EU Digital Services – BigTech and Legacy Media – NewsCorp

Presently the EU is looking into more regulation on digital services and markets, even playing field for all, limits to expansion by Big Tech, hate speech, fines, policing platforms, etc.; backgrounded by talk in Australia of regulating Big Tech more.  

The latter is not so related to the EU’s actions but is more about Rupert Murdoch’s legacy media in NewsCorp, and its overbearing influence on its peers, politics and society in Australia, while losing money and asking for subsidies.  Nowadays it is demanding constraints on Big Tech i.e. payment for NewsCorp’s (plus other oligopoly legacy media) ‘entertainment content’ and partisan political agit prop, while still attacking the public broadcaster the ABC, restricting the NBN National Broadband Network, unclear tax arrangements and having a near monopoly presence in Australia.

The following gives an overview and summary of EU initiatives from Politico:

Europe rewrites rulebook for digital age – The bloc wants to impose fines of up to 10 percent of companies’ revenue if they abuse their position in digital markets.

Many of Silicon Valley’s biggest companies could face blockbuster fines under new proposals from the European Union announced Tuesday aimed at boosting digital competition and protecting people from online harm.

The announcement represents a watershed moment for Ursula von der Leyen’s Commission, which has made so-called “technological sovereignty,” or efforts to bolster the bloc’s role in digital markets, a central piece of its legislative agenda.

Under the proposals, known as the Digital Markets Act and Digital Services Act, large online platforms like Google, Amazon and Facebook will face new limits on how they can expand their online empires or face levies of up to 10 percent of their global revenue — potentially billions of euros — for unfairly hamstringing smaller rivals.

In the most egregious cases, EU regulators would be granted stronger powers to break up companies that flouted the bloc’s new digital rulebook.

Brussels also outlined separate fines of up to six percent of annual revenue for Big Tech companies — those with at least 45 million users across the 27-country bloc — that fail to limit how illegal material, everything from hate speech to counterfeit products, can spread across their networks…..

Digital Markets Act: Dos and don’ts

The centerpiece of Europe’s digital plans is aimed at boosting online competition in a world dominated by Silicon Valley.

As part of the proposals, the Digital Markets Act will impose new obligations on so-called “gatekeepers,” or online players that determine how other companies interact with online users, to ensure these platforms do not stop others from competing for users. The rules will cover companies offering digital services like online search, social networking, video-sharing platforms, cloud computing, internet messaging services, online operating systems, online marketplaces and advertising products.

Failure to live by these rules could lead to hefty fines up to 10 percent of a company’s global revenue, or — in the worst cases — threats to break up firms that repeatedly break the new rules, a provision that is already baked into EU law…..

Digital Services Act: Greater responsibility

Brussels also unveiled a sweeping reboot of how large platforms must police their platforms for illegal material — rules that have not been updated in two decades.

Under those separate proposals, known as the Digital Services Act, online platforms will have to do more to limit the spread of illegal content and goods. The United Kingdom published similar proposals earlier on Tuesday, while the United States is mulling its own changes to so-called content liability to force platforms to further police what is posted or sold online.

The largest platforms like Facebook, Google and Amazon will have to provide regulators and outside groups with greater access to internal data, and appoint independent auditors who will determine if these firms are compliant with the new rules.

That will require these companies to carry out yearly risk assessments over how they are stopping illegal content and goods from spreading on their networks. National regulators will be granted more powers, including the ability to levy fines of up to six percent of a firm’s annual revenue if companies flout the regulations…..

For EU officials, Tuesday’s announcements mark their latest attempt to create greater competition in digital markets and protect people online from a wave of illegal material. 

But many European politicians, tech executives and civil society groups still disagree over how best to promote those goals while still encouraging the bloc’s online economy to compete with those of the U.S. and China.

That balance — Europe pushing for greater control over the online world while also boosting its digital economy — will now take center stage.

“Now, the U.S., us, the Australians, the Japanese are part of a global conversation about how to balance things because the most important thing here is that with size comes responsibility,” Vestager said. “All business operating in Europe — they can be big ones, they can be small ones — can freely and fairly compete online just as they do offline.”

