Creative Strategy for Rich Media

DoubleClick was one of the first ad serving agencies and now offers a broad range of services to marketers. Because of the ad serving activity they have a lot of data and they’ve used it to provide many useful reports. I recently came across their “Creative Insights for Rich Media” report, which can be found on their Research Reports page (under the Insights and Innovations tab).

I was especially interested in the video formats although the report contains data on standard ad formats, with and without video. Here’s a table that summarizes the data related to video.

Video Formats In-Page Expanding Video Expanding Non-Video In-Page Video	Click-Through Rate	Larger creative sizes give higher click-through rates
	Interaction Rate	In-page and larger creative sizes give higher interaction rate
	Interaction Time	Format plays little role in interaction time (content is key)
	Expansion Rate	Video formats produce higher expansion rates than non-video ads
	Video Complete Rate	More videos are completed in expanding formats; even more in the in-page format. Fewer auto-play videos are completed than are user-initiated videos

The report concludes with two recommendations, both of which sound like no-brainers.

1. The marketer must know the definitions and methodology behind the metrics she is using. We all know CTR; the definitions of the interactive metrics are more complex. Those definitions are detailed on page 13 of the report.
2. "Only compare and contrast data that comes from the same system and that adheres to the same methodology." That sounds pretty straightforward also--right? For example, it's all DoubleClick data; isn't it comparable. No. They point out that they've updated some of the computations of some of their metrics recently--and other producers of metrics do the same. The marketer has to be vigilant, even when tracking the same metrics over time.
   

As I read the report, I remembered that MSN.com used to have a really explanation of rich media formats, including video, on their advertising page. So I went there to look for it. On the way I got sidetracked.

I saw the ABC ad on the MSN home page and decided to "Visit ABC.com."

There's lots of media on the ABC.com site; that's no surprise. Actually, I was most interested in the banner at the top showing Bill Gates. It invited me to "rollover" and I did.

That opened a page at Microsoft; apparently a new marketing program, "A PC is not a stereotype," whatever that means. It's some interactive "advertainment"--you can see who's a pc, or in the other tab you can see what you'd look like in various advertising venues--Times Square, for example.

Quite a few people have uploaded pictures to play their game. I expanded Steve Ballmer's picture. I love it when CEOs participate!

By that time I was tired, and the post is getting too long anyway. MSN has improved their rich media formats page since I was last there and they have an excellent creative gallery. Check them out for yourself. And think about the power of these new media!

Special K Meets the Online Challenge

Perhaps you noticed the Ad Age article Thursday on Kellog’s advertising entitled “Digital ROI Surpasses That of TV.” There was a follow-up on Saturday with a more specific headline, “Kellogg Says ROI on Digital Trounces TV by 'Factor of 2'.” Something interesting going on here!

Unfortunately, they aren’t talking about their advertising metrics, and that may be the most interesting subject of all, given their pronouncements on ROI. But a quote from CMO Mark Baynes seems to capture the essence:

"Maybe the biggest opportunity over time is driven by what the digital environments afford, and we are working to embrace this aggressively."

What are they doing?

I think the Special K Challenge is aptly described as an integrated promotional campaign. It’s been going on since at least 2006, winning an award from Promo magazine in that year for its multidisciplinary campaign. In the November 2006 issue of the magazine the components of the integrated campaign described the components as follows:

Sweepstakes: instant-win participants could redeem a free pair of blue jeans when a goal size was achieved
Online: advice, tools and chat to keep dieters motivated and engaged
FSI Coupon: with seasonally relevant on-pack offers and a coupon offer that boosted multiple purchases
Retail: events in key markets and promotional P-O-P garnered in-store attention for the Challenge, which was reinforced by on-pack punch
Media: print ads in fashion and parenting magazines and newspapers, as well as heavy cycling through TV programming with large female viewership kept awareness high

They seem to have stayed with those basic components to a large extent over the campaign and the message has been consistent with a variety of executions. One of the main rotating themes on the main site is a “get a friend” approach. That’s good weight loss/exercise advice; it’s also good direct marketing strategy. They aren’t talking about the effectiveness of the Yahoo! Group, but it seems to be active, and it has a lot of content. One thing you notice when you track the program around the web is the aggressiveness of their “diet” competitors (the challenge is not described as a diet). When you search “Special K Challenge” they own the first place in the PPC ranking; all their main competitors appear to have purchased the term also.

Where are they doing it?

That was one of the more interesting results of my searches. I wanted to find a banner ad. I found one on an Australian site. I hope the banner works for you. It’s a great interactive banner. The message is essentially the same as in the US. Get ready for summer by dropping a jean size.
The UK site features a more individual approach. That’s interesting. Is it just execution, or is the friends/groups approach less successful there?



The one that really surprised me is the execution of the campaign in the United Arab Emirates. They continue to focus on the “drop a jeans size” theme. The “wall” section of the site says 2500 women have taken the challenge and lists inches lost by various participants. The current campaign there seems to have an events thrust. According to an article in local business paper Al Bawaba in May:

Hundreds of residents from across the UAE descended on Jumeirah Beach Park yesterday to participate in K-Day UAE 2008, which kick started the Kellogg's Special K two week challenge in the UAE, and follows from the phenomenal success of the challenge so far around the globe.

