation was one of the critical technologies outlined in Cary’s piece, MIS was the top critical technology, and there was plenty of activity related to MIS at Graph Expo this year. While EFI’s dominance in this space was certainly apparent, there were plenty of developments from other players. Heidelberg highlighted its Prinect Business Manager based on its CERM acquisition; the company plans to begin initial implementations of the solution in October or November. Technique received a great deal of attention at the show because of its new mobile application (iTechnique), which provides sales reps and managers with access to information such as customer profiles, active jobs, and the ability to submit new proposals. Avanti Systems highlighted its recent integration with Ultimate Impostrip, as well as its Customer Relationship Management capabilities. Finally, the very recent merger of vendors printLEADER and PrintPoint resulted in shared booth space and a showcase of how their products work together. With a renewed focus on operational optimization, MIS continues to be a key enabler, and printers are taking note.

4. Harnessing the Cloud

As I mentioned in my last post, utilizing the cloud results in easier implementations, reduction in software costs, and provides scalability as needs change. For print businesses to be more agile and make changes or shift directions as the market requires, flexibility and scalability are key factors. Many vendors were offering different flavors of cloud computing at Graph Expo. We already mentioned Keen, which is a true multi-tenant, cloud-based service. Many other vendors are taking the approach of leveraging virtualization, enabling customers to deploy software with less hardware footprint and greater efficiency. Kodak mentioned that it enabled virtualization with its Prinergy workflow suite earlier this year, and many customers have taken the opportunity to optimize their deployments.

5. Getting Serious About Mobile

While this trend was listed as number five on my list, I really think that mobile made a huge splash at Graph Expo and the issue of mobility will become a focal point for both vendors and service providers in the near future. I counted at least a dozen different mobile-related product announcements and features at Graph Expo, and I fully expect more to take shape between now and drupa. Some of these developments are around mobile marketing, including the ability to make print more interactive. Other developments are around the concept of mobile production management. My colleague, Barb Pellow, went into many of these announcements in further detail in one of her recent articles. It will be interesting to see how these applications are adopted by service providers and what benefits they provide.

Overall, Graph Expo was pretty great this year, and I think many of the software trends I highlighted were fairly prominent themes at the show. These are just my own views, though. What did you see at Graph Expo that really stood out to you? I’d love to hear your thoughts.

Much is being made of Jobs’ influence on Apple’s highly successful products: the original Macintosh computer, along with the seminal line of the iPod, iPhone, and iPad devices. Additionally, there is a lot of talk about Jobs’ influence on Apple’s advertising and marketing efforts, of which many memorable ads have come. One area that hasn’t gotten as much light shed on it during this time of reflection is Jobs’ influence on our own industry of graphic communications. Whatever your feeling about Steve Jobs and Apple, there is no denying that the Macintosh helped spur the desktop publishing revolution and catalyzed a transformation across the media production landscape, including print, video, and now interactive applications.

Much of this revolution can be pointed back directly to Steve Jobs’ influence on the first Macintosh PC and its successors. Jobs once noted during his graduation speech at Stanford University that when he dropped out of Reed College, he still snuck into a number of classes (even though he wasn’t enrolled), and one of those classes was calligraphy. He learned not only about calligraphy but of typography and what comprises good design aesthetic. Good design and typography were, therefore, major factors that influenced the design of software for the Macintosh, as well as the form factors that are prominent in today’s popular Apple products.

The first Macintosh PC had a variety of fonts to choose from, as well as pre-loaded software for word processing and layout. Soon after the Mac’s initial release, LaserWriter printers could be connected to the Mac, and third-party applications like Aldus PageMaker, Adobe Photoshop, and QuarkXPress were developed and initially touted Mac-only support. With creative software primarily available on the Mac platform throughout the 1980s and into the early 1990s, Apple held a dominant presence in the graphic communications industries.

While Windows-based PCs have made inroads in these industries, especially from a pure business administration perspective, recent InfoTrends research indicates that the Mac platform is still holding strong throughout the graphic communications industries. Apple’s market share in terms of operating systems is comparatively larger in our industry than in other industries, and companies are generally very good about upgrading to the latest operating system releases. With Apple still on stable footing and creatives still attracted to Apple and Mac, it’s hard to fathom this will change anytime soon, even with Jobs’ sudden departure.

All told, Steve Jobs had a tremendous influence on the creation of the Macintosh, which in turn had a significant impact on the core creative processes and workflows we’re all now accustomed to today. You could say that he’s doing it all over again with the rise in popularity of mobile devices, with Apple at the center of that transformation. While it may be disconcerting to those thinking about from the perspective of the future of Apple, Jobs has created an innovative culture that is instilled through every aspect of the business, from product development through its retail stores. It’s definitely hard to imagine Apple without Jobs at the helm, especially considering the downward spiral it went into after he left the first time. This time, however, he has built up a strong team that he can confidently pass the torch to for at least another generation.