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NewsCorp Australia vs. Google and Facebook BigTech

Murdoch’s NewsCorp Australia vs. Google and Facebook or BigTech

Australian media outlets led by Murdoch’s NewsCorp, Google, Facebook, (mostly) conservative politicians and commentators (catering to above median voter age demographics) are demanding payment for any use of their news content or ‘journalism’ by Google and Facebook (catering more to below median voter age demographics), including a broad based focus upon posts, indexing, shares and links; backgrounded by Google threats to withdraw Google search and some media outlets from indexing.

However, the campaign conflates several issues but also misses other related issues of importance e.g. monopoly or anti-competitive behaviour by all players, opaque financial or tax arrangements, lack of good digital regulation e.g. privacy in Australia, decline in quality journalism and diversity of views in legacy media, while NewsCorp is paywalled, backgrounded by special treatment of major media players in Australia by the governing LNP Liberal National Party (freely promoted by NewsCorp), at the expense of quality, local and independent media, and an informed society.

Following are excerpts from international and Australian media presenting a confusing array of issues, causes, solutions, and gaps, or silence.

From Deutsche Welle

‘Google vs. Australia: 5 questions and answers

Australia wants Google to pay for displaying local media content. In return, the tech giant has threatened to disable its search engine in the country. Could this confrontation set a precedent?

What’s happening in Australia?

Australia has proposed a bill that would oblige Google and Facebook to pay license fees to Australian media companies for sharing their journalistic content. Noncompliance would incur millions in fines. In response, Google has threatened to block Australian users from accessing its search engine should the bill become law.

Mel Silva, managing director of Google Australia and New Zealand, told an Australian senate committee her company had no other choice but to block access to Google’s search engine in Australia should the bill be adopted in its current form. Even though, she said, this was the last thing Google wanted.

Australian Prime Minister Scott Morrison in turn declared that his country would not be intimated, saying, “We don’t respond to threats.” He added that “Australia makes our rules for things you can do in Australia. That’s done in our Parliament.”….

Why has the confrontation escalated?

Google has said it is willing to negotiate with publishers over paying license fees for content. The tech giant, however, argues Australia’s proposed law goes too far. It would oblige Google to pay not only when providing extensive previews of media content, but also when sharing links to the content. This, said Silva, would undermine the modus operandi of search engines…..

What’s at stake?

“Search engines earn considerable money from media content, whereas publishers earn little,” said Christian Solmecke, a Cologne-based lawyer specialized in media and internet law. Google, however, argues that publishers benefit from the platform, as users are directed to media content when it is indexed on the Google Newsfeed and elsewhere.

But publishers want a bigger share of the pie by receiving licensing fees. “Billions are thus at stake for Google,” said Solmecke. He doubts the tech giant will follow through on its threat and disable the search engine in Australia. “After all, that search engine is an elementary part of the digital world.”

Is the EU planning a similar law?

In the spring of 2019, the EU adopted an ancillary copyright directive. All members states must now translate the directive into national legislation and adopt national ancillary copyright laws. Akin to the proposed Australian media bill, the EU directive aims to ensure publishers gain a share of revenue earned by internet platforms like Google when sharing journalistic content. Tech companies like Google generate revenue by, for instance, placing ads next to search results.

However, the directive does not place as many demands on companies such as Google and Facebook. “European and German ancillary copyright law is and will remain more narrow than the Australian bill,” said Stephan Dirks, a lawyer specialized in copyright and media law in Hamburg. Unlike the Australian bill, the EU directive allows tech platforms to display short media snippets for free. And it does not establish an automated arbitration model, either.

European confrontation looming?

Even though EU ancillary copyright law is more limited than the planned Australian law, experts do not rule out EU member states clashing with Google….

…..Most EU member states are yet to pass their own ancillary copyright laws. It thus cannot be ruled out that Google’s threats will have an impact on national lawmaking processes, said Dirks.