Is this why the Special K Challenge has achieved such an impressive ROI? It is a long-running campaign—giving a change for learning and development. It has been consistent in theme and messaging, keeping a clear focus. There have been various executions of the basic message. The campaign runs globally, with a consistent message adjusted for local effectiveness. The answer is clearly yes, for all those reasons!

So integrated marketing communications work—no surprise there! The ability to measure the effectiveness of online within that complex framework and to identify online as more effective than traditional media—in this case TV—is the achievement of Kellog’s marketers. They deserve all kinds of credit for careful, clearheaded marketing planning and measurement. Many of the rest of us could take lessons!

Loopt--Looking for Customers in New Media

In April I wrote about the social network for mobile, Loopt. I commented that there was clearly interest among people much younger than I; I’ve had several students develop marketing plans for a company that would connect mobile users. It seemed like an idea whose time had come.

On Monday MediaPost had an article on Loopt’s new customer acquisition program. Not surprisingly, it’s a new media program. Basically they are sponsoring the popular Black20’s Middle Show hosted by David Price. There are probably several things in that sentence that need translation anyone over 35, and perhaps some under. Black20 is a start-up that makes and broadcasts daily videos. The New York Times has a great story—the founders, where the name came from, how they do what they do. The Middle Show is their popular version of late-night comedy. It is hosted by David Price, recently named by New Media Minute as the “Sexiest Web Host.” I found the announcement on a site called The Feed that bills itself as “The Only News You Need to Know.” Pardon me if I take that with a grain of salt, but I hope you’re up to speed now.

I found the first sponsored episode of The Middle Show on YouTube. The video was posted on July 3 (this is July 9) and has 3,400 views, 26 ratings (4.5 stars out of 5), and 15 comments. Mull that. Some of the commenters are annoyed about the commercial aspect, but they really do appear to like this program. With that in mind, it’s worth devoting 4.35 minutes to viewing the video. I’m not sure this is ‘best in show’ new media advertising, but it does integrate the product into the story line—such as it is. Having watched it, are you inclined to “friend” David on Loopt?

The videos are going to appear on other social sites like Facebook and MySpace. Those make sense. New York’s TaxiTV seems to make less sense in terms of the target audience, but it’s clearly new media.

I know there’s a profound marketing implication here; I’m just having a little trouble finding it in the context of new media programming. Seriously, that is the implication. Loopt clearly has gone where its audience is. They’ve recruited a popular figure in that space to deliver their message. Have they got the message right? That remains to be seen. I agree with some of the commenters that it’s rather heavy-handed promotion. Will the product promotion fade more gracefully into the content of the show as time goes on? Time will tell!

Social Banner Ads?

This morning’s Media Post reports on a keynote speech at the IAB Social Media Conference by Seth Goldstein, CEO of Social Media Networks. His agency is preparing to introduce a new type of “social banner” ad format, so he is not unbiased. That doesn’t make what he says less relevant.

"Social media is killing advertising," Goldstein said. "A few years ago people started to become more interested in each other [online] and less interested in advertising." With response rates for standard banner ads under 1% and search not geared to brand advertising, social media is the next frontier for major marketers to attack.

Even Google admits that its deal to serve ads on MySpace “is not monetizing as well as we had expected.”

In his talk Goldstein mentions advertising for the BMW Series 1, which I’ve mentioned before. I looked around to see what was going on specifically on Facebook and this is what I found; a contest on the Facebook Graffiti Wall app. The shot of the top looks pretty much like other contests we’ve seen, particularly in that viewers can not only participate (note that participation is directly on Facebook) but they can also vote on the winners. The bottom half shows product information that’s part of the page. According to what’s on the page the contest (now over) drew 9006 entries and 2143 fans who presumably followed it closely. Ok, so you’ve looked at the top of the page and you see entries by 2 highschoolers. What good does that do BMW (think tomorrow vs. today when answering that one)?


I looked further to see how much I could find about the entrants. You can see the Top 150 and the Winners. Do take a look—a screen shot just can’t do these justice! If you click through on the names of some of those who placed highest, you find that you can’t see their full profiles unless you “friend” them (which requires their permission if you aren’t a denizen of Facebook). So there’s a vote here for a modicum of privacy among these young adults. And from their pictures, it’s obvious that the winners and top entrants are young adults, not teenagers messing around. Young adults, remember, is the target market for the BMW Series 1.
Is this a digression? Maybe not. I found a hint about what social banner ads might look like on Goldstein’s corporate blog. He describes the evolution of online advertising as being, first, display then behavioral with social on the horizon. I know you can’t read what’s on that section; I had to blow it up so much I couldn’t copy it, but here’s what it says:

•“Where do you want to take a test drive?”
•“Have you seen Indiana Jones yet?”
•“Have you heard the new Goldplay (?) CD yet?”

You get the idea, especially once a social banner is on a targeted site. Where do you want to test drive (virtual or real?) the BMW? Let’s talk movies. Let’s talk about some band (that I’ve never heard of, so don’t target me!).

Engage people in a subject that interests them and begin a dialog with interested prospects. That’s the theme song of social media! Here are a couple of interesting ways to think about doing just that!

AdReady-A Boost for Display Ads?

