Warning - The road ahead could be long and bumpy (and I'm not referencing our current economic situation).  According to a new study summarized in Ad Age, we still haven't made a lot of progress in bridging the expanse between Marketing and Finance. 

The ANA and Financial Executives International have just published and presented a new study at the ANA 2008 Marketing Accountability Conference on a topic near and dear to my heart.

So, which do you want first?  The good news?  Or the bad news?

Personally, I like to get bad news out of the way first, so I can look forward optimistically to good news.  So, we'll start with that. 

The bad news: 

• 60% of financial execs don't think that their companies' marketing department understands financial controls  

• 70% of them don't use the inputs and forecasts provided by marketing in any financial guidance  

• 90% of them don't use any type of ROI metrics for budgeting exercises concerning marketing.

• Only 1/3 of marketing execs say that their marketing goals are aligned with the overall corporate goals

• Another 1/3 say there are no written goals for their marketing department

Wow - there's alot of opportunity for improvement there!

And, now, on to the good news: 

• 60% of marketers are trying to measure their impact on sales

• 33% of marketing execs report that, in their company, marketing and finance are jointly working on establishing metrics and methodologies for evaluating marketing ROI.  (This is up from only 22% last year, so we're going in the right direction!  And hopefully, these projects will start to change the numbers above in the 'bad news' section.)

• Another 50% are at least experiencing some cooperation between marketing and finance

• More than half of marketers use their analyses as evidence to maintain or increase their budgets

Personally, I'm really glad to see that the tide is changing, and collaboration is increasing!  The collaboration is advantageous for many reasons:

Continue reading "Construction Ahead - I hope!" »

Posted by Trina Arnett at 11:19 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

As marketers, we are all aware that marketing budgets are a prime target for trimming – or even butchering – during recessionary times. It often seems that we are our own worst enemies, feeding the recessionary monster without just cause. One large CPG or automotive giant pulls back spending and a trend emerges that rapidly begins to permeate across industries, both on the B2C and B2B sides. Even some companies that are hitting or exceeding their financial expectations begin to get tentative.

It seems that the negative industry news about ad spending is flooding my inbox on a daily basis. The headlines read: Online Retail Growth is Slowing, Upfront Questionable, Expected to Slip, U.S. Ad Spend Forecast for 2008 Lowered. Despite these reports and industry-wide cuts in spending, much has been written and validated about the benefits of maintaining or increasing marketing budgets during tough times. Studies have shown that you can not only gain competitive advantages while your competitors begin to pull back, but that those rewards can be reaped over the long-term.

Harvard Business School professor John Quelch wrote a great article about this topic in March. In his article, Marketing Your Way Through a Recession, published in the HBS Working Knowledge, Quelch suggests several key tactics for powering your way through an economic downturn. I have commented on three of the key points below.

Continue reading "Recession? Time to Start Spending." »

Posted by Doug Ellinger at 03:52 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

Life is changing and so is my persona.

I'm re-entering the workforce after one of life's major changes – Motherhood.  After four months of maternity leave my life is forever altered.  With the joys of Motherhood also come sleep deprivation, a new commute, new shopping habits – the list goes on and on.

Changes in your customer and prospects profiles are an important part of understanding who they are.  These insights may lead to new up-sell and cross-sell opportunities.  Changes may mean shifting dollars and tweaking messages as prospects move from a core target to secondary target and vice versa.

Continue reading "You knew your customer when you first met. What about now?" »

Posted by Kara Tierney at 03:00 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

If you're a marketing professional, then you're likely all-too-familiar with the concept of media fragmentation, or the continued splintering of our target audiences as they move away from a handful of large media publishers/sites towards many smaller, niche ones. It makes finding and communicating with our audiences a lot harder, as the number of media outlets through which to reach them has grown exponentially. The phenomenon has given rise to the Long Tail, as well as a new breed of providers that claim to have the solution: ad networks.

Contextual advertising provider ContextWeb, together with BIMA, hosted an invitation-only roundtable in Boston last week to discuss this very topic. Titled, Media Fragmentation: Wandering Audiences and What Advertisers Can Do About It, the session featured Jay Sears, SVP Strategic Products at ContextWeb, and Steve Ustaris, Group Media Director at Carat, discussing the market response to fragmentation and the pros and cons of ad networks.

