mobile

M&M Global piece on my CES coverage

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My piece in M&M Global – not dissimilar to my original blog, slightly adapted so no need to read through!!

CES 2012: The world of television
19 JANUARY 2012

Last week executives from business, government, entertainment, automotive, consumer electronics and every major industry converged on the 2012 International CES to experience new ways of doing business at the world’s largest consumer technology tradeshow.

Everyone told me that Las Vegas was a crazy city and CES even more so but no one did it justice. This was my first visit to both and no one could have prepared me for either. The scale of the city and the event itself beggars belief. The buzz around the event is incredible with every major tech company represented (except Apple of course) and on a scale I have never seen before…See rest of article here

We are all addicted to our mobiles

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I have noticed it more recently, perhaps because I am becoming conscious of my own addiction to mobile and tablets but everyone, all of the time, is head down into their mobile. It is something that has been gathering pace as the smart phone uptake has grown (iPhone represent 55% of all mobile traffic and 7% of all web traffic) but it is now literally out of control. Human beings can no longer have a pause without the pause being filled by a pull at the phone and some interaction.

Although not what I am focusing on today, it is interesting that the advertising and media industry still seems in capable of grasping this opportunity, I would now say above all other media channels mobile dominates our life and yet ad spend on mobile and mobile optimised ecommerce sites of major brands is not where it should be. In 2010 advertisers spent £83m on mobile advertising – that’s a crazy stat when you think how attached we are to our phones.

The thing with the mobile phone and in particular the smart phone is the crazy amount of things you can do with it, it is this that makes it something we are glued to day and night. GSMArena carried out research with around 15,000 people, link here and you can see the array of things people use their phone for and what was most popular. There is a word cloud and an info graphic, both below that are pretty insightful.

The detail behind those words can be found on the next infographic

It is for this reason that my phone stays with me from dawn until dusk, I am not alone in reaching for my phone before anything else, 83% of people use their phone as an alarm and so starts the day. From here when you look around you its relentless. Everyone is used to the idea of people using phones on trains etc, the commute, it’s not that which I notice the most, it’s the bits in between. As an example what is the shortest pause you need to reach for your phone or check it?

a) Would you check your phone as you wait for the cash machine to register your card?
b) Would you check your phone as you wait for lights to change in the car?
c) Do you always look at your phone while you are walking?
d) Would you check your phone in a work meeting
e) Check it when you are one on one with a friend?

It is relentless checking that I am noticing, and I am well and truly guilty of it, but I think we re beginning to erode the old rules and its acceptable. More and more people are checking phones during meetings, at dinner, at the bar, often three or four people are all checking at the same time. Big events and presentations have more people with their heads down on their phones or tablets than concentrating. The rules of politeness are being eroded. Concentrating on a conversation or a meeting is no longer a prerequisite. In fact as soon as someone leaves a conversation to pop to the gents, you dive onto your phone is you have been restraining yourself. We are all addicted.

More and more guys are on their phones at the urinals now, that is an emerging trend! Perhaps they were the polite ones not looking at their phones during a conversation and went to the loo just so they could.

I remember someone once saying that we are making time for ourselves with mobiles because we fit all our catch up conversations in on the move and so its making time at home for partners and friends, I am not sure that holds water anymore, we are always on our phones and when it was just calls it was fine but now you can basically run your life from them, they have become more intrusive. I look around me and see everyone immediately reaching for their phones at any pause in life, all of us head down not watching life go past and I feel like I am in one of the futuristic movies where we are all wired to some unseen force, I think we need to disconnect more.

VW have done it in a German factory, they have stopped their servers sending emails at 6.30pm so workers are not constantly on their blackberries – interesting! Not sure that will catch on but its the principle of it, the fact they are trying to break a cycle that is hard to break. As new members join the company and are desperate to get a blackberry I always think what a mistake that is and to stay away for as long as possible, as soon as you are wired to the work all hours is the day you will never truly have a holiday again.

I am addicted to my phones so I am all the things up there but I wish I was not, I spend too much time on it and looking at it, it makes me rude at times, and I miss things because its head down all the time.

I think Microsoft got it right in their Ad to kick start their new phone – ‘Really’ Take a look, not a bad Ad and absolutely on the mark!

2012 Watching change and the future

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A couple of thoughts for 2012 and beyond.