It’s only been a few days since I wrote about a study that predicts a rapid decline in display advertising on the web. It came from Borrell Associates, a specialist in local digital advertising. Then today the SmartBrief newsletter linked me to a WSJ Online Story on a start-up that allows advertisers to create and place their own display ads. Having found creating (and I use the word “create” loosely) display ads with considerable difficulty in the past, I was eager to check it out.

I went to the AdReady site and tried it and it didn’t work. So I followed my usual strategy. I watched the instructional video.

Actually, there were two issues. I had to create an account before I could play with their customization tool. That’s ok. But I couldn’t get the customization page to load. I switched to Firefox and it worked fine. That probably was a momentary blip; wouldn’t be the first time IE 2007 has caused problems.
So I used a template called AdDonna and customized an ad. I’m not pretending that it’s great copy; it was just a trial. But I liked their image better than my own, so I didn’t change that. I changed the background color to my signature purple, added the blog logo, and I had an ad! No charge up to this point. I wasn’t interested in spending any money, so I didn’t go on to the next step of deploying my ad. Looking at this screen, though, it appears to work much like choosing your target audience on Google using audience demos instead of keywords. I couldn’t find out anything about their ad network. A blog post from the Seattle Post-Intelligencer suggests that the company is being coy about that subject at present.
It’s hard for a small local or regional business to break into online display advertising. AdReady and counterparts AdItAll and AdBrite intend to change that. Based on what I saw today, they’ve got something going here!
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First, Widget Ads Then a Widget Ad Calculator

Metrics for social media are one of the vexing issues in the space. Marketing services firms of all kinds continue to develop solutions, though they can hardly be described as “integrated” at this point. DoubleClick, acquired by Google in March, describes itself as not just an ad serving network but as a provider of digital marketing technology and services. It has just added a Widget Calculator to its product line. That’s nice, but first you have to understand Widget Ads.

According to DoubleClick the widget ad format allows advertisers to convert “Rich Media creative into a widget that can be shared virally across social networks and blogs.” They tout the benefits as:
•Integrates a viral component into any campaign
•Gives you reporting and control over viral campaigns
•Makes the creative implementation as easy as building a rich media ad.
If you go to their gallery page and play the 10,000 BC ad, you’ll see it behaving just like any rich media ad. Looking at this screen shot you can see the Downloads bar; click on that and you’ll be able to download the image as wallpaper or 1 or all of a set of “buddy icons” as gifs—to do with as you please, presumably. There’s a set of photos you can view. When you decide to “Grab This” you get the code that allows you to embed the 10,000 BC ad widget on any one of a number of your pages. Cool, huh? More importantly, that’s what makes it viral. Functionality has been added to a basic ad, violá a widget!

So, how is your widget performing? That’s where the widget calculator comes in. Shown here in action, it allows users to view the performance of a specific widget. Note that the calculator is also viral, “Share This Widget.” My guess is that if a marketer has several widgets, the first sharing will be with herself.
And that brings us back to “integrated.” If you have a bunch of widgets active, you’re going to have to have a bunch of widget calculators. That’s the state of the art at the moment. But I’m sure technology will catch up with usage. Is the next step a widget dashboard?
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Auto Marketing Takes Sharp Web Turn

Auto makers all now have interactive websites that let prospective users examine and experience their models to some degree or another. Advertising also continues to move to the web. Just a few weeks ago GM let it be known that within three years fully half its advertising budget would be spend on the web (AdAge, March 17, 2008). Yesterday Chrysler announced that 29% of its budget for the new Journey would be spent on the web, with strong visitation numbers at the beginning of the launch.

It’s less of a surprise that BMW is spending half their budget for the US launch of their 1 Series on the Internet. BMW has been a leader in creative use of the web from the beginning with their BMW films series early in this decade followed by BMW comics. Their 1 Series is a lower-priced version aimed at a younger target market, so the emphasis makes sense. They cut their teeth on this type of strategy when they used the films to attract a younger, hipper audience. Now it’s an introductory video on YouTube. Take a look—it’s definitely not your father’s auto advertising!

Among other things, BMW is offering a Facebook app that will let users build their own BMW and send it to friends. Presumably that’s a repurposing of the functionality they have on the website. Makes sense to move it out onto the web where they can make it more visible, presumably by attaching it to advertising on Facebook and elsewhere on the web.

Another thing that isn’t new news is that young people spend most of their media time on the web, so that’s where you have to engage them. It takes integrated programs there, just like it’s always done in mass media. The difference is that we’re integrating a different set of tools; targeted online display ads, search advertising, microsites, videos, widgets and other specialized apps to name some of the main ones. Basic marketing principles still apply, but the execution is very different!
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Who Are the Online Leaders?