Joel Fitzgibbon Helps Albo Show Who’s In Charge! (Ross Leigh, 31 Jan 2021)

Another viewpoint via AIMN Australian Independent Media Network suggesting private and dominant media vs. private and dominant digital companies, (the former are) pushing credibility on their demands for fairness when they too run monopolies, receive subsidies financial and in kind e.g. dilution of media ownership laws, reach etc….

‘Speaking of transitions, I’m still trying to get a handle on the whole Google should pay for content thing. While I think that Google is far too big and we need to be looking at ways to ensure it pays its share of tax and doesn’t take advantage of its near monopoly position, arguing that it should pay media for directing people to their site is like asking the Uber driver to pay a fee every time he brings someone to your restaurant. Whatever else, it does strike me as odd that the government is getting involved in this dispute between private companies and coming down so hard on the side of the media companies.

At least it would strike me as odd if it weren’t for the fact that the same government paid Murdoch companies to cover women’s sport and the Murdoch companies charge the ABC for the right to show it.’

‘Fakebooks in Poland and Hungary

Meanwhile in Central Europe, Poland and Hungary have launched local versions citing ‘censorship of conservative views’ as the reason versus accusations of trying to limit freedom of speech through a nationalist lens:

Local versions of Facebook have been launched in Poland and Hungary, though experience shows that technology ventures conceived with politically biased and nationalistic motives rarely succeed.

Poland and Hungary have seen the launch recently of locally developed versions of Facebook, as criticism of the US social media giants grows amid allegations of censorship and the silencing of conservative voices.

The creators behind Hundub in Hungary and Albicla in Poland both cite the dominance of the US social media companies and concern over their impact on free speech as reasons for their launch – a topic which has gained prominence since Facebook, Twitter and Instagram banned Donald Trump for his role in mobilising crowds that stormed the Capitol in Washington DC on January 6. It is notable that both of the new platforms hail from countries with nationalist-populist governments, whose supporters often rail against the power of the major social media platforms and their managers’ alleged anti-conservative bias.

Albicla’s connection to the ruling Law and Justice (PiS) party is explicit. Right-wing activists affiliated with the PiS-friendly weekly Gazeta Polska are behind Albicla….

……The December 6 launch of Hundub received little attention until the government-loyal Magyar Nemzet began acclaiming it as a truly Hungarian and censorship-free alternative to Facebook, which, the paper argues, treats Hungarian government politicians unfairly. Prime Minister Viktor Orban was one of the first politicians to sign up to Hundub, but all political parties have rushed to register, starting with the liberal-centrist Momentum, the party most favoured by young people.

Pal – a previously unknown entrepreneur from the eastern Hungarian city of Debrecen – said his goal was to launch a social media platform that supports free speech, from both the left and right, and is free from political censorship. “The social media giants have grown too big and there must be an alternative to them,” Pal told Magyar Nemzet, accusing the US tech company of deleting the accounts of thousands of Hungarians without reason.

While it’s unclear whether there is any government involvement in Hundub, its launch is proving handy for the prime minister’s ruling Fidesz party in its fight against the US tech giants. Judit Varga, the combative justice minister, regularly lashes out at Facebook and Twitter, accusing them of limiting right-wing, conservative and Christian views. Only last week, she consulted with the president of the Competition Authority and convened an extraordinary meeting of the Digital Freedom Committee to discuss possible responses to the “recent abuses by the tech giants”…..

Future of Farcebooks

Unfortunately for the Polish and Hungarian governments and their supporters, rarely have such technology ventures succeeded.’

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Tourism Australia Marketing Campaigns

Australian tourism campaigns have often been in the news, sometimes for good reasons attracting attention, other times questions about the campaigns including the most recent ‘Philausophy‘.

Tourism Australia Marketing Campaigns (Image copyright Pexels)

‘The ‘Philausophy’ campaign is self-indulgent wank, and a crime against Australia

Tourism Australia’s latest ‘Philausophy’ campaign has “desecrated” Australia and is appalling, self-indulgent wank, according to creative director and senior copywriter Mark Farrelly.

November 1, 2019 10:52

by MARK FARRELLY

What happens when you give a government department $38m dollars of our money? You get a pile of self-indulgent wank that’s an embarrassment to our nation.

