Google Hater: Ad Tech VISA CMO Antonio Lucio Slams Giant

Ad Tech VISA CMO Talks Digital Transformation, a photo by zennie62 on Flickr.

Ad Tech Day Two San Francisco's Moscone Center West (really Day One, as it's the first full day), started with a keynote presentation by VISA CMO (Chief Marketing Officer) Antonio Lucio, who's talk was one part about digital and e-commerce from VISA's experience, another part how he hates Google.

Well, hate is a strong word, but it's appropriate, because in the middle of his talk, he presented Google as, er, arrogant "We're smart (er than you), we have 73 percent of the market." And showing the kind of distain for the search giants expressed by everyone from newspaper publishers, to online marketers, and bloggers.

But aside from his issues with Google, Lucio shared some interesting findings from VISA's foray into social media:

1) Facebook has changed the way we interact and even shop.
2) Zynga, the Facebook gaming platform, has a higher level of "engagement" than the norm for the Internet. "Engagement" is the act of sharing information about a something online.
3) There's a process VISA observers in the online path to the purchase of a "something" that has been influenced by social media. It starts with 1) Advocate, 2) Consider, 3) Evaluate, then 4) Buy.
4) Today, a brand needs what Lucio calls "An Army of Advocates." Those are people talking favorably about your brand or about you.

Lucio didn't talk about the negatives, like people not talking favorably about you online. Moreover, he didn't talk about the fact that, even online, bad buzz, if based on an opinion, and not a fact, can cause a backlash and create good buzz over time.

Press Briefing Intros New Apps.

At the press briefing after the keynote, we were introduced to new product apps Made In Social (which looks at who's saying what about your brand), Loyalize (a real time audience engagement product where you can block cussing trolls), and AYTM (for Ask Your Target Market). (And an apology to other firm's I missed because I had to walk away and do The Tonya Hall Radio Show at 1300 AM in Colorado Springs - plug for her show.)

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