Most of us would sadly agree that we’re not one of them. What may surprise you is who some of the leaders are. Here’s some of the headline news that has caught my eye lately:
•According to AdAge, GM plans to have half its $3 billion ad budget into digital and one-to-one marketing within the next three years. GM has been active in the digital space for years with its interactive website, blogs, new wiki and more. It intends to accelerate the move from offline to online media.
•Unilever headed AdAge’s digital a-list for the year. Their campaigns included the various Dove “Real Beauty” programs and a series of webisodes for Suave. Degree deodorant sponsored webisodes for of the popular 24 television program; check out the website and click on the Absolute Protection tab. Unilever marketers are quick to point out that none of these campaigns are purely digital; they are masters of integrated communications using a variety of media.
•Some of the others on the a-list are the usual suspects among agencies and brands like Apple’s iPhone, Google, and ESPN. Others might come as more of a surprise: The NY Times online division and, if you’re not familiar with it, J&J’s baby center.
•Other online leaders like Toyota, American Express and Procter and Gamble are leading the way in the search for metrics that meet the needs of marketers in a digital world.

The corporate names I’m dropping here are not small, innovative start-ups. They are corporate giants and long-time leading advertisers. Clearly, marketers of all kinds are following their leads. Search marketing is a leader in the budget race, both because it works and because it’s easy to measure. An Ad Tech survey says that behavioral and rich media are getting even more budgetary attention. The recent SEMPO survey adds what we pretty much all know; the growth in interactive is coming at the expense of traditional media—print, TV and even direct mail.

In the last few days I’ve also read that another marketer said that digital is beyond experimentation. It is now part of the mainstream media mix, something I've been saying for awhile. There are still questions about how,when, how much and the best executions. But there should be no more questions about WHETHER!
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Is 2008 Really The Year of Mobile?

If 2007 was video, 2008 is mobile—right? That’s the prediction, anyway. Actually, it has been a prediction for several years, but in the US (unlike the rest of the developed economies and many developing ones) it hasn’t happened yet. There are reasons to believe that momentum is building, including the FCC auction of wireless spectrum. The technology is mind-numbing but I found a blog post that has a number of interesting links including one to an interview with Reid Hunt, former chairman of the FCC, who explains some issues in an understandable manner—sort of.

What marketers are looking for is the availability of wireless broadband access that makes a wide variety of applications—including advertising—interesting to mobile users. There are many users in the US—over 255 million according to CITA, the industry trade association. comScore found that mobile broadband use increased by 154% from 2006 to 2007, but that’s on a very small base. According to their press release:

Though mobile broadband access is currently used by about 1 percent of the total U.S. Internet population it is poised for significant growth over the next few years,” said Serge Matta, senior vice president of comScore. “As consumers increasingly demand and depend on portable Internet access, the demand for mobile broadband should continue to increase.

Given the current slow download speeds use of the mobile Internet is heavily skewed toward search, with local listings via 411 and content via a variety of other search methods being the primary activities.


Consumers have become accustomed to free ad-supported search on the wired Internet. Will they accept advertising on the mobile Internet in order to receive free content? Media Post today reported on a study by Nielsen Mobile that suggests they are. Their analysis says that:

data subscribers are more willing to accept advertising in exchange lower costs or better content. In that vein, 32% said they're open to mobile advertising if it lowers their overall bill, while 13% will welcome it if it boosts the quality of their mobile media offerings. And 23% expect to see more mobile advertising in the future, up from 15% at the start of 2007.

A recent article in eMarketer (February 25, 2008) emphasized the continuing importance of search among mobile Internet users and indicated that free content was highly desirable. Free is always good, but a good summary article in WSJOnline points to the growth of the mobile gaming market and the willingness of consumers to pay for popular games.

Up to now most content, like games, has been downloadable. Mobile advertising services firm Medio reports that searches for downloadable content is being replaced by searches for content on the Internet itself. They report high click-through rates for ads delivered with content searches:

Medio calculates the average click through rate on search ads delivered in this way as high as 29%. For pay-per-call advertisements, call-through rates as high as 22% have been measured.

One implication of all this data is that increasing use of the mobile Internet offers an opportunity to deliver ads on mobile devices. While that statement is true, remember that the majority of people like me who have mobile Internet access don’t use it. Those who do use it are heavily skewed to the young and higher income demographics.

The widespread adoption of the wireless Internet in the US seems like an agonizingly slow process. However, it does appear to be picking up speed. For marketers with the right content or products that are targeted to the early adopters of the wireless Internet, this feels like the time to start experimenting with the channel.
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How Has the Internet Changed Marketing Strategy?

The answer is that changes have been great, but I don’t know of anyone who has verbalized the changes in a specific way. I’m going to cut off a chunk and give it a try.

I like to try to boil what we do as marketers, which often gets pretty complex, down into simple concepts. As far as I’m concerned marketers basically do three things. We acquire customers or sales leads. We convert leads into actual customers. We retain existing customers. There are many things we have to do in order to accomplish these three key goals. In addition, marketers of frequently-purchased consumer goods and services and some lower-priced business goods and services may not be in the lead conversion and generation business. With those provisos customer acquisition, conversion and retention form the core of what marketers do.
Internet 1.0 changed all those activities irrevocably. As this blog has often pointed out Web 2.0 is already here and the requirements for marketers are changing again before we fully came to grips with Web 1.0. This is a good time to sit back and try to organize the changes we know about into a simple, understandable form.

So, over the next couple of weeks I’m going to write a series of four posts, with this being the first. In the second I’ll discuss customer acquisition. Then over a few days I’ll write about conversion and then retention.