You would think after the unmitigated disaster that was ‘Where the bloody hell are you?’, Tourism Australia would have learnt a lesson. But clearly, it did not.

The campaign after that was completely forgettable. Can you remember it? Bet you can’t. It passed like a ship in the night. The only thing memorable about it was the fact its weak, pathetic slogan was grammatically wrong.

There’s nothing like Australia? No people. Australia is a place. A location. It is somewhere, not something.

There’s nowhere like Australia would have made sense. I’m not saying that’s great. But it’s okay.

Rule one of tourism advertising: you are advertising a destination.

So it’s not surprising that when you have a team of people so unable to use even basic English, they are going to come up with something even more appalling than before…

…The campaign after that was completely forgettable. Can you remember it? Bet you can’t. It passed like a ship in the night. The only thing memorable about it was the fact its weak, pathetic slogan was grammatically wrong.

There’s nothing like Australia? No people. Australia is a place. A location. It is somewhere, not something.

There’s nowhere like Australia would have made sense. I’m not saying that’s great. But it’s okay.

Rule one of tourism advertising: you are advertising a destination.

So it’s not surprising that when you have a team of people so unable to use even basic English, they are going to come up with something even more appalling than before.’

 

What had happened before?

 

‘Tourism Australia looks beyond ‘controversial campaign‘

‘”Where the bloody hell are you?” has gone the way of the “shrimp on the barbie” – into the dustbin of advertising history.

It is two years since the Government unveiled the confrontational slogan to sledge people into coming to Australia, and now it is being dropped.

The $180 million campaign generated much publicity around the world but did not generate any major increase in visitor numbers.

Tourism Australia is also set to review its contracts with advertising agencies as it opens one of the country’s largest advertising accounts to tender.’

 

What is the issue or challenge round tourism marketing?

 

“The Best Job in the World” & Beyond in a Brave New Marketing World

“Not since Willy Wonka and the golden tickets hidden in chocolate bars, has something come along like this.” Editor, The Sunday Times, United Kingdom

Investing heavily in content but not communication channels to reach prospective tourists, however, Queensland’s ‘Best Job in the World’ did gain attention globally through having travellers create the content.

The challenge was to convey to the rest of the world, in an already saturated global travel market, that surrounding this vibrant living organism was tangible product and a new tourism story for Australia…

….By the end of 2008 the groundwork was laid, the tourism regions and operators along the 2300 kilometre of the Great Barrier Reef had come on board under the “Islands of the Great Barrier Reef” banner, we had agreement from our international travel partners to start including Islands of the Great Barrier Reef product into their packages and marketing collateral had been produced.  Now all we needed was an idea or a “hook” to sell the Islands of the Great Barrier Reef to the world.

Stage two was the big idea itself.  Brisbane-based creative agency SapientNitro was given a brief to devise a campaign to promote the Islands of the Great Barrier Reef.  While several ideas were floated we realised that “The Best Job in the World” was The One; a dream job offering one candidate something priceless, the role of Caretaker of the Islands of the Great Barrier Reef with six months to explore the Islands of the Great Barrier Reef while based in a luxury house on Hamilton Island for a pay cheque of AUD150,000.

While the caretaker’s duties, cleaning the pool, feeding the fish and collecting the mail, were tongue-in-cheek, for the campaign to work, it needed to be a real job…..

….Then on a cold January morning they opened up the newspaper or turned on the television and were hit by a ray of Queensland sunshine; an advertisement for “the best job in the world” with the initial criteria of “anyone can apply”.  The application process simply asked people from around the world to submit a one minute video of themselves telling Tourism Queensland why they deserved the best job in the world….

….On 6 May 2009, Ben Southall, a 34-year-old British charity events organiser, was announced as the successful candidate for “the best job in the world”.  In the first 24 hours of his announcement as the successful candidate, Ben undertook more than 100 media interviews and featured in news stories around the globe.

Two months later on 1 July 2009, Ben started his role as the Caretaker for the Islands of the Great Barrier Reef.  During his stint he visited almost 100 Queensland destinations, fielded more than 450 media interviews and posted more than 60 blogs of 75,000 words, 2,000 photographs, 47 video diaries and more than 1,000 tweets….

