The more the best!

However there is a limit.

A study at Oxford University compared the size of the human brain, specifically the Neocortex, the area responsible for conscious thought, with other primates. Researchers crossed this information with data about the social organisation of each species over time, and have come to the conclusion that 150 is the maximum of friends a person can have.

For you to maintain a friendship with someone, you need to memorise information about that person (e.g.name and details of her character), which are triggered when you interact. For some reason, the brain does not contain data on more than 150 people. The relationships that go beyond this number will inevitably be more casual rather than friendship.
Other researchers went further and found that, within this group of 150, there are a series of concentric circles of friendship: 5, 15, 50 and 150 people, each with different characteristics.

Finite Circle
The brain contains no more than 150 friends, divided into groups.

Intimate group
5 friends – is the intimate, with whom you speak more – and would not hesitate to call at dawn or call to borrow money. For Aristotle, 5 was the maximum number of true friends.

Group of empathy
15 friends – people are very important to you – if any of them died tomorrow, you’d be very upset. This group may include people from work or friends of friends.

Typical number
50 friends – is the number of friendships maintained by most people, and also the average size of early human groups .

Limit
150 friends – Maximum that the brain can handle at once. These are the people whose names, faces and features you can memorise and trigger if necessary. The curious thing is that these circles had been mentioned by philosophers such as Confucius, Plato and Aristotle – and are also present in various forms of human organisation. In classical philosophy, 5 were already considered the maximum number of close friends that anyone could have.

Apart from football and footy (here in Australia) , 12 to 15 people is the amount of players in most sports. Fifty was the average number of people hunting in primitive communities (as the Aborigines here).

But even with so many practical examples, no one can explain why our friendships limit is 150 people.

So, next time you find someone with more than 150 “friends” on Facebook or Google+, think again.

Cheers

Lucio

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Transcription:

ADMA Forum 2010.

http://bit.ly/admaf

The Marketing industry is in transition!  That was the clear message at this year’s  ADMA Forum at the Sydney Convention & Exhibition Centre.

“ADMA 2010 had emphasis on the ability to master multi-channel campaigns” , Rob Edwards – CEO ADMA

As the Social Media Manager for the event I was lucky enough to have a bird’s eye view as local and international visitors shared a similar theme.

A great line-up of speakers offered a wide-range of experienced and newer talents. Tim Suther (CMO – ACXIOM), Stan Rapp, Olivier Blanchard (BrandBuilder), Meaghan Burdick (Obama For America Marketing Director) led the overseas contingent while locally we were ably represented by agency experts including Jeff Richardson from The Online Circle Group, Iain McDonald from Razorfish, and Jeremy Perrot from McCann WorldGroup, and clients with real life experience including Cadbury’s Roger Sharp, Karen Ganschow from Telstra, Ed Falconiform Myer and Daniel Roberts from Woolworths .

Networking was guaranteed with the 2010 event having its biggest delegate numbers ever.  400 people attended the first day’s keynote address and more came in later.

A broad range of exhibitors from a wide variety of business and technology providers showed they understand the challenges of the transition required and are committed to making their offering as detailed and comprehensive as possible.

Lesson #1 from the ADMA Forum 2010 – Multi-Channel campaigns are becoming increasingly vital for companies determined to grow.

• Tim Suther-CMO of Axciom on his presentation (one of my favourites) Hope is not a strategy, “Not too long ago 80% of CEO’s said they deliver a superior customer experience. 8% of customer’s agreed…May I suggest a change may be necessary.”
• Roger Sharp from Cadbury and Jeff Richardson from The Online Circle went into detail outlining a crisis Cadbury went through in 2009 where consumers voiced their cause online against the brand. This forced the company to embrace the online environment with The Online Circle creating a very detailed strategy to listen and work with the online influencers to solve the problem.

Lesson #2 from the ADMA Forum 2010 – Understand multi-dimensional insights.

• Changing consumer behaviour starts with changing yours. You cannot predict the future but you can use your data, analytics information and website behaviour to help shape your Marketing Strategy.

• “One method is not ‘the only’ method any more. Take advantage of all of the direct marketing and social media tools that are available to speak to your customers today. We did and we elected the U.S. president” Meaghan Burdik – Direct Marketing Director, Obama for America.