"Daunting but Exhilerating" Times

Sears opened the session with some pertinent quotes from IAB Chairman and ContextWeb Board Member, Wenda Harris Millard, who noted at the recent IAB Conference that these are "daunting but exhilerating" times - where consumers are calling the shots and the market bears witness to many strange bedfellows.

Consider that portal page views have declined in the last few years (below chart courtesy of ContextWeb), while blogs are growing at a rate of 120,000 per day (Technorati currently tracks 112 million blogs).

Yet 75% of media spend is still going to the top 10 Internet properties...perhaps out of habit, perhaps because planners don't know how to penetrate the Long Tail.

Continue reading "Ad Networks: a Response to Media Fragmentation" »

Posted by Stephanie Rogers at 06:41 PM | Permalink | Comments (2) | TrackBacks (0)

I was recently reading a Mediapost article by Tameka Kee about how so much creative these days, both online and offline, is ineffective.  While Tameka also argued that some agencies are doing a very nice job producing compelling, highly effective ads and content, I think it is worth focusing a bit more on what isn't working - and why. 

In my opinion, you can blame your creative if you are absolutely sure that your contact plan is optimal.  Otherwise, how do you know that certain elements of your plan, such as target audience selection, media placement, timing or day-parting, channel mix, and a host of other elements, are perfectly planned?  How do you know if the consumer insights fed to your creative team were accurate and useful?  My guess is that you don't always know, so don't be so quick to point the finger when an execution or campaign is not successful. 

Recently, I was playing basketball and a fellow co-worker went down with a serious knee injury (actually, a combination of serious knee injuries!).  When I was in the office the next day and Googled terms such as "torn patella tendon" and "fractured tibia," I was directed to content areas on About.com and WebMD to learn more about these knee injuries.  I usually only pay attention to online display ads when they are highly relevant and eye-catching, but for some reason I was really in-tune with the banners served up to me on these sites each time I refreshed.  I kept a running tally of the ads I saw on About.com: 

1. Mio DigiWalker C230 GPS at Radio Shack
2. Verizon High Speed Internet for $12.99/month
3. Verizon Camera Phone
4. University of Phoenix
5. Saturn Astra
6. Classmates.com (included Boston copy in the ad, but listed Mesa High School as a local high school)
7. AT&T LG Camera Phone
8. Claritin

Other than the Classmates.com ad, not one of these ads seemed to be geo-targeted.  And, as noted above, it was quite transparent to see mention of Mesa High School in a Boston-based ad.  As for the Verizon High Speed Internet banner, I clicked on it to see if Verizon even had service where I worked or lived.  Nope.  In fact, I eventually ended up at what seemed to be a broken page on the site after entering my zip code.  Nice job Verizon!

Alternatively, I thought that maybe I was being served some of these ads within an online ad network due to my surfing behavior and profile points.  What perplexed me though, was if these advertisers considered my visitation to sites such as Boston.com, Yahoo! Mail, and ESPN.com, as well as marketing and media properties, reason enough to serve me ads for Claritin or cell phones.  Maybe something in my web surfing behavior suggested that these ads were behaviorally targeted, but I didn't see a connection.  Or, maybe I'm in the target demographic for these brands.  Again, not sure. 

What I do know is that most people researching the knee issues I was learning about probably would be more receptive to ads that are much more contextually relevant.  An advertiser promoting a product for knee pain relief or a geo-targeted ad representing a local clinic specializing in knee injuries would likely be much more well-received.  The better the relevance, the less impactful or effective the creative needs to be.  However, combine the two elements and you have a highly compelling combination.

Continue reading "Bad Creative. Or is It Bad Planning?" »

Posted by Doug Ellinger at 06:38 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

Ernie Schenck's blogs is one of my favorites in the industry. He recently blogged about an interactive outdoor board promoting A&E’s new series Paranormal State.

This particular outdoor board went way beyond traditional two-dimensional messaging by actually transmitting

"voices" from the roof of the building using beam sound technology know as  Audio Spot Light.  It made for quite the unnerving experience. It's also a great example of taking traditional media and reinventing it.

We're seeing more and more of these new executions in order to get the attention of a public with the decreasing attention span. And I have to confess; this kind of stuff is one of my guilty pleasures. 