There will be many predictions for 2012, these are less predictions as thoughts on what I see around me right now and discussions being had. That is why I have referred to this as ‘watching change’ rather than predicting it. As usual with me its tech heavy but not exclusively an inspired by some recent people I have met lately, more of that for another post.

What do I think we will see changing in 2012?
1. The rise of campaigns targeted against connected TVs, there is so much movement in this space and it is happening so quickly, I believe more advertisers will be looking to agencies to deliver more targeted advertising on the TV through connected TVs and set top boxes. Video advertising shown on streamed content on TVs will also increase significantly in 2012. What I find most interesting in this space is that as with mobile there is a lot of talk but I can see things moving faster than anyone predicts. If you look at the Xbox alone, they have more ‘set top boxes’ than Sky, that makes them the most connected organisation in the UK in regards the TV.

2. From an agency perspective the silos of search, exchange trading and buying on APIs will be broken down as we start to use Data Management, targeting and buying across all three of them to drive campaign results. We will all get smarter about talking data as a planning mechanism rather than a list of sites to represent targeting. Where we can combine audience targeting with context and highly dynamic creatives we will hit the bullseye. This process is already well underway but see this accelerate in the next 12 months.

Where do I see the greatest opportunity for improvement?
A. The greatest room for improvement will be in video as we move from a disparate, highly admin intensive channel that is still managing to scale rapidly to a more platform, third party adserved, data driven opportunity for clients. Video has the opportunity to explode in terms of volumes, the use of buying platforms and third party adserving will make that possible and produce better results for advertisers and a more efficient delivery from an agency perspective. I hope AODv achieves this on behalf of the agencies.

Video revenues could increase significantly with this last impetus, it is a shame that it is being held back by some major broadcasters hell bent on protecting the old models and the ‘it has always been like this approach.’ We know how successful these people have been in the past, so I think they should move to a bigger and better learning model.

Technology:
What tech/device will completely transform the way you do business?
Connected TVs, already have become more and more prevalent in shops, the connected TV will bring the social TV experience to the living room that is currently produced by the highly reported two device usage people employ now ie PC on Twitter whilst watching TV. The connected TV and to set top boxes such as Xbox will allow users to genuinely multi task and enjoy a more social experience. On top of that they will of course also be able to access new content that will pull more influence from the linear TV schedule

What technology has transformed us in the last two years?
Life changing is pretty strong but the ability to work in the cloud would be up there, whether its docs in Dropbox or my iPad, iPhone, Apple TV and Airport Express all linked up wireless at home with no need for synching etc. The principle that the devices no longer need to be mega storage devices is a huge shift and the always on, access anywhere approach to tech is an amazing shift.

What do I think we can’t live without now that will be obsolete next year?
The death of the desktop, its all tablets and laptops and as working conditions become more and more mobile the desktop becomes more and more out of date. Of course that wont be next year but as a trend I believe we are starting to see the PC desk top being eroded, as companies no longer want to invest in more and more office space, instead opting for work from home or hot desking lap tops and tablets become the primary device.

General:
What will change specifically in media?
Our organisations are becoming more and more global by nature, the pitches, the advertisers the media properties we spend with and so the nature of new business requires a more joined up and well round global group to answer these challenges. If you don’t do it well you will lose those big international advertisers, more and more focus will go on how we weave our different agency properties together in a meaniful way that gives clients the maximum amount of insights and services with the minimum amount of disruption.

What do we need most to see greater success in 2012?
We are in a transition period where media owners, Ad Nets and Portals are all trying to plan for the future but manage their old business at the same time. As an industry we need to give companies 12 months to allow that change to happen even if it upsets shareholders and the bean counters. Many organisations will take a hit in terms of ad revenues they receive for direct response campaigns direct from agencies and have not seen it returned through the new approaches such as AOD. It does not mean its wrong, it’s just difficult to manage but they have to so they can reshape for the future.

Mobile needs tracking and ad serving badly! Mobile usage is huge, it brings online to offline and offline to online. The world of the web is social, personal, local and mobile and the smart phone ticks all those boxes and yet we can’t seem to bring the advertisers to spend the revenues. This remains what seems an eternal challenge to master.

My piece in Exchangewire on AOD going mobile

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Marco Bertozzi Discusses The Vivaki Mobile Partnership With Google, RTB In Mobile And The Rollout In Europe
Posted: November 10th, 2011 | Author: ExchangeWire

Marco Bertozzi is Managing Director EMEA at Vivaki Nerve Center. Here he discusses the Vivaki mobile partnership with Google, RTB in mobile and how to execute mobile buys as well as track performance without the cookie.