• The advice on the floor was: Build intuitive, dynamic, multi-channel campaigns to engage customers on a personal level. Engaging with customers in a two-way dialogue, connecting online and offline channels within an analytics framework and fully recognising the value of each individual customer is the way of the future.

·         “Social Media means data. All actions leave a trail and you can use this data for research and strategy. It should be treated like any other Marketing Communications opportunity: with One Strategy, not 100 tactics”. Jeff Richardson, CEO The Online Circle.

·         “Monitor cross channels and avoid channel conflicts” Daniel Roberts – Head of Online Woolworth.

A strong message from the speakers was the need to marry research, on handoff line, with database analysis to define an holistic understand of your target. At some point during the conference someone told me “Better to have a simple analysis that delivers insight than complex analysis that delivers confusion”.

Lesson #3 from the ADMA Forum 2010: Make sure off-line and on-line communications are aligned. Your brand and key messages should be consistent across the spectrum of channels available. Know your market, learn which mixed channel customers respond best and provide premium results. (thanks to Graham Plant from Pacific Digital).

And then came the subject of ROI and the measurement of impact of online into offline conversions

• Olivier Blanchard (@thebrandbuilder), Christian Bartens (Datalicious) and Karen Ganschow (Telstra) nailed the topic, delivering great presentations about the real tangibility of measuring financial ROI and the impact of online into offline activity. Very impressive, real and informative.

Mr Blanchard  “to effectively measure the impact of social media, companies need to blend three things: social media measurement, analytics and a business metric. Where most companies fail is they don’t add that third component.

Through my eyes – it was good to see most companies and agencies measuring social media with criteria such as how often people click on ads, likes and followers those numbers are still the Internet currency. However it was disappointing that they failed to include harder business metrics to truly measure the impact on the bottom line.

Far from being a theoretical discussion, the ADMA Forum 2010 was a forum to discuss the change in consumer behaviour and the dangerous approach of considering your communications in silos being driven by tactics and channels rather than insights and strategy. Well worth being there.

Lucio Ribeiro is Managing Director for The Online Circle and it was ADMA Forum 2010 Social Media Manager, you can find him on Twitter @lucio_ribeiro or http://au.linkedin.com/in/luciodiasribeiro

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As my part of being Social Media Manager for ad:tech, I want to help my readers get the most out of the event. So I’m providing you with some tips to prepare yourself before attending.

There are many things you should do before attending ad:tech if you want to be prepared and make the most of the conference.

I’ve broken them down into three main categories for you: research, connect, and plan.

Research for ad:tech Sydney 2010

The very first thing you need to do is research.

You need to have a look through http://www.ad-tech.com/sydney/adtech_sydney.aspx to make sure you know the dates (16^th and 17^th of March), and have a look through the schedule to see which presentations you want to attend (I strongly suggest to attend Jeff’s-Cadbury case).

If you haven’t already had a look, you’ll see there’s always three different presentations running at the one time, so take note of the ones that interest you the most.

You should also have a look through the sponsors, exhibitors and speakers at the event. Have a look through some of their websites to see what you know about them, if they’d be of any value to you – i.e. a prospective client, or a coonection to a prospective client.

It will also be very beneficial for you to have an idea of who is going to ad:tech Sydney, and what they do.

And to do this you can use the hashtag I mentioned last week #ATSYD to search and you’ll be able to see many names – well Twitter accounts – of people attending or you can just head to the list on ad:tech Sydney Twitter list.

Then you can look through them to see if any of them could be beneficial for you to know or just to talk to at the conference. It’s always nice to know something about the person before you meet them, and they might be very impressed or flattered that you know just one thing about who they are or what they do because you’ve taken your time to read their blog or visit their website.

Similarly, I’d also recommend reading up on as much industry news as you can, the more you know about the latest digital marketing and advertising news, the more impressive you’ll sound when you’re networking at the event.

Connect

Connect or die.

Once you’ve found the people you think will be the best people for you to meet and talk to at the conference, start connecting with them through social media now.

A simple tweet to say hi breaks the ice a bit and you get to introduce yourself before meeting them. This means when you do meet them at the conference, they will probably have looked through your website/blog to find out who you are.

Another great way of making a small connection with someone influential in the industry if you’re not game enough to tweet (or e-mail, Facebook them etc.) is to leave a comment on their blog.