Reports are now showing out-of-home to be a rapidly growing and effective channel, despite all the talk about it being a "dying medium." Check out these historic figures on outdoor expenditure from the Outdoor Adverstising Association of America.  There is even an international advertising competion dedicated to ourdoor advertising exclusively.  

Still not convinced?  

Continue reading "Outdoor 2.0" »

Posted by Anthony Henriques at 04:36 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

I was reading an interesting article the other day in the MIT Sloan Management Review (Winter 2008 issue), titled The Six Key Dimensions of Understanding Media.  In this article, the authors discusses the use of The Genre Model to describe and evaluate the transition from one type of communication to another.  The general illustrations are historical (e.g. business letter --> memo --> email), but one can quickly see how this model can be used to evaluate new and emerging types of communication or media (e.g. email --> blogging --> micro-blogging). 

Given the host of new technologies and media options available with Web 2.0, I highly recommend this article for an analytical method of evaluating and or considering the adoption of new technologies or new media in your corporate culture.  It includes some great examples (IBM Blog Central and MNI Partners’ adoption of Skype) about how real companies are utilizing these new technologies and truly reaping the benefits.  But, in addition, I’d also like to borrow The Genre Model and suggest that we could apply it to the measurement realm.  

In today’s business, there is a multitude of metrics for every aspect of our existence, and more metrics are developed each day!  How are we supposed to know which ones are important?  Which ones will help us grow or improve our business?  How do we select on which metrics to concentrate?  I propose that we use The Genre Model to help evaluate how a new metric may fit in, complement, or supplement our existing metrics. 

Let’s face it, not all metrics are universal.  Every company has a bevy of metrics to guide the business and help explain performance.  Many of these metrics are relevant to different parts of the business.  In other words, not all metrics are of the same value to everyone in the company, because they may not be applicable, or actionable.  In fact, not all metrics in a company are even appropriate for general consumption.  So, how do we decide to create and adopt new metrics?

Let’s take a look at how the six dimensions of The Genre Model could be employed in the area of metrics. When considering the adoption of a new metric, one should probably ask the following questions:

• Why? Why would we use this new metric?  What purpose does it serve?  What expectations do we have from the use of this metric?  Does it show us something different than our current metrics do?  Does it provide more or different information than we already have?

• What?  What is its definition?  What will this metric communicate? 

• Who?  Who will be involved in this metric?  And what are their roles?  Who will define it?  Who will create the actual measurement system?  Who will publish it?  Who will interpret it?  Who will use it?  Who will have access to it? With any metric, it is important to consider the intended audience.  It is also important to be aware of the unintended audience.  In other words, when creating a metric and considering its audience, you may want to try to ensure that people "can't hurt themselves" with it.

• Where?  Where will this metric be published?  Will it be an internal metric?  Or an external metric?  Is it company-wide?  Or is it only pertinent on a regional or divisional basis? Will it be published in paper reports or electronic reports?  Will it be available on a dashboard? 
  One key consideration might be security and portability.  Are you trying to keep this metric confidential and internal?  By publishing it in an email report, is it at risk for external exposure?  Would it be better off on a secure internal dashboard or intranet?

• When?  When is the metric published?  I think one of the key issues here is frequency.  These days, a lot of processes can be measured and reported on daily, hourly, or even real-time basis.  But, is it needed that frequently?  Can the information be processed and acted on that quickly?  If not, we may just be wasting resources.  A weekly reading may be sufficient and more appropriate.  In fact, more frequent reporting may inaccurately imply that the frequency of reaction or response is much higher than it realistically can be.

• How?  How will this metric be reported?  What format?  Will it be sent out as a table of numbers in a spreadsheet?  Will it be shown in a graph of a PowerPoint report?  Will it be reported dynamically in a dashboard, as a graph, or a dial?  Will it be reported as a standalone number/level?  Will it be an index or the percentage change from the last time it was reported?  Will it be compared to a benchmark?  If so, how is the benchmark defined?  Is it an external industry-specific benchmark?  Or an internal company-specific benchmark?  Will it be compared to a particular goal?