Can you give some overview on the recently announced mobile partnership with Google?

In November 2010 we renewed a long-standing partnership with Google, and in doing so we announced our intention to scale video and mobile display advertising on Audience on Demand™ (AOD). Over the past summer we have successfully beta-tested AOD video with a number of major clients and launched this in market a couple of weeks ago.

The latest announcement signals the advent of AOD mobile and initially means AOD will be given access to AdMob mobile advertising inventory through Google’s DoubleClick Ad Exchange. As AdMob publishers and developers make their inventory available on the DoubleClick Ad Exchange, AOD, which has been testing the new model, will be able to buy the mobile ads for marketers in real time. The ads will run inside mobile games, news apps and content.

It will help us deliver the AOD standard to our agency’s clients as we bring mobile to scale, and will provide us with unprecedented insight into the operational elements, targeting, the creative assets that work best in this environment and importantly how mobile ad serving is embraced by the consumer.

What inventory will you be running campaigns across? Will it all be apps based?

Apps (avia admob) and mobile inventory via DFP are being leveraged in this particular instance. We will also be incorporating additional inventory from other sources, but in the very near term, the focus is on AdX’s new capabilities and gleaning a clean, in-depth understanding of the opportunities it presents for clients.

Does VivaKi see mobile as a pure DR channel?

Not at all. All clients want to reach the right consumer at the right time. Mobile, Video, Display, Search, etc… – all of these have value to clients. It’s our job to help our clients unlock this, which is a fundamental objective of our addressability strategy as an organization. AOD is all about reaching the right people at the right time on the right screen. We have seen clients across all sectors leverage mobile so far, and as we can bring the targeting, trust, and scalability to this addressable side of the mobile marketplace, we expect to continue to see such adoption by all clients.

That being said, we do expect clients with performance-based metrics to be amongst the first to test and develop strong POVs. That has been and will always be their nature. But it does not mean mobile is a DR channel.

Will we see significant volumes of mobile buying from VivaKi in the European market?

Our approach is to connect the buyers (clients) with the sellers (publishers and conduits) in the marketplace as demand warrants. The European marketplace is large and sees variation within different regions – it’s developing for display of all sorts and every market is moving at a different pace. Audience On Demand™ is technically ready to go and we will move as fast as the demand and supply.

I’m anticipating that the UK will pick up very quickly – there is huge demand on all sides so this should be very rapid and I know our AOD teams in France, Spain and the Netherlands are also keen to get going so this should also progress quickly.

The benefit of having a streamlined approach and structure across EMEA is the ability to share learning rapidly and benefit from this. Paul Silver, our Head of Product for AOD UK will be working with other markets to enable fast roll-out.

How are you buying? Will you trade through Invite? Are you buying in real-time? Is that possible?

VivaKi is technology neutral and our primary goal is to support client needs. We recognize that AdX is not the only source for mobile activity and Invite Media is not the only DSP to access mobile inventory and support targeting and campaign management. We are currently in discussions with other inventory sources and platforms to support mobile, which we expect to be available in early 2012.

This is entirely about real-time buying in the mobile space, so yes – it is possible and it is possible at scale with AdX. This is what we’re eager to better understand and see what “truths” we’ve developed on other channels translate to mobile and what new “truths” we uncover.

How difficult it is to target across mobile inventory without a universal cookie? When the cookie is not available, what targeting parameters are you using?

This is something that has been and will continue to be a hurdle relative to other channels. The ideal state that most desire is one where frequency and actions on other channels can inform decisions in the mobile channel. This ideal state is not a reality (yet), though there are means to incorporate insights from other channels to power decisions made on the mobile channel. For example – the context of the page, the geography of the impression, and the time of day are factors common across all channels. We have strong insights about how these factors influence advertising results and we incorporate those into our campaigns on all channels. So although targeting consumers across multiple channels and having each feed the other in real-time isn’t here yet, using what we’ve learned elsewhere to make a smart decision in the mobile channel is something we’re very confident in doing.

Is there still a big issue around tracking campaigns through the mobile channel given the lack of an established mobile ad server?

Tracking in mobile is still a challenge, and every honest participant in this industry will tell you so. The not so honest participant will try to confuse you with where cookies can be set vs. where they cannot be set – it is not at parity with the standard display space. The mobile channel also has the added complexity of the in-app tracking vs. the mobile web tracking, which are at a different places with regards to tracking.

