I have written for our blog about tech, or events, or worked with Producer Extraordinaire Scott Parent to provide you with podcast content we have felt would be useful to our friends in the performance marketing industry. But today I am switching hats and wanted to talk about our recent overhaul of our flagship platform Advaliant.

As most of you know by now, we finished an end to end redesign of Advaliant and released it to our customers earlier this year. As the Creative Director of MediaTrust, and one third of the leadership team of the MediaTrust Products Group, first let me say thank you for all the feedback we have received, both positive and negative. Your help in assessing features and functions, as well as assisting in killing the few remaining bugs has been invaluable to us, and your ideas about what we could do to increase the value of Advaliant as a service platform has been extremely insightful. We are testing the theory of the “wisdom of the crowds” in a real-time fashion with our customers and it seems to be proving itself out. Thank you for your input.

Last year we had an internal summit with key individuals across all divisions of the company. One of the top findings that came out as a result of this summit was that our platform was not doing what it should to support your business. We had not progressed fast enough to stay on pace with our competitors, our industry, and the functionality our customers required. We made a commitment that not only would we improve upon every basic feature and function that is required to support your business as a performance marketer, but we would begin to innovate on those functions and again become the leader in the performance marketing industry.

The platform release that you are currently using is just the first step of many. We redesigned the user interface do make your tasks easier to complete. We restructured more than 75% of the underlying code base to speed up the platform, insure data integrity, and create an overall performance lift in the benefit of Advaliant to our customers. But this is only the beginning of a year-long plan of innovation and execution.

Over the course of the next 10 months you may not see radical changes, as many of the improvements to the UI have been completed, but you should feel the changes. Reports will be snappier, our data visualization will crackle and requests will pop to completion. Our plans for improved or added features and functions will not just get us back in the game as a leading platform, but it will become the platform of choice, because of the input you have provided for us. Advaliant has always enjoyed a great reputation as a hardworking, insightful and honest performance marketing company. Now we want to add industry technology leader to the reputation you have helped us build. And again, we thank you for that.

If you have feedback for us, you can always send it via the feedback links in the platform after you log in and review your current earning, or after running our newest campaigns. You can also send an email to your account manager who will be certain to get that feedback to us in the product team. As always, we love to read your comments below, here on the blog.

A very special thanks to Garr Reynolds for featuring this TED presentation today. I would love to have Benjamin Zander as an instructor, or a mentor. This morning, during coffee, when I usually catch up on the things that have already happened, I spent the 20 minutes or so learning about the things that MIGHT happen. I was so inspired by how he worked with his student to break apart music for Cello and actually begin to look at the parts, and place between the notes, and the connections between not only the pieces and the parts and the spaces, but connections those things have to each other AND to the audience. Benjamin also included the connection to the artist, a 15 year old talent named Nicholi, and inspired him to change his interaction with the music as well.

I am sure you will all take away a different nugget or two of wisdom, or inspiration or whatever… but I am so fully inspired to look at those parts of the whole, the spaces between the notes, and see if I can not add a different sense of beauty, of perspective, or of interpretation with the new work I am doing (more on that later).

I also hope to bring you a review of Benjamin’s book, The Art of Possibility. I am still reading Guy Kawasaki’s new tome Reality Check and will move on to Zander’s book after that. Special thanks to Guy and his people over at Penguin Group who sent me an extra copy of Reality Check for our readers. Tell me what inspired you about the Zander presentation from TED in the comments, and I’ll send Guy’s book to one of you.

The new digital landscape and modern consumers are dramatically different

The new “digital landscape” is dramatically different from the environment into which TV, print, and radio ads were launched no more than two decades ago. Even today’s Web 2.0 environment is different than the Web 1.0 environment of a decade ago. As the Internet led to the more facile accumulation and dissemination of information and as social networks brought even mainstream consumers online, the power of consumers has increased significantly relative to advertisers. For example, they will search for information when they want it and ignore all other forms of interruption media pushed at them. They will look for independent and objective reviews of products or services and distrust brand messages put out by advertisers touting their own virtues. And they will rely on the actions of the community to help them filter and prioritize the best “stuff” from the ocean of available content.

Audience fragmentation caused by the proliferation of niche cable channels (e.g. the fly fishing channel) and abundant online video channels means that “mass media” is not so “mass” any more — there are no longer massive audiences tuned into a single television program at the same time. “Media” is now two-way or many-to-many — i.e. consumers tend to talk amongst themselves. But many advertisers and their agencies still rely heavily on one-way tactics – pushing a carefully crafted message out at target customers.

Globalization, information proliferation, and socialization have irreversibly changed industries

Other macro forces are also re-shaping the industries, in particular the advertising, marketing, and communications industries.