These days it is so easy to add more and more metrics to our daily existence.  Every time a new one crosses our desks, it is tempting to latch on to it, add it to a spreadsheet, and forward it on to someone else in our group (particularly if it makes us look good!).  But, at the rate of change and growth of these new technologies and new metrics, I think we need to be more discriminating about the metrics we utilize.  If we consider the questions above, before adopting new metrics, I believe that we will adopt fewer metrics, but concentrate on the most actionable and important ones.  As a result, we will be able to control the flow of information, so that we can learn from it, without getting overwhelmed by all of the data that is available. 

Posted by Trina Arnett at 12:58 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

Last Thursday, BIMA hosted its annual Digital State program for a standing-room only crowd at the Parris Lounge in Boston. This year's topic: Social Media: the Opportunities and Implications for Marketers.

Our very own Larry Weber moderated the event (PARTNERS+simons was also a sponsor), which included the following panelists:

• Tom Arrix, Vice President of Sales at Facebook

• Pauline Ores, Social Media Marketing Strategist at IBM

• Juan Fernando Santos, Chief Creative Officer at Studiocom

• Suzanne Skop, Director of Sales at MySpace

• Jeff Taylor, CEO and Founder of Eons

Social Media has been a hot topic over the last year, as evidenced by the high turnout at this event. Marketers in all disciplines, including B2C and B2B, as well as paid- and unpaid-media experts, are clamoring to understand the best use of emerging channels like blogs, widgets, and social networks. While it's still early in the social media landscape, the panelists were able to shed some light on what's worked for their respective businesses which I'll share below, along with some of my own insights and opinions on the topic.

Continue reading "Social Media: the Opportunities and Implications for Marketers" »

Posted by Stephanie Rogers at 03:43 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

If you have ever downloaded or interacted with WeatherBug, then you are familiar with widgets and branded desktop applications (BDAs).

WeatherBug's desktop application was launched in 2000 and is consistently ranked as one of the highest trafficked Web properties in Comscore's monthly rankings.  While WeatherBug's reach is attractive to advertisers, it is the loyalty and repeat visitation of its audience that is highly compelling.  Because the application does not require an open browser and is highly customizable to individual user preferences, it provides a high level of utility to each individual user.

Many brands have finally begun harnessing the power of BDAs and widgets through the positive ways they can improve their marketing efforts and drive business results.

Branding
BDAs, and to a large degree, many forms of today's widgets, provide immersive brand experiences.  Typically, BDAs take on unique shapes and forms and are skinned to match the look and feel of an advertiser's brand. 

Widgets are also being placed on personal websites, blogs, personal pages in social networks, and personal homepages (e.g., My Yahoo! or iGoogle pages), making them highly trafficked and frequently utilized.  BDAs and widgets enable brands to take on more personal, intimate feels, since users are able to set preferences and closely control the content they choose to receive.

Relationship Marketing
BDAs and widgets fit nicely into an ongoing contact strategy.  A major challenge for advertisers is determining the optimal timing and flow for pushing out communications to their constituents.  Email is typically sent out on a regimented basis – usually daily, weekly, or maybe even monthly.  DM is normally executed with much less frequency.  BDAs and widgets, on the other hand, are always live and always updating through RSS (syndicated feeds).  The benefit to the advertiser is that if a user sets alerts for content tailored to his/her preferences or has an immediate need for information, a constantly updating widget fills the communication void nicely.  

Continue reading "Widgets: Evolution from Hypothetical to Real-Time" »

Posted by Doug Ellinger at 02:52 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

"Traditional media is dead."

We heard that a lot last year. Especially, with regard to newspapers.

While it's true that total ad spending at newspapers has declined in recent years, there's evidence that the channel is far from dead. In fact, when used as part of a broader, strategic marketing mix, newspapers can help reach a desirable audience and drive research and purchase behaviors throughout the buying life cycle.

Consider the following:

Newspapers provide significant local reach.

In a study published earlier this year, PR agency Ketchum noted that consumers tend to rely more heavily on traditional channels like their local newspapers (69% of respondents) as opposed to newer media like blogs (13%) when looking for local information. Local media was also near the top of the list of media that consumers found most credible, joined by national newspapers and broadcast news, demonstrating that consumers’ trust in traditional media runs high. 

Newspapers reach an attractive demographic. 

According to a 2006 Scarborough Research study, newspaper readers tend to be highly educated and affluent, have higher Internet penetration and tend to shop online more frequently. What's more, there is significant crossover between the print and online newspaper audiences: 81% of online newspaper readers also read the print version. These online newspaper readers tend to be early adopters of new products and technologies, and are more likely to be "influencers" - people who spread buzz and shape the opinions of others about products and services.