….The estimated publicity value of the campaign topped AUD430 million and penetrated almost every country on earth.  Not bad for an investment of around AUD4 million over the three-year life of the campaign.’

 

Ongoing issue of direct communication with prospective tourists

 

Campaign fantastic but let down by one oversight by QLD Tourism, no direct channel via their global web presence to contact or make an enquiry in one’s own language, locally.  However, this is where Tourism Australia has been quietly creating a global web presence and physically through local travel and related representatives trained as ‘Aussie Specialists’ with resources made available online via ‘Aussie Specialists Club’.

As important, mostly ignored, are the significant digital marketing resource created by Aussie Specialists developing their own web presence targeting geographic, cultural and linguistic regions.

Result?

Most related web searches would find the relevant Tourism Australia website then finding travel planning and an Aussie Specialist travel agent would only be three clicks away; digital marketing 101.

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Brand Trust – Social Media – Digital Marketing – Personal Customer Data

How can trust in brands be developed and maintained in an age of digital marketing, speed, mistrust and social media?

This article first appeared in The Australian on 15th February 2019, then via KPMG NewsRoom.

Brand Trust in Digital Times (Image copyright Pexels)

‘Brand power in the age of declining trust

Edelman’s annual Trust Barometer report in 2017 carried a headline “Trust is in crisis around the world”. A KPMG report last year found that “trust has declined in almost every major economy and many developing ones”. In a CNN interview recently, Salesforce’s founder and CEO Marc Benioff argued that “companies that are struggling today are struggling because of a crisis with trust”.

There seems no end to the brands, organisations and leaders that have lost the public’s trust. There has been a royal commission into our banks, multiple questions over Facebook’s use of personal data, cheating cricketers, fake news, church leaders charged, and political parties bickering among themselves.

It is hard to believe that some brands and organisations have turned a blind eye to building trust with customers over the past decade. Trust is the basis of all relationships, gained slowly like drops of rain but lost in buckets. It is fundamental to business, symbolised in a handshake and eye-to-eye contact. ……These brands meet the “trust” checklist in the KPMG report – standing for something more than profit; demonstrably acting in the customers’ best interest; doing what you say you will; keeping customers informed; and being competent and likeable.

There is no doubt that brand trust is more complex in a digital world, where social media and data personalisation have enabled brands to act as if they are talking to you in person. Combine that with the exponential growth of individuals’ data that can be captured; digital marketplaces; smartphones; voice technology such as Google Home and Alexa; and the algorithms and deep learning of artificial intelligence, and there are far more opportunities to get brand trust wrong. This is especially so when trust is measured at lightning speed and some decisions around brands are being made by machines acting like humans.

Data became the hottest brand trust issue last year. The biggest data breach involved the Marriott International hotel chain and had an impact on up to 383 million people on the Starwood booking database. This included more than five million unencrypted passport numbers. Facebook had multiple issues, the most discussed being Cambridge Analytica’s access to Facebook users’ data. This data was used to persuade voters to change their opinions in the last US presidential election.

Consumers started to question the trust they had in these brands: one US survey showed 71 percent of people were worried about how brands collected and used their personal data. …… Marketers also had their doubts after YouTube posted ads that appeared alongside offensive videos, leading to a number of companies and their media agencies withdrawing advertising from YouTube for a period.

In the past five years, some of Australia’s biggest companies have rushed to establish or buy into data businesses that can offer insights into the purchasing behaviour of their customers and also use that information to improve their marketing communications……

Some companies have commercialised this data by selling it to outside organisations that match it with their customer profiles, adding to the knowledge they have on their customers. Some have questioned the ethics of this, even if it is anonymous; others ask who actually owns the data – the individual or the companies?

Trust around data relies on the fundamentals: common sense says that being a friendly and helpful neighbour is better for a long-term relationship than being annoying or remote. The personal customer data a business holds needs to be treated in the same way. In a business environment where consumers have more choice than ever, as well as more transparency and lower barriers to switching brands, boards, CEOs and marketers cannot ignore the need to invest in brand trust.