The mobile standards such as the newly released MRAID will go along way with technology providers going down the same path. We are actively working with several partners to develop and also explore best in class solutions that will benefit our advertisers from a tracking and reporting perspective while respecting consumer privacy. We are looking to quickly close this gap so that we can introduce to our clients a standard measure for mobile and scale their use.

Can we expect to see other integrations with other mobile inventory sources, like the Microsoft ad exchange, in the coming months?

Without a doubt – those conversations and opportunities are already happening.

A week at The VivaKi Nerve Center

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A week at The Vivaki Nerve Center

Monday

An early meeting with the WW CEO of ZenithOptimedia to discuss how the market is shaping up and what can be expected of 2012. As the conference season starts I am being pulled in a number of directions to make sure everyone who needs the latest info has it!

Later that morning a call with the boss, Curt Hecht, it’s a about planning stage and we discuss what we need to get done for 2012 and how we will work with the agencies. A lot of progress in 2011 for VivaKi and The VivaKi Nerve Center and so it makes for some great conversations for next year. More than ever we will be a very European organisation which is achievement in itself. a series of meetings with the major EMEA markets all to be planned.

A session on contracts, which seems to take up a lot of time at the moment, but we are making real progress with a number of contracts signed that will help power The Pool, Partnerships and AOD.

End the day back at the WW CEO’s office to finalise some notes for the conference and its my turn to start to prepare for the Exchangewire ATS event where I am on a panel with Nigel Gilbert from Orange, Gurman from MediaIQ, Breadon from AOL, Martin from infectious and hosted by Zuzanna at Microsoft. Will be a good day I am sure.

In the evening, I went to the Appnexus / Microsoft drinks and met with the founder of Appnexus, the new head of Microsoft, Andy Hart and a number of others. Bumped into Jakob of GroupM, always a pleasure and we had a little catch up and then I had to leave for dinner with Quantcast and Exchangewire down at BerryBros.

As usual you learn something on these nights and having spoken to a number of people from other groups, its clear to me that VivaKi are the most integrated and aligned group in this space, working hand and glove with the agencies. I hope over time this pays dividends for us all.

Tuesday – ATS Day

Arriving at the event really makes you see how far things have moved on in the last year. Ciaran’s first one was a big event but this really surpassed itself with 400+ guests. Unfortunately as the day went on it became clear that again it lacked publishers and advertisers. The more I think about this though, the more I think, why should they be there?

Morning sessions were OK but lacked direction, more moderation, different questioners and less keynotes would have improved the morning session. Keynotes fund these events but I feel having Mediamath and Rubicon and Appnexus all doing a turn is perhaps excessive.

Microsoft did a great session, slick presentation and I think surprised everyone, he even presented an Apple Ad, which was the talk of the Twittersphere..

The afternoon panel I was on was billed to be controversial, I knew it would not be, for two reasons. The first is we have said this before and the second is that people in the audience don’t want to stand out and make issues. The bigger these events become the more polite they will become. I had a couple of key themes I wanted to get across around the whole Ad Trading Desks.

1. We are not an Ad Network
2. We will cut back on Ad Network spend
3. We will be aiming to centralise all retargeting and we think it’s the right thing to do
4. We work with a number of DSPs just not in the UK and we know what is what

I made all of these statements as well as suggesting Ad Nets use client data across their campaigns and received no resistance so, if it was not controversial, it was not because of me! Feedback has been that it was too about positioning of each others company etc but you go where the questions take you.

All in all though, a good day, got to catch up with some great people from around the business and generally enjoyed it all.

Wednesday

We march on with an exciting morning meeting with a large European company that is soon to become Vivak’s first VNC Partner in EMEA. We have of course high profile relations with Microsoft and Google as well as other US companies, but this is the first at scale. We worked through the opportunities, what we need to do together and how we can help each other, a great start to Wednesday and we look forward to releasing that news soon.

Later that day, I 100% focused on The Pool. We have been delayed on this but we are ready to go again, very exciting, there is other info on The Pool elsewhere on my blog Later this year I am presenting at the IAB conference on Spain the results of the Spanish Lane and some of the work that’s been going on in the US, I am really excited about the results that have come from this work.

We have three great publisher partners and already two major clients so things are looking great in that regard, there will be more to come on that subject shortly.