Newspapers help drive commerce - both online and off.

With the recent rollout of Google Print Ads, the search giant commissioned an indenpedent research study on how print and search marketing can work together. Some of their findings:

• On an average day, over 50% of US adults read a newspaper
• Newspapers reach people at many points in the buying cycle, both early (inspiring Web research) and late (prompting in-store or Web purchase)
• 67% of people researching products after seeing newspaper ads did research on the Web
• 31% of those people started by going to a search engine (even though newspaper ads typically include a URL)
  

In this case, old media (print) is driving response via new media (the Web), meaning it's increasingly important to synchronize your contact strategy across media - both old and new. Google has published case studies from its Print Ads advertisers that further illustrate the synergy between newspaper and online.

So here's a New Year's Resolution for all of us: don't be so quick to dismiss "old" media. Customize your contact plan based on your target audience, and be sure to take into account how the channels can work together.

Posted by Stephanie Rogers at 11:20 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

If you're in the ad business, chances are you feel strongly about Google one way or the other.  It seems that the behemoth is trying to take over almost every form of advertising as we know it – some mediums more successfully than others.  It all started with paid search and now Google absolutely dominates that space, owning 58.5% of the search share in October 2007, according to ComScore.  Moving beyond search, Google spent a whopping $1.65 billion to acquire YouTube last year, then followed that move with a push into the online display advertising market. Meanwhile, Google has also made several forays into traditional media channels with newer ad and measurement models.  It has broken into newspaper and radio sales with mixed results, and more recently, it entered into the highly competitive world of television ad sales.

Despite some less than stellar ventures, Google continues to innovate and push the envelope, as seen most recently with its aggressive move into the mobile space.  This summer, Google created the Open Handset Alliance, and already more than thirty wireless companies have joined, ranging from handset manufacturers and application developers to network operators.

If Google is able to launch a mobile service, its newly acquired mobile platform, Android, will host all of the services and be the vehicle through which a whole new channel of advertising and services will develop.  While the biggest domestic wireless networks, AT&T and Verizon, have held out of the alliance (although Verizon may be changing its tune – read more by Erick Schonfeld), it seems as though every other player in the wireless space is excited about the endless possibilities that an open architecture could provide.

So, despite an incredible $215 billion market cap, Google clearly is not content being just a "search" company.  As advertisers, we have to ask if it is good for one player to harness so much power and to control so much of the advertising inventory in the marketplace.  So far, my answer would be that I have no problem with it, and here's why.

Continue reading "Google – Still One of the Good Guys" »

Posted by Doug Ellinger at 08:48 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

Is everybody doing it?  Is it the NEXT big thing?  Or was it the LAST big thing?  I do know this... most companies that I talk to are either trying to do it, or they really want to do it.  But, there are very few that seem to leverage it successfully.

For those who aren't doing it, or who are struggling, it may seem that the reason is due to lack of appropriate data.  Well, sometimes that is the case but in most cases that I've come across, it's really not about lack of data.  It's a political thing.

Lots of people find it threatening: 

• Individuals, within a client company, who have budgets (like advertising, DM, PR, sales, other promotion, etc.) may like the idea of it, in theory.  But, when it comes down to it, they are afraid…afraid that it will mean that they lose some of their budget.

• The client's vendors (ad agency, DM agency, PR agency, media-buying agency, etc.) are also afraid of it, as it may translate into less revenue for them.

• And from the agency side, initially, most media planners/buyers, whom I have ever worked with, find it threatening too.  They feel like I am telling them how to do their job, or casting doubt on their abilities to effectively plan/buy media for our clients.

So, because of the fear, it becomes difficult to get the data.  Groups within a company, who may own the data, may put up roadblocks, which will slow down, or even prevent, data collection.  These roadblocks can get even worse when it comes to collecting data from other vendors, like the ad agency, the media agency, etc.

So, how do we get around it? 