 

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Understanding Digital Marketing – Student Course Book and Management Guide – Damian Ryan

Understanding DIGITAL Marketing – Marketing strategies for engaging the digital generation.

Course Book from Damian Ryan and Calvin Jones, 2009, Kogan Page.

Following is a university or higher education course book for digital marketing including preface from the author Damian Ryan and table of contents including key features or components of digital marketing culture and practice.

Understanding Digital Marketing – Damian Ryan (Image copyright LinkedIn/Kogan Page)

Top down traditional marketing precludes synchronous feedback with horizontal and bottom-up communication as central to digital marketing strategy of systems via social media carrying WOM word of mouth of authentic messages that cannot be controlled by marketing ‘commissioners’.

First some quotes:

We look at the present through a rear-view mirror. We march backwards into the future. (Marshall McLuhan)

The press, the machine, the railway, the telegraph are premises whose thousand-year conclusion no one has yet dared to draw. (Friedrich Nietzsche)

Whoever, or whatever, wins the battle for people’s minds will rule, because mighty, rigid apparatuses will not be a match, in any reasonable timespan, for the minds mobilized around the power of flexible, alternative networks. (Manuel Castells, author of The Network Society)

 

Preface: Welcome to a brave new world

The world of digital media is changing at a phenomenal pace. Its constantly evolving technologies, and the way people are using them, are transforming not just how we access our information, but how we interact and communicate with one another on a global scale. It’s also changing the way we choose and buy our products and services.

People are embracing digital technology to communicate in ways that would have been inconceivable just a few short years ago. Digital technologies are no longer the preserve of tech-savvy early adopters, and today ordinary people are integrating them seamlessly into their everyday lives. From SMS updates on their favourite sports teams, to a free video call with relatives on the other side of the globe, to collaborative online gaming and much, much more: ordinary people – your customers – are starting to use digital media without giving it a second thought.

The global online population was around 1.3 billion at the end of 2007. Projections suggest that figure will hit 1.8 billion by 2010. In the developed world internet access is becoming practically ubiquitous, and the widespread availability of always-on broadband connections means that people are now going online daily to do everything from checking their bank statement, to shopping for their groceries, to playing games.

What makes this digital revolution so exciting is that it’s happening right now. We’re living through it, and we have a unique opportunity to jump in and be part of this historical transition.

In the pages that follow we’ll take you on a journey into the world of digital marketing. We’ll show you how it all started, how it got to where it is today, and where thought leaders in the industry believe it’s heading in the future. Most importantly of all we’ll show you – in a practical, no nonsense way – how you can harness the burgeoning power of digital media to drive your business to the crest of this digital marketing wave, and how to keep it there.

This digital marketing book will:

• help you and your business to choose online advertising and marketing channels that will get your ideas, products and services to a massive and ever-expanding market;
• give you that elusive competitive edge that will keep you ahead of the pack;
• future-proof your business by helping you to understand the origins of digital marketing and the trends that are shaping its future;
• give you a concept of the scale of the online marketplace, the unfolding opportunities and the digital service providers who will help your business to capitalise on them;
• provide practical, real-world examples of digital marketing successes – including leading brands that have become household names in a relatively short space of time;
• offer insight through interviews, analysis and contributions from digital marketing experts;
• ultimately, give you the tools you need to harness the power of the internet to take your business wherever you want it to go.

 

We set out to unravel the mysteries of digital marketing by taking you on a journey. As we travel into this digital world we’ll reveal how leading marketers in sectors as diverse as travel, retail, gambling and adult entertainment have stumbled on incredibly effective techniques to turn people on to doing business online, reaping literally millions as a result. We’ll show you how to apply their experience to transform your own digital enterprise.

Whether you are looking to start up your own home-based internet business, work for a large multinational or are anywhere in between, if you want to connect with your customers today and into the future, you’re going to need digital channels as part of your marketing mix. The internet has become the medium of choice for a generation of consumers: the first generation to have grown up taking instant access to digital information for granted. This generation integrates digital media into every facet of its daily lives, in ways we could never have conceived of in even the recent past. Today this generation of digital natives is entering the workplace and is spending like never before. This is the mass market of tomorrow, and for business people and marketers the challenge is to become fluent in this new digital language so that we can talk effectively to our target audience.