The day ends meeting a team of senior Google Product managers who are trying to work with us to provide insight to power Audience On Demand. It’s these meetings that the Google partnership is founded on, not media spend and discounts. It was a really interesting session and we learned alot about what is coming up. Invite will be a very powerful proposition.

Thursday

A quieter day on the meetings and valuable time to catch up. I did meet up with the CEO of Vindico and team who have big ambitions in the UK. We work with them on The Pool and they are a great outfit. Its time we need to get over the control issue around video adserving, we have been through this once with display and its time we moved on when it comes to video. We are used to substandard, early 2000 type tracking and reporting which is not acceptable.

Friday

A chance to discuss everything we have been doing and seeing this week. A morning appointment with a client with a brief to talk them through all the things The Vivaki Nerve Center are working on, went brilliantly and we will be doing some great work I hope. They showed the kind of interest in innovation that makes it all worth while.

A run for the train from glamorous Slough with just enough time to read the placard under the stuffed dog at the station and down to Microsoft to present to their regional scale display teams and talk about the importance of agency trading desks. Quite a turn out and some great questions from the group, I hope we can act on some of the discussions and continue to grow our global partnership.

I end the week with some time to keep up momentum with The Pool, discuss with thepaulsilver the final touches of an exciting launch next week and what I am going to do when he is on holiday!

Four days on the West coast

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I was genuinely excited about my visit to the West Coast to visit all the HQs of the major Internet companies. When you have worked in digital for so long these places take on real significance. Mountain View, Palo Alto, Redmond etc. The Spanish VivaKi took 12 clients out there and I was there to represent the broader VivaKi organisation and make a presentation on how it all worked. It was perfect timing actually as I felt very ‘Groupe’ after the four days I spent on publicis training last week.

The first day was at Microsoft. Honestly I was disappointed with the offices, very dull and heavy and old. I always imagined, white and bright for these big spaces but this had more of the 70s about them. The opening couple of hours were spent in the home of the future. A seriously impressive vision of the house of the future, Microsoft have a couple of these but nothing like this, properly mind boggling and left you amazed, a great start.

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Microsoft does have so much to offer but really does struggle to join up the dots, demonstrate the power of 4 screens. They are almost unique in the position but it seems they struggle to capitalise on the opportunity. Nevertheless a demonstration in scale, scope and innovation is what Microsoft does best and I know the clients took a lot away from it.

Google and Facebook followed the next day and the scale of the companies and their impact on the world is staggering. In both cases you have to remind yourself of what they have achieved in such a short period of time and as we wandered the offices how on earth they kept on top of the growth. The offices both had a dishevelled feeling about them, but both gave up space for thought and distraction, something we could all learn from I think. Everywhere there were break out areas in all shapes and sizes as well as canteens and small kitchens.

The average age of the staff was young! The Google canteen was like a high school dining area not one of the worlds largest companies. It also seemed open to the world. There was our trip that felt like a school tour, the were also school tours and other things, it feels like a company keen to be part of the community – I don’t know if that’s true or not but that’s what I was left with.

Google was not a company but a town, complete with their own Google company bicycles everywhere so you could get around, it was vast 8-9 thousand people..you feel like you are inside a legend of a business, a great feeling.

And after all that, what stood out for our clients? Akamai. The unheard of company that basically makes the web work and transfers the internets content. With their screens showing the load on servers across the world, beautifully brought to life with futuristic graphics, the power of this company is stunning and yet so understated. You can understand why a potential leader of Publicis Groupe in the form of David Kenny was attracted to the organisation. I suspect in the coming years we will all hear a lot more about Akamai.

So it’s been a week in Paris being trained on how to collaborate in our Groupe and now four days in the heart of the web world, a crazy couple of weeks but fascinating and week 1 seems all the more obvious having lived through week 2. This world is going mad with complexity and no one company can handle all of it, as agencies we want to be all things to all men, but those days are done. We are now in the age of truly collaborating to survive, rather than just saying we do, those who don’t use the power of our various agency brands and VivaKi will not succeed. Clients want solutions and together we can deliver.

Exchangewire Data Trading Summit

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Yesterday saw Ciaran of Exchangewire fame organise his second major event. The focus of the event was the wonderful world of data trading, particularly within the exchange space. As is the way with Ciaran’s events they are less stuffy and formal and I always find the social and networking element to them very productive, as with the last trading summit the great and the good were there and it’s the quickest way to catch up with all your contacts.