Continue reading "Marketing/Media Mix Modeling - Bad Cop or Not?" »

Posted by Trina Arnett at 06:48 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

What's with all of these social networking sites?  They're growing at an unprecedented rate.  In fact, if you don't yet have a profile on MySpace or Facebook – or some other social networking site – well, then you are still stuck in Web 1.0.  That is, unless, you blog, use wikis, Flickr, subscribe to RSS feeds, or post your own videos to YouTube.  It’s Web 2.0 pandemonium out there!

Recently, I decided to get in on the action and set up a Facebook profile.  It did not take long to realize that Facebook is not just a community of college students, but a rapidly growing favorite for millions of post-college professionals.  The user numbers are staggering.  According to ComScore, Facebook was the 16th most trafficked web site in September, garnering over 30 million unique visitors.  Back in July 2006, it was the 48th most trafficked site with only 14 million uniques.  Not only is Facebook highly visited, it is highly sticky.  In fact, it's addictive.  So, how do I, as a marketer, leverage it for my clients as a marketing tool?

Continue reading "The Social Marketing Challenge" »

Posted by Doug Ellinger at 06:40 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Any time I get more than 3 emails from 3 different people on the same topic on the same day I stand up and take notice. Especially when it has the subject “monkey with a death wish.”

But that’s not what this is about (although it is pretty darn funny).

I’m talking about the marketing for The Simpsons Movie. (In theaters starting July 27, 2007. Doh! I couldn’t stop myself.) It is a great example of surround the customer creative that works.

But let me start with a warning. If you think the Simpsons is stupid, stop reading and go ahead and click on the monkey with a death wish video.

But if you’re one of the many who consider the Simpsons TV show to be a high water mark in American culture and the most consistently funny, longest running sitcom in TV history, then by all means stay with me here.

Lots of brands try to surround the customer with marketing. But it doesn’t always work. And when you take on something as legendary as the Simpsons, it better be good and on brand.

Well, hooray, hooray, the people marketing the new Simpsons movie have it just right. For starters the movie site is incredibly addictive and engaging.  Granted it is still under construction, but I love the way the site immerses you in Springfield.

If you have time to kill, check out the Wrecking Ball Game. Very cathartic.  They also feature a tool called Create Your Simpson Avatar – a terrific, free lesson in cartooning the Simpsons way! There’s even a MySpace page that hits the right notes. All this plus a variety of desktop and mobile downloads from ringtones to icons to wallpapers.

(Even as I write this I can’t wait to see the movie. And pre-order the DVD. See, it works.)

While most of the target audience for this film lives online, the Simpsons marketing team also has a smart guerilla campaign.  For a limited time (as in during the promotion of this film) a number of 7-Eleven Stores have turned into Kwik-e-Marts from the show. The 7-Eleven site itself is a partner in crime.

 

Continue reading "Surrounded by Simpsons" »

Posted by Steve Lynch at 05:00 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

Video on the web is exploding - never before has there been so much rich content available, and never before have consumers possessed the technical ability to download that content so quickly. The proliferation of high-speed/broadband internet service combined with technical advances in video production and online delivery have achieved something of a critical mass, and an explosion of video use on the web - especially over the past year - is the result.

With the availability of high-speed internet access rapidly approaching 50% nationwide (and well above that for many major urban areas), technology advancements have created the opportunity for online video to proliferate rapidly as well.  Use of streaming video increased 38.8% across all entertainment and media sites in 2006, including both free (ad-supported) and paid (subscription) services. Online video now makes up the single largest category of traffic traversing the Internet. In fact, online video served by YouTube alone now accounts for at least 2% of all internet bandwidth usage. Google's $1.65 billion acquisition of YouTube last October is another clear sign of the growing interest and opportunity in online video ads. 

If a picture is worth a thousand words, could online video be worth 1.65 billion?

Businesses are now realizing that internet video can be a powerful marketing tool. Adding video to your website and online media campaigns can truly engage your site visitors and convey far more information than static imagery and text alone. The advertising industry is increasingly excited about this technology because they can now  measure its impact using real numbers.  In a recent poll of business decision makers in the B2B sector, for example, 57% responded that online video had influenced their purchasing decisions. Among the younger internet generation, over 80% of MySpace users are regularly using online video (and the number of unique visitors to MySpace.com has now surpassed the 50 million mark - comparable to the number of US households that tune in to watch the Super Bowl).

Can your online marketing campaigns afford to ignore these numbers?

(to be continued...) 