Television froze a generation of consumers to the couch for years; now digital media are engaging consumers and customers in ways that the early architects of the technology could never have dreamed of.

When the Apple Mac came along it opened up the art of publishing, and as a result print media boomed. Today, the same thing is happening online, through the phenomenon of user-generated content (UGC) and social networking: ordinary people are becoming the directors, producers, editors and distributors of their own media-rich content – the content they, their friends and the world want to see. But that’s only the start. Prime-time television audiences are falling, print media are coming under increasing pressure to address dropping circulation figures and – while the old school sits on the sidelines, bloated and slowly atrophying – digital media have transformed themselves into a finely tuned engine delivering more power, opportunity and control than any other form of media could dream of. In other words – it’s time to follow the smart money!

Over the last 15 years I’ve had the absolute pleasure and pain of working at the coalface of the burgeoning and insistent new media. I’ve met lots of smart people and spoken to literally hundreds of organisations with massively diverse and challenging agendas. The one common factor was a hunger for data and knowledge: anything that would give their particular brand that elusive competitive edge.

When putting this book together we wanted to make it as informative and practical as possible. Each chapter begins with a summary of its content, so you can easily browse through the chapters and select the one that addresses the topic you’re interested in. We’ve purposely left out the jargon – and where technical terms have been absolutely necessary we supply a clear definition in the text, backed up by a complete glossary at the back of the book that explains all of the terms we use in plain English. The result, we hope, is a book that is clear, informative and entertaining, even for the complete digital novice.

In your hands you hold what independent marketers around the world have been crying out for: a book that shows you how to use the internet successfully to sell your products or services. We begin with the origins of the medium and take you through the various disciplines of digital marketing campaigns. We travel around the world collecting facts, figures, comment and opinion from acknowledged experts, brands and organisations in different fields, getting them to spill the beans on how the net delivered the goods for them.

We’ll look in detail at areas like search marketing and affiliate marketing, we’ll delve into e-mail marketing and creative online executions and look at various digital marketing strategies, some moral, some less so.

In Amsterdam last year, I was granted a late-night audience with some of the best ‘Black Hat’ marketers in the world. These people, who will remain nameless, earn their living scuppering the efforts of competing brands in the digital marketplace. Black Hat marketing is real – and it can do real damage to your business. We explain what it is and, more importantly, give you some practical steps you can take to help protect your business against it.

It took television 22 years to reach 50 million households – it took the internet just five to achieve the same level of penetration. Things are progressing at an unbelievable rate, and we’re approaching a pivotal point in marketing history – a time when digital marketing will overtake traditional mass media as the medium of choice for reaching the consumer of tomorrow.

In the summer of 1993 I interviewed Jerry Reitman, head of direct marketing for Leo Burnett in Chicago, for my magazine goDirect. During our conversation Jerry pointed at the computer on his desk and said: ‘And that. . . that’s where it’s going.’ I wondered what he was talking about.

Fifteen years on and practically the entire population is online. Consumers have grown tired of mass media marketing and are turning instead to the internet. They want more engagement, more interaction. They’re starting to spend most of their leisure time in a digital world, and creative digital marketing is the way your business will reach them. Welcome to my world. . . Damian Ryan

Table of contents

1. Going digital – the evolution of marketing
   2. Strategic thinking
   3. Your window to the digital world
   4. The search for success
   5. Website intelligence and return on investment
   6. E-mail marketing
   7. Social media and online consumer engagement
   8. Online PR and reputation management
   9. Affiliate marketing and strategic partnerships
   10. Digital media creative
   11. A lot to look forward to

• The future’s bright: head towards the light
• Word of mouth: savvy consumers control the future
• Search: a constantly evolving marketing powerhouse
• Mobile: marketing on the move
• Tracking and measuring human behaviour In-game advertising
• Holistic marketing: blurring lines and integrating media
• Dynamic, unpredictable, exciting – and essential

 

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