I keep being reminded that many of us who are now in the higher echelons of marketing were educated in traditional mass media marketing and it’s hard to get away from that and understand how fundamentally marketing has changed. Understanding the changes that have taken place--and maybe looking ahead a bit--is the purpose of this series of posts.

Please stay tuned!
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Is the Engagement Metric Evolving?

Microsoft’s announcement of its new Engagement Mapping metric at the IAB conference this week created additional buzz around what was already one of the hottest online marketing topics of the moment. And not just this particular moment—it has been ongoing for awhile. Last summer ARF Chief Research Officer Joe Plummer defined it this way, "Engagement is turning on a prospect to a brand idea enhanced by the surrounding context." That’s an interesting concept, but it doesn’t give me any guidance as to how I could measure it.

Several marketers have proposed approaches to measuring brand engagement, especially online. Forrester has a concept that includes four factors--involvement, interaction, intimacy, and influence. That appears to combine attitudinal and behavioral measures, and that would be a strong approach. The public information makes it clear that it requires both online and offline data. That doesn’t make it cheap, but it makes it comprehensive, which is essential.

Brand Keys offers measures of engagement that are category-specific. Their measure relies heavily on customer expectations of brands in the category. They publish a list of highest-scoring brands in various categories each year.

Nielsen//NetRatings has changed its key measure of web traffic from page views to time spent on the site. They tout it as a better measure of engagement, and it certainly beats page views, which have well-known problems. However, that goes back to an old academic argument on the definition of brand loyalty (is engagement a precursor to loyalty--I think so). The argument is that loyalty is more than repeat purchase behavior—that can be just habit. True loyalty—and I suspect true engagement—requires understanding of attitudes as well as behavior.

Earlier this year Kevin Mannion wrote a three-part article (1, 2, 3) for MediaPost’s Metrics Insider Newsletter that gives an excellent summary of efforts to date. He references the work of Eric T. Peterson and Avinash Kaushik, both prolific writer/speakers on metrics issues. Mannion’s analysis of this body of work produces an engagement metric with six components. They are:
Loyalty: how often visitors return to a site over a long period of time.
Recency: how frequently visitors come to a site within a narrow time period.
Duration: how long visitors remain on the site.
Click Depth: the degree to which visitors view site content.
Interactivity: the kinds of actions visitors take with content (downloading content, viewing videos, attending webinars, posting content, etc.).
Subscription: the extent to which visitors register for services or content.
In the third installment he gives an example of how this metric would work. Note that it is all behavioral; to be specific it is all based on online metrics. That means it is based on data that online marketers currently can access.

That brings us full-circle to the Microsoft Engagement Mapping platform. According to Brian McAndrews of Microsoft, “Our Engagement Mapping approach conveys how each ad exposure — whether display, rich media or search, seen multiple times on multiple sites and across many channels — influenced an eventual purchase. We believe it represents a quantum leap for advertisers and publishers who are seeking to maximize their online spends.” I can visualize what such a map would look like and how useful it would be, especially to the multichannel e-retailer.

It doesn’t solve the metrics issue, however. Engagement Mapping is all behavioral—more a measure of impact than engagement in my mind. If engagement is indeed an attitudinal state that is manifested in brand behavior of various types—both on and offline—we still don’t have a metric that truly captures the concept.
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Parsing Facebook User Data Policies

Facebook and User Data. In Friday’s post I noted that I had actually taken time to read the Facebook Terms of Use. Since I’m encouraging people to set up Facebook accounts I have some responsibility to point out issues. The people who read this blog aren’t likely to post personal information as thoughtlessly as teens and young adults do, but we all still need to be aware. As I pointed out on Friday, at the very least we need to decide whether, as advertisers, we want to take advantage of profile data like Facebook’s. At best, we need to become advocates for policies and practices that will be in the long-run best interest of our discipline. Facebook is not the only site that puts these issues front and center, it’s just the largest and most visible and therefore a good example. Detractors of Google could question that statement, but my experience is that Google has a much more restrictive set of information policies and practices than what I’m describing here.

Facebook’s Terms of Use is several pages long and full of detail. In all fairness, it has good information and warnings. It tries to keep children under 13 off, although we all know how much good that does. It also tries to keep dangerous people and practices off the site, and it appears to have been taking that responsibility more seriously recently. They talk the right talk about intellectual property but we all know that is difficult to enforce.

That said, Facebook’s policy on data is eye-popping. This is a short quote from the section entitled User Content Posted on the Site:

When you post User Content to the Site, you authorize and direct us to make such copies thereof as we deem necessary in order to facilitate the posting and storage of the User Content on the Site. By posting User Content to any part of the Site, you automatically grant, and you represent and warrant that you have the right to grant, to the Company an irrevocable, perpetual, non-exclusive, transferable, fully paid, worldwide license (with the right to sublicense) to use, copy, publicly perform, publicly display, reformat, translate, excerpt (in whole or in part) and distribute such User Content for any purpose, commercial, advertising, or otherwise, on or in connection with the Site or the promotion thereof, to prepare derivative works of, or incorporate into other works, such User Content, and to grant and authorize sublicenses of the foregoing. You may remove your User Content from the Site at any time. If you choose to remove your User Content, the license granted above will automatically expire, however you acknowledge that the Company may retain archived copies of your User Content. Facebook does not assert any ownership over your User Content; rather, as between us and you, subject to the rights granted to us in these Terms, you retain full ownership of all of your User Content and any intellectual property rights or other proprietary rights associated with your User Content.