People will always read people’s comments on their own blog as they want to see what feedback and discussion they’re receiving.

If you leave a comment to engage in conversation with them, discussing their blog posting they’ll probably reply to you and you will already have started that connection. Then once at ad:tech, you’ll be able to tell them you’re the person who was having a discussion with them via comments on their blog. They will be very impressed by this – assuming you’ve posted intelligence comments with valid points on their blog – and you’ll receive a great first impression from them.

Plan

Plan

Think about how you want people to remember you. Think about and plan a little introduction speech, so when you meet people instead of introducing yourself in a monotonous boring way, think of something interesting you can say about yourself. This will help people remember who you are, instead of you becoming just a face of one of the many hundreds or thousands of people they meet over the course of the event.

Also plan what types of conversations you want to be having. This means you won’t be talking to someone and after the introductions have nothing to say, making it awkward for both of you. This is why you need to research as I mentioned earlier. It will give you ideas of good conversational topics you can raise with people.

You also need to make sure your business cards, website, and resume are up-to-date. The last thing you want to do is get there and realise you have out-dated, amateur looking business cards that you feel ashamed to be giving out. Remember, people will judge you on your business cards, because apart from anything you may have just said to them in the few minutes you’ve been talking to them, they have nothing else to judge you on yet – and we all know how important first impressions are.

Also think of technical issues that you may forget about later. i.e make sure you have extra batteries or power supplies for your laptop, remember to bring your phone and laptop charger. All the little things that are essential, but you may forget you need to write a list or pack them early.

Doing each of these three steps: researching, connecting and planning will give you the competitive edge.

People will remember you, you’ll create far more meaningful and powerful contacts, and you’ll get the most out of the conference.

Hope to see you there

Lucio

on Twitter

on Facebook

on everything else.

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This is the case of a Saatchi & Saatchi Singapore campaign for Singapore Navy Services.

Problem:

Singapore navy service was struggling to attract high-level, intellectual professionals with a combination of mental aptitude and strategic thinking. Even though they were receiving thousands of applicants, most had not the combination of skills necessary for the position.

Challenge:

To attract  5-10% of top graduating students who might never consider a career as a naval officer and one day would command a multi-million dollar, state of the art frigates.

The idea:

Working with a selected database list rather than a fancy app on facebook or a pushy broadcasting account on twitter, they decided to work in a direct, clear and selected database list which targets the top 5% of graduating students from universities.

The agency selected the best university minds in the country and sent them a direct mailer pack, which contained the actual Naval Officer’s uniform including medals and decorations. This awe-inspiring uniform is revered and respected the world-over.

The crisp, fancy white Naval uniform instantly appeals to the prospect, giving them a 5 minute opportunity to live the experience. The life-sized uniform could be held up, allowing for a real-life experience. As a last token a business reply card was placed in the pocket.

Mechanic:

6000 direct mailers sent.

Response:

5% response – 300 applicants – a much higher rate compared to previous numbers + the time saved recruiting and avoiding wrong applicants.

Champion!

(Click the image to enlarge)

Cheers

Lucio Ribeiro

Post published on www.marketingeasy,net

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“Marketing (in all its forms) is unlike everything else an organization does, because it’s always different. There’s no manual because everyone does it differently, and what successful marketers have in common is that they are successful.
The only way your organization is going to make an impact is to market in the way only you can. Not by following some expert’s rules or following the herd, but by doing it in the way that works. For you. Don’t worry about someone else’s invented standards for new media, invent your own. Avoid obvious mistakes, don’t follow obvious successes.

Find your voice, don’t copy someone else’s.”

Ironically copied from Seth Godin

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What a waste of an opportunity to be remarkable and to add a share of heart. Instead of having a genuine well intentioned message just saying “Hey this is your day – Happy birthday Jessica”, they tried to use her birthday to sell more tickets.
Hey Village Cinema, you could be different, it’s not about giving things away, but it’s about being remarkable, example: “Hi Jessica, Happy birthday…..By the way, did you know you share your birthday with Jennifer Aniston, Angelina Jolie and Brad Pitt?”
This not just diminishes the intention of being remarkable but also screws things up and sends the message “I really don’t care!”

What’s your opinion?

WOW Village Cinemas - You really know how to be nice!

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