Globalization means that, for example, coding can be outsourced to India, graphic design to Australia, or television production to Asia, all at a fraction of the cost of “in-house” resources. The wide availability of tools like online photo editing tools (picnic.com), video editing sites (motionbox.com), and even high-end 3D and special effects software (Blender.org) — all of which are open source and free — fuel the perception that such digital capabilities and services should be lower cost, if not free. These trends mean that agencies whose revenues were derived from these services are facing constant downward pricing pressure.

The proliferation of information has also irreversibly changed the perceptions, behaviors, and habits of consumers. The abundance of information online conditions users to search for information and form their own opinions through research. They also expect more detailed information than can be typically delivered through TV, print, or radio ads — e.g. they want to see the product brochure online, do price comparison shopping across dozens of retailers, and read peer and expert reviews before buying. And they will do the above on their own time (e.g. planning a family cruise vacation at 1 am when the kids are asleep), which destroys the concept of targeting using day-part or show content.

The socialization of consumers online means that the conversations that used to happen among a few people around the watercooler are now happening online for all to see. The collective complaints or praises of products and services now become inputs to many other users doing research online before their next purchase. Furthermore not only is the spread of information much faster online, but the impact could also be dramatically larger — for example, 1) by the end of opening weekend, hundreds of user reviews of a movie can immediately determine its fate — a mega hit or a “straight-to-DVD” movie, and 2) the action of a single person who found an unsavory clause in AT&T’s Wireless’ “fine print” and posted it online caused such a community uproar that AT&T made a public statement that it would be removed.

Traditional agencies rely on old business models (and other challenges for traditional agencies)

Despite the new landscape conditions of no more mass media and consumers doing their own research online, many advertisers are still doing traditional advertising. And many of their agencies are still relying on old business models (agency of record) and being paid for production. Creative ideas are still being given away for free during the pitch process; if the pitch is won the agency then gets to bill against production of assets. But freely available tools or production and abundant lower cost producers are causing clients to question costs.

Other challenges plague traditional agencies. All clients want to “go digital;” but digital is seen to be a “bolt on” capability among big agencies and smaller agencies are perceived to be more digitally savvy. Further, “clients find it hard to know how much digital stuff costs,” says Peter Cowie, Managing Partner of Oyster Catchers, a search consultancy based in London. “Many clients are using in house capability to save costs and retain control.” Cowie continues, “many clients are deeply insecure about digital marketing” partly because of its novelty, but also, practically because of the wide array of new disciplines, including for example, social networking, mobile, gaming, search, analytics, user interface, Flash, AJAX, e-commerce, online ad networks and media buying, etc.

The new digital agency plays the role of a strategic advisor and subject matter expert

So what is the role an agency can and should play in this new landscape? We believe, the role of a strategic advisor to calm clients’ insecurities and ensure a cogent and smooth incorporation of digital. Smaller agencies that grew up in digital may not have the expertise in traditional disciplines nor a global footprint and enough staff to handle large global clients. However, large traditional agencies, with a few key changes to business model, organizational structure, and internal processes will be able to guide clients through the shift towards digital, by changing the marketing mix and ensuring that all channels are integrated, working together, and reinforcing to each other.

These changes may include 1) managing a network of independent specialists (who serve on SWAT teams for client projects) instead of in-house FTEs, to account for the wide variety of new skills and disciplines 2) shifting away from the business model of being paid for production to being paid for managing a network of geographically disperse low-cost providers, and 3) providing thought leadership as subject matter expert in digital disciplines, strategies, and tactics.

So the way I look at it, August is the unofficial countdown to the pennant races and we aren’t going to sit in the Minor’s looking to get called up. So, between now and September 10th you have a chance to play the Advaliant Grand Slam!

With a combination of strategic plays, perseverance and some solid base running you could put your hands on MacBook Air, $1800 in Amazon cash, or even a 37″ flatscreen TV delivered in time for the World Series.

How does the Grand Slam play out? If you aren’t an affiliate of Advaliant’s yet, first thing you need to do is fill out the simple form and get approved to our premium network. If you’re already a member of Team Advaliant, log in and run the series of offers listed in the Grand Slam rules. Each base has a set of offers associated with it, and as you move around the bases, you become eligible for more prizes while earning more revenue. If you complete the requirements for all three bases the top producer will win their choice of a MacBook Air or an $1800 gift certificate to Amazon.com.

And its no coincidence that we are running the Grand Slam competition in conjunction with our trip to Boston for the Affiliate Summit East. You can find us in the MeatMarket at booth #16, along the wall to the right. Come by, signup to be an affiliate and if you already are, see if your affiliate manager is on the floor. Don’t forget to ask them about our spankin’ new Team Advaliant shirts.