Some of the scary words are “perpetual,” “irrevocable,” and “distribute such User Content for any purpose, commercial, advertising, or otherwise.” But there's so much more that it's gotten to long for a single post. Tomorrow I'll get to the third party/ad networks issues.

And, in the meantime, if you have teenagers you might want to talk to them about implications of sites like Facebook. Are they aware, for instance, that colleges and employers are searching social sites for information that might affect the future of users of these sites?
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Computing (and Ads) Everywhere

Talk about your captive audiences! Yesterday the Hawthorne Videoactive Report highlighted results from Nielsen Media Research that found 70 percent of respondents recalling advertising seen on gas pumps. Even more impressive, 84 percent said they will pay attention to the next gas-pump advertising they see. When you’re pumping your gas, you truly are a captive market! But think about how many other times that is true—at the ATM, standing in line at a retail store, stuck in traffic on an urban expressway.

Also think about how often you are willing to use free-standing kiosks to perform a routine task—checking in for a flight and placing your deli order in a supermarket come to mind. Staples recently announced a new customer service application that uses in-store kiosks to connect shoppers with product experts at other locations. I remembered a store associate using something similar to find out if the items I wanted were in stock, so I went down and took a look. I found 2 kiosks where you can scan items to get the price, one where you can design your business cards and saw that they called their self-service copiers “print kiosks.” Their applications seem to be a mix of sales and service.

More broadly, the WSJ’s Walt Mossberg (subscription required) says the iPhone points to a wave of “multitouch” items we can expect to see blossom in the near future and gives some examples in an accompanying video.

The big kahuna of this set of products is Microsoft’s Surface computer. Microsoft describes the product as multi-touch, multi-user with ability to recognize different objects and provide direct interaction. At about $5,000 per screen not many of us will have a surface computer coffee table soon, but you will see them in locations like Harrah’s Casinos and Starwood Resorts.View the video here.

Service and sales applications of multitouch devices suggest intriguing possibilities. The eventual advertising implications are unclear. Just how many times, in how many places are we going to be willing to accept advertising before we completely tune it out? The limit seems to be a moving target, but new devices and channels heighten the need to provide more relevant and engaging messages for an already-jaded public.
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Whither Video Advertising?

I’ve made multiple posts on this blog and on the eBrandMarketing blog about the increasing importance of video. Every time I think I’ve beaten that subject to death some fascinating new data turns up to inspire me to write another post. That was the case with the eMarketer newsletter of January 28, which gives new insight into video use and to how viewers are handling advertising.




The industry is scrambling to establish standards for video advertising with the IAB taking the lead. Their recent report categorizes types of video advertising and identifies current metrics.A series of iMediaConnection videos, made at an iMedia Summit in March but only recently posted on their site gives an in-depth assessment of the state of the art in content and advertising.
It’s long; each of the three segments runs 15 to 17 minutes. The first segment looks at three very different types of video channels, the NBC Universal Digital Network, Bud TV and the Veoh service. The first 10 minutes is helpful in understanding why they are different and what the relationships are to NBC and Anheuser Busch. The second segment goes into more depth on the nature and production of their content. The third segment discusses advertising using the IAB framework.

The video space is only going to become more vibrant as mobile video (and advertising?) becomes available. eMarketer also published a chart on mobile entertainment revenues on January 28. It made me think about the video that accompanies the current WSJ special report on technology9subscription required). The video interviews a few consumers to get their technology wish list. I’d summarize their requests as “convergence” and “mobile content,” both of which seem to add up to wanting to consume content on the go.

Where content goes, advertising of some kind is sure to follow. The efforts of both leading-edge firms who are creating online content and of leading-edge advertisers who are experimenting with “what works” in the space should be followed closely.
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Podcasting for Marketers

In recent weeks I’ve been talking to two people in very different situations about adding podcasts to their marketing communications offering. The situations are different, but the common theme is the desire to provide detailed information and various perspectives to identifiable niche markets. I’ve been looking at both the mechanics and best practices for those who wish to podcast. For marketers who don’t want to podcast themselves, podcasts that successfully reach their target audiences offer another advertising opportunity.

A 2005 post on the O’Reilly digital media blog outlines the basics. It all still applies except that the hardware changes quickly, so you’ll want to look for latest, well-reviewed pieces of equipment. The good news is that not much is necessary—a mic for your laptop and podcasting software will get you started. Active podcasters like to record in the field and there are many cool new devices for capturing live events. You’ll also notice that there is more software available for Apple systems than for Microsoft—surprise, surprise!—but whichever operating system you use, you can find what you need, and free software will meet most needs. That said, it’s not the technology that’s the issue, it’s identifying the need for podcasts and integrating them into your overall marketing communications strategy. Christopher Penn, CIO of the Student Loan Network, is well known in the podcasting community for the success of his podcasts. He has a clear target audience—prospective and actual college students and their parents. They need the information in his podcasts and he makes it easy to subscribe, even pointing out that an iPod isn’t necessary. Most podcasters simply have a page on the main site. Chris has a well-organized microsite that is visually integrated with the main site while it focuses visitors on the podcasts. He podcasts on a consistent schedule and often brings in outside experts. His microsite is welcoming to parents who aren’t into the new media scene, while it encourages their children to do things like “add this to your Facebook page.” It also has other features that engage his high-school and college age audience such as links to “free stuff” and job search information. Brian Carroll offers good advice for beginning podcasters on Marketing Profs (free registration required).