The event was opened with a suitably non data introduction from Collective’s Steven Filler. Might have just been me but it felt like he realised that he had a room full of so called experts and the usual presentation would not quite wash and so swapped to more of an opening introduction to the whole event. Interestingly his opening chart was one of the most revealing of the day. Attendance was 45% ad networks, 10% agency and NO clients. A strange set of numbers when you think most people in the room were colluding on how to get rid of the ad networks. The agency figure looked low but actually there are a relatively few people in agencies fueling the exchange machines so that does not surprise, although you could argue that more people beyond that should show interest.

The Data panel was a demonstration on theory. We have one huge White elephant in the room, true attribution. Most sophisticated strategies seem to fail without this analysis and yet it was generally acknowledged that we don’t do it well enough.  So we end up asking whether data works in a performance world, again the answer was more a no than a yes. The panel worked hard to try and give some texture and real examples but let’s face it, if you have the answer you ain’t telling, if you don’t you will pretend and in fact most people are doing something more simple than they are discussing.

Andy Mitchell from AN&Y then gave a far more realistic view on how publishers could use the exchange space and a little data understanding. It was a refreshingly open presentation and was quite a juxtaposition to the slightly vapour driven data panel. It’s clear from Andy’s presentation though that if you have large inventory you can get in quicker and test more. I have some sympathy with the Tim Gentry’s of this world with a smaller more precious audience to protect.

I really enjoyed talking with a number of people at lunch, especially around European expansion, with Audience on Demand live in France and Spain with other countries close behind establishing the right data, tech and inventory partnerships is important, it’s clear everyone is marching into Europe which is great as far as I am concerned. That was the best bit about lunch, the sandwiches that Ciaran’s mum made were average.

Next up Audience Science. Stuart set out to stir debate, always an admirable approach but I think in places misguided. It was the first time in the day I was glad no clients were there, too many of his inconvenient truths were in fact convenient non-truths for Audience Science new business machine. Stuart has told me this was not his intention but I am not so sure. Worse than that was on a couple of the points I believe that he did believe what he was saying, especially around our debate on RTB but he was just not right as myself and Andy Cocker could not resist telling him. I am all for debate but you have to be careful not to leave people with the wrong impression.

The buyside panel was handled quietly but eloquently by Paul Silver. Some big revelations were that data was one big bubble and that Alain from Excelate was a regular buyer of women 18-34, both created quite stir. Ciaran got into his stride and managed to pull out some quality Specific Media gags, for them it feels like gallows humour, still all good fun of course!

I have to apologise to Nick from the IAB I had to leave but I know this is a serious topic and one VivaKi are taking very seriously and being as proactive as possible. In the US we have started to work with Evidon on using user initiated icons that allow consumers to opt in or out and to change their data footprint with the data collectors. It’s one of those areas where you can keep talking or start doing. As Andy says better to be at the game than watch on telly.

Overall it was a good day, as someone commented it is a state of the nation that there were no clients and that no case studies or examples could be demonstrated. I think for the next event Ciaran should create an incentive pricing scheme for clients, let’s get them involved. I would like to see less paid for performances ( we have been guilty in the past) and more genuine speakers which may end up being one in the same but I guess that’s what we will find out.

A big thanks Ciaran for making us all feel like we have friends and getting us in one room, I look forward to the Autumn summit and what I am sure will be an even bigger turn out.

Apple iAds need to deliver with a punch

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I can’t remember the last time a new launch created so much discussion, and not all positive! It’s like Apple have used the same marketing people for their hardware on their advertising solutions. I can hear them now..it’s Apple, people pay for that name they always pay a premium for our glossy products..those conversations are likely to be happening in the US as well.

Well hello Apple, meet the UK trading Director, he is less interested in the gloss, or meet the average client, they want results as well as gloss. There are some lucky advertiser who may pay the huge rates but on the whole they want some results, some proof before they hand over £1m or no £500K or no £325K and on and on…I have read a lot of headlines in this area and none of them discuss how well they work, what they deliver, how they can help a client on its objectives. The headlines are all about the price which is not a great start for Apple.

I have met some of the team and I can say from personal experience the approach was one full of ‘self confidence’ shall we say, this needs to be mixed with some real world understanding and some great metrics to deliver against the price tag. I shall watch the debate with interest as I find it amusing to see the reality hit the marketing / sales people at Apple.

Good luck