The concept of a digital mailbox or digital mail delivery is certainly not new. In the enterprise, vendors like Esker, Océ, and Pitney Bowes offer digital mail delivery solutions whereby each piece of mail that comes into the company is scanned and delivered electronically to employee recipients. EarthClassMail is an early service for smaller businesses and consumers that also scans and manages mail. With a mix of new entrants and existing players, there is aggressive development of digital mailbox services for consumers, designed to reach every household in the United States, just like the USPS. There are a number of key players to watch in this space:

• Accenture, the worldwide consulting and outsourcing firm, is taking the approach of partnering directly with national postal services to help them develop digital mailbox services. It has clearly stated it is aiming to help global posts design their own services to compete directly against some of the independent digital mailbox services listed below.
• doxo is a technology start-up that takes a broad approach to the digital mailbox, enabling users to not only import electronic bills and statements, but also many other types of documents that can either be uploaded or scanned in via its mobile phone application.
• Manilla, started by Hearst Corporation, provides access to over 1,000 companies to enable users to consolidate and manage bills and loyalty programs, including major wireless carriers, cable & satellite TV providers, utilities, financial companies, airlines, and more. Certified Manilla partners can also present targeted advertisements to Manilla users alongside the sender’s content, which offers an intriguing TransPromo play.
• Pitney Bowes announced its Volly digital mailbox offering at the beginning of 2011, although the offering is still in beta. According to my colleague Matt Swain’s blog post on the service after its announcement, “Think of Volly as an extension of a conventional consumer bill consolidation model, incorporating other types of mail into the same platform.” There is no doubt that PB will be highlighting Volly at Graph Expo this year.
• Zumbox, another technology start-up, has made waves recently with its million-dollar giveaway contest to get people signed up for its service. The company has a unique twist on its service in that it uses your physical mail address as your digital mailbox address, as well. Like others, its concept is to digitally centralize the management of all mail being sent to a household.

There is a great deal of innovation occurring in this space right now, and considering the rapid pace of technology proliferation and adoption these days, it would not be surprising if these companies and their services make a big splash in the near future. InfoTrends is investigating this market right now, currently conducting a research study entitled The Emergence of Digital Mailbox Services: Moving Beyond Online Bill Consolidation in the U.S. This research initiative will identify the opportunity for secure digital mailbox services in the U.S. and will include a growth projection through 2015. I’m excited to see how this space shapes up, as these services could have a major influence on how we delivery, accept, and manage our mail.

According to the Outdoor Advertising Association of America (OAAA), digital billboards make up a small percentage of the estimated 400,000+ billboards scattered across the United States, with around 2,400 digital displays currently in operation. With the Federal Highway Administration just giving its approval for advertisers to leverage “changeable electronic variable message signs” in 2007, the growing presence of digital billboards along the road and elsewhere has been quite substantial. More marketers and advertisers are putting at least some budget toward digital out-of-home advertising, which is expected to increase as more options become available.

Research firm eMarketer reports that outdoor ad spend is expected to reach $6.4 billion this year in the United States alone, and predicts this spend to increase to $7.6 billion by 2016. That’s a significant market with serious growth potential, and results in a lot of printing, especially of the wide format and grand format variety. We already know that digital media and advertising is impacting traditional print media spend related to publications, promotions, and even general collateral. Will digital media have a similar impact in the world of outdoor advertising?

There is certainly potential for digital media to have an adverse impact on traditional media. According to research conducted by another trade organization, the Digital Place-based Advertising Association (DPAA), around three-quarters of media planners surveyed indicated that digital place-based marketing will be part of their media mix spend in 2011 (note that place-based advertising also constitutes digital ads that are displayed inside taxi cabs, at gyms, in malls, and other “non-billboard” applications). That same research indicated that these planners are actually funding digital media by shifting spend from traditional outdoor advertising.

Of course, digital billboards are still relatively in their infancy, and do have some disadvantages. Ads are typically rotated every 8 to 12 seconds. If you’re advertising on a stretch of highway that is prone to traffic jams, each ad can be viewed by a lot of eyeballs. Conversely, with cars constantly zooming by at high speeds, the audience potential decreases (one of the advantages of a traditional, static billboard).

Furthermore, concerns have been raised about how distracting the bright, rotating ads can be to drivers and also to nearby residents. Massachusetts is currently conducting a crash study on the 11 digital billboards currently being piloted in the state. Prior studies reached different conclusions on whether or not digital billboards increase accidents, with further research needed. Residents of some cities with proposed digital billboards are battling them under the premise of preventing further commercialization of the landscape. Cash-strapped cities like Miami have quickly erected digital billboards to raise revenues, only to later run into legal problems with existing state and federal laws barring their placement. There are sure to be contentious battles between municipalities and media companies like Clear Channel, Lamar, Adams, and others that want to erect what some call “the next big advertising opportunity” and others call “blight” or “monstrosities”.

Regardless, there are plenty of places willing to try out digital outdoor advertising, as it has already made inroads across the United States and will certainly continue to grow. The overall outdoor market is large and on a growth path, but it’s clear that there is a shift in media budgets from traditional to digital in this space. Service providers, especially those with competency in wide/grand format and, more specifically, those that produce the billboards we see everyday, need to consider how they can get in the digital game. Could it be ad creation and preparation for digital formats? Could it be partnerships with out-of-home ad networks or even direct competition with these networks? There are many options, and they should all be explored.