Lesson #1: Producing your own podcasts must be an element of overall communications strategy. In developing a podcasting strategy, ask questions like “is this a customer acquisition or retention mechanism?” and “how am I going to attract listeners/subscribers to the podcasts?” Answering the second question will put the issue of integrated marketing communications squarely into focus.

It has been a couple of years since leading-edge marketers recognized that advertising on or sponsoring podcasts was a targeted advertising opportunity. One of the first to acquire sponsorship was MommyCast, still sponsored by Dixie. Since I was last on the site they have added a weekly Internet radio show to their product line. Young mothers rely heavily on the Internet for information and this successful podcast has turned out to be a great way to reach them. Ad networks Radio Tail and Wizzard Media help marketers reach the niche markets represented by podcasts and Podbridge/Volo Media offers metrics services. Here’s some advice for advertisers.

The conventional wisdom is that B2B marketers have been slow to adopt podcasts, which seem a natural for reaching customers with current developments. Current data about B2B podcasting is in short supply, but a directory called PodFeed lists over 600 podcasts that have the tag “business.”

Lesson #2: Marketers can sponsor individual podcasts or use ad networks to reach podcast audiences with their online advertising.

Podcasts probably aren’t for everyone (marketer or user!) but their ability to deliver information to customers and advertising to targeted audiences makes them worthy of consideration.
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Dayparting and Video Consumption

I enjoyed my time in Vietnam and I’ll be posting a series detailing what I’ve learned about marketing there and another about my travels. I’m also happy to be back and trying to catch up on what’s been going on in social media over the past three weeks.

Something that caught my eye while I was gone was the article in the New York Times on lunchtime video. That's not a surprise to those of us who have consumed Internet content, including video, over lunch at our desks for years! As a recognizable trend, it’s clearly something else that marketers need to figure into their media buys.

The most recent data I could locate is from comscore Video Metrix.Two issues are obvious:
1.Weekday video viewing is high during the core workday and from 8 – 11 p.m. but even higher in the 5 – 8 pm daypart.
2.The pattern changes markedly on weekends, with viewing high all afternoon but highest from 7 – 11 pm.

What are they watching? While the specific answer is obviously segment-specific, we can also make some generalizations about that:
•According to the Times article and the comscore data, they are “snacking” on short videos, leaving longer segments for evenings and weekends.
•There are numerous sites that offer popular lunchtime fare, including portals and large media sites. This list from a Canadian entertainment writer has sites catering to various segments.
•Last year Pew found that 57% of Internet users (74% of broadband users)had viewed or downloaded video. A study published this month found that 48% of users had visited a video-sharing site and that daily use of these sites has doubled in the past year.
•Mobile video is on the horizon; a recent study described by Media Post found that 41% of teenagers have cell phones with video downloading capability and half of them have actually downloaded videos. Since mobile translates to “on the go” that will shift the dayparting algorithm.

So video—on the desktop or on mobile devices—represents another advertising opportunity for marketers. First, they must understand the video viewing behavior of their target audiences. Then they will be able to take advantage of the dayparting being offered by publisher sites. Sites like Boston.com and CNN allow marketers to target video advertising demographically or behaviorally and then refine their ad buy with dayparts.

The voracious appetite for video on the part of web users is undeniable. It creates another opportunity for marketers to target advertising to a time and context that makes it relevant to the viewer. The next step is for marketers to factor video advertising into their media buying and scheduling activities.
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GPS Meets Mobile in New York Taxicabs

This video is a light-hearted look at a GPS-driven system for taxi passengers in New York City. Apparently the system has also been authorized for testing in a small number of cabs in Boston. I haven’t been exposed to it in either place, and I’d like to try it out. I’d also be happy not to have to be sure I have enough cash when I take a taxi in either city.View the video here.

GPS in our transportation systems has not been without controversy. New York taxi drivers initially threatened to strike over the system, which was viewed as costly and a potential invasion of privacy. The strike didn’t happen, but the drivers still don’t sound happy about it.

I was reminded what happened in Massachusetts last year when GPS systems were mandated for all snow plowing contractors. They also were not happy and threatened to strike going into the winter season—not acceptable to Massachusetts residents. So the state put off the requirement for a year, but as far as I know, the GPS systems are going to be required of all contractors this season.

As you view the video, think about the advertising opportunities it opens up. As usual in mobile, Asian countries are far ahead of us. I found another light-hearted look at taxis, with Japan and Singapore having especially interesting applications.

If this gives you an idea for a last-minute Christmas gift, CNET is keeping an eye on what’s available!
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Should Marketers Stop Talking About Advertising?

Several recent studies have documented the persistent movement of marketing attention and dollars away from traditional media to interactive and social media. Highlights include a report from Forrester Research predicting that spending on interactive marketing will be over $61 billion by 2012. As a yardstick, their estimate of interactive for 2007 is in the neighborhood of $20 billion while TNS Media Intelligence estimated total advertising spend at over $152 billion.