Future segments in this series will discuss various aspects of online video technology and the many different ways in which clients can take advantage of recent technological advancements in order to ride the crest of the online video wave.

Posted by Roy Wetherbee at 12:15 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

As more and more “traditional” brands seek greater ROI for their broadcast investments, they are turning to the DRTV format (short format and long, infomercial format) as a way to both drive demand and build their brand.

If you're considering doing so, or just appreciate a reminder of how to ensure your DRTV spots are successful, here is a top 10 list of key success factors to keep in mind when developing, producing and placing DRTV campaigns:

1. Understand your target - Use a profile of your best customers to drive your targeting and messaging strategy.
2. Strong offers (incentives to respond NOW) are crucial - Next to the accuracy of reaching your target, having a unique, relevant and compelling offer is critical.
3. Be sure to employ multiple, consistent response options - Make it easy for people to call, click or visit. Consistent placement of response types throughout the spot, from beginning to end will ensure optimized response.
4. Demonstrations work - The more people can “experience” offering benefits the better.
5. Long spots work better than short ones - Because you can provide greater demonstration of the product/service and longer spots allow for multiple calls to action.
6. Better with a brand umbrella - So you can focus on traffic building - DRTV spots that are supported by separate, brand building efforts will perform far better than trying to drive demand and build the brand in the same spot – you’ll tend to do neither as well as you might.
7. Cable and syndication stronger than network - The data here are overwhelming. You’ll generate lower CPAs due to lower CPMs and there is simply a boatload of evidence that shows that cable and syndication placements have generated better historical response rates.
8. Leverage the power of versioning - Track message and media effectiveness with unique phone numbers. Vanity URLs don’t work though (too bad)…ask people where and when they saw a spot if you drive them to the Web.
9. Make the experience seamless - From viewing the spot to responding to the offer to making a purchase…make it smooth throughout the brand experience.
10. Don’t over complicate the testing - Just because you can measure a bazillion things doesn’t mean you should.

Follow these ten tenets and you’ll be well on your way to developing high performing DRTV campaigns.

Posted by Ken Dec at 03:09 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

When you go out to the movies, do you go to watch advertising? Do you go to learn about diseases? Or do you go to be entertained? I’ve loved going to the movies since I was a kid, but the experience has really gone downhill over the years with the high costs of tickets and snacks, and fewer and fewer films that are worth paying to see.

The short ads that play before movies begin can be entertaining, as they often fill the time when people are still getting popcorn or finding seats.  But in the near future, if you visit theatres in select cities, you will be able to experience a 58 minute long pharmaceutical ad/disease awareness documentary.

Continue reading "Another Reason To Skip The Movies" »

Posted by Ed Feather at 01:50 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

This letter by Tom Simons was published in today's Boston Globe regarding the coverage of the recent Turner Broadcasting guerilla marketing snafu in Boston. The campaign received nationwide coverage by the news media when local police, homeland security and other agencies descended on the Boston area thinking that, what Turner considered a guerilla marketing campaign, was in actuality some sort of terrorist activity. Turner and their marketing agency have since agreed to pay a $2 million fine for their actions.

WHILE THERE may be a lot of folks in the attorney general's office congratulating themselves, there is certainly no shortage of high-fiving going on somewhere inside Turner Broadcasting. For while the settlement in the guerrilla marketing episode may be adequate compensation to cover the response expenses and associated anxiety, it will not deter similar guerrilla tactics in the future. Quite the contrary.

The extraordinary media coverage generated by the campaign -- to say nothing of the late-night talk show airtime -- is "worth" tens of millions of dollars. Legitimate and honorable public relations firms regularly calculate the "value" of the press they "earn" for their clients, and I am certain that someone at Turner Broadcasting or marketing firm Interference has run those numbers for this campaign and updates them daily. (The name of that cartoon show was on the front page of today's Globe again -- above the fold, no less.)

The $2 million settlement is a small price for Turner to pay (on top of whatever Interference charged) for all the publicity this (obviously successful) campaign stimulated. But if this kind of unfortunate stunt is to be successfully discouraged, the penalty will have to be equal to, or greater than, the value of the resulting media coverage.

TOM SIMONS

Boston

The writer is president and creative director of Partners and Simons, a marketing service firm.
© Copyright 2007 Globe Newspaper Company.

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