These estimates vary hugely, depending on what media are included and the forecasting approach. For instance, Jupiter Media forecasts about $35 billion in online spending by 2012. eMarketer is in the middle, forecasting roughly $42 billion by 2011.

Whichever set of absolute dollar figures you subscribe to, the actual flow of dollars from traditional media to interactive is well documented. It is generally agreed that interactive is growing by double digits while many traditional media are experiencing actual declines in advertising revenue. The TNS figures are representative.

What is most interesting about the Forrester chart is their prediction of continuing strong growth in search marketing and huge growth lumped into “emerging channels.” Since they explicitly include online display ads, email and video (which also is forecasted to experience explosive growth) it’s clear that the emerging channels are other social media from blogs to social networks to advergaming and beyond.

Two other recent reports give perspectives on how this will change the advertising industry. A report by Accenture, quoted here last month, asked marketers to identify their top three areas for increased online spending. The choices are fairly conservative. Even so, they will create changes in how marketers carry out their interactive spending. Amateur content owners are new to the survey; the only growth area from the previous year is professional content owners. The “emerging channels” are content hogs and other content providers aren’t positioned to meet the needs.

The report with the provocative title “The End of Advertising as We Know It” is from an organization not known for frenzied speculation. IMB surveyed 2400 consumers and 80 advertising executives from around the world. Then they sounded impending doom for traditional advertising agencies and broadcasters as well as for traditional direct marketing. Advertisers themselves (DIY?), consumers and interactive agencies will create the most economic value.
This isn’t news to the traditional advertising agencies who are scrambling madly, through acquisitions and partnerships, to bring interactive services under the same corporate umbrella as their traditional services. This didn’t work well in the heyday of direct marketing back in the 1980s, it is proving problematical in the heyday of interactive.

There is a world of content creators out there—from the young man who created the iTouch commercial to residents of virtual worlds to the millions of people everywhere who post videos and photos. Savy marketers are learning to harness their own creativity and that of loyal customers in support of their brands. Let the learning continue unabated!
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Announcing a New Blog

I'm happy to announce that a new vertical blog sponsored by Glam Media launched just last night. eBrand Marketing has an interesting line-up of authors and you can expect it to be a lively and informative look at ebranding, especially in the context of marketing to women.

You may be familiar with Glam Media. Their website Glam has recently become the web traffic leader in the women's space. It has lots of good content and Web 2.0 features.

I'll be making today's post there with some new data on video. We hope you'll check it out and come back often!

Attracting the Attention of Internet Users

Reports on multitasking always amuse me. That’s probably because I see when I am sitting in front of the computer with the TV on in the background, maybe playing a video clip or webcast loud enough to be heard over it. I’m a member of the group, and I’m always interested to see what we are doing.

Marketing Charts quoted a recent study by Burst Media in which they found both men and women of all ages multitasking while they are online. They found that:

• ”Watching television (58.3%) is the most common offline activity while also online.
• Television viewing is followed by job-related activities (33.0%), reading a book (31.1%), reading a magazine or newspaper (29.7%), talking on a cell phone (23.6%), listening to the radio (21.6%), school work (17.9%), sending text messages by cell phone or other device (17.8%), and playing video games (15.5%).” See the full report here.

Not surprisingly, young users 18 – 34 do a bit more, but I doubt the differences are significant until you get to the 45s and older. USA Today did a series last year that went into depth on the media habits of the younger set, elaborating on issues I wrote about earlier in the week. They are trend-setters and it’s important to watch them, but don’t let that obscure the fact that multitasking is universal.

The question then becomes how we attract their attention in any medium—and it’s becoming increasingly difficult. There has been a lot of buzz recently about both MySpace and Facebook offering targeted advertising that is based on behavioral profiling. The buzz is a bit overdone because behavioral targeting is an established sub-discipline of Internet marketing. eMarketer, quoting the Connected Consumers study cited in an earlier post, consumers find personalized ads useful at the same time they have some qualms about being tracked.
There is also the time-honored direct marketing technique of offering them something. That approach is going mobile, and it’s especially popular with the young. However, a couple of recent ads from my friends at BostonNow shows that it’s taking hold in urban environments too. Mobile advertising has a way to go in the US, but if you are heading in the direction of one of the restaurants, why not text ahead for a free serving of nachos or a free cup of coffee? As direct marketers know, “free” is the operative word, and it attracts attention. Good marketers will carefully acquire opt-in permission to continue offering these customers mobile promotions. Let the dialog begin!

These two ways of attracting the attention of consumers have something in common. They do not rely on what pundits from Seth Godin to Bob Garfield have described as “interruption marketing.” It just doesn’t work anymore. Consumers are doing something else important and they don’t want to be interrupted.

Relevance works. So does embedding targeted offers in entertaining content.

What doesn’t work is trying too hard--too obviously--to sell them something. Online advertising needs to avoid the meaningless blandness of most offline advertising. Presence on social media must offer something useful in a life-style appropriate manner. Mobile absolutely must be invited.

We are in search of a new advertising (or is it non-advertising?) model. Any thoughts on what it’s going to look like?
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