Introduction to Internet Advertising by IAB ex-Chief

I just came across a thorough presentation compiled by Greg Stuart, former CEO and President of the Interactive Advertising Bureau (IAB). It is called an “In-Depth Introduction to Internet Advertising” and is a whopping 82 slides. However, it contains many great sound-bites as well as stats that any interactive marketer should have in their arsenal.

Here are a few stats that I’ll share next time I talk to a ‘traditional media’ marketer:

64% of US households answered “Computer with Internet Access” to the question “If you had to live on a deserted island and could only take one thing with you.” 18% said books, 6% said TV, 6% said radio, 4% said cell phone and 1% said newspaper subscription.

General Motors, the 3rd largest US advertiser, is ready to shift half of its 3 billion budget into digital and one-to-one marketing within the next 3 years.

In a multi-advertiser cross media optimization study (measuring on-line and off-line effects) sales increased by 11% on average from customers who had been exposed to online advertising, compared to those who hadn’t.

It cost about 4 times as much to increase purchase intention via magazine advertising and 11 times as much via TV – compared to online advertising.

There’s a lot more to read, especially on ad formats, measurements, online challenges (oh yeah, it’s not all honky-dory). You can find the full presentation here

There is no best, one-size-fits-all online ad format

It’s hard to be a marketer today with so many new, exciting technologies to pick from, each one casting itself as the holy grail of campaign performance. Video, widgets, search advertising, social apps, in-game ads, virtual worlds, expanding banners, behavioral targeting, location based mobile ads, digital out of home advertising, even radio via Google!

I can’t tell if it’s a media planner’s dream or nightmare, but a fair share of us probably feel more confused than enlightened.

What I am pretty sure about, however, is that they all have some merit, but none of them is a one-size-fits all solution. What’s good for branding might not be a recipe for lead generation success. Choice of format, targeting, message and measurement all need to align with campaign goals.

In a recent report from Forrester research called“Getting more out of online ads” advertisers are encouraged to take a more holistic approach to planning and executing online advertising programs.To paraphrase, they recommend advertisers to:
- first determine their business goals
- then identify desired customer action and how they can entice this action
- and finally how to track and measure actual customers’ actions vis-à-vis the campaign goals

Pretty common sense when put this way, isn’t it?

James Brown & Banner Advertising

James Brown, the Hardest Working Man in Show Biz, earned his titles with his splits, hard hitting grooves, riffs and stabs. Carrying the funk scene on his shoulders for years, even when funk was in the funk, was a tall order for a short man. But he did it.

The interactive advertising industry, like the music industry, has its own lineup of characters to make sure the beat goes on. For online advertising, the hardest working medium in the biz has to be the banner ad. Like Mr. Brown, it has survived new trends and new kids on the block, yet has found ways to get on up and get even.

Banner’s got a brand new bag

Recently, renewed interest in the banner ad has been fueled by new targeting technologies coupled with more visually engaging and interactive Flash and video formats. The hardest working ad format in the biz, is working even harder. But working for what?

It seems that the industry has chosen to take advantage of these technological improvements in two ways: Create more relevant advertising (via better targeting) and secondly, more engaging ads (via richer media experiences).

More relevant advertising generates more clicks. Can’t argue with that logic. However, I’m not sure advertisers have quite figured out what to do with the new rich(er) media ads. My gut feeling says that many advertisers are investing in this type of advertising purely for their branding effect. Maybe the thinking is “if we can’t make users click, let’s at least make the experience memorable, and score high on brand recall and awareness.” That’s a tall order for a small banner.

Take them to center stage

So, I have an issue with this thinking. If you want to do brand advertising, why resort to a 728×90 or 350 x 250 pixel canvas on a 3rd party site? Why wouldn’t brand advertisers’ primary goal be to get the user to click away from the publisher page and into a rich, interactive environment completely under the control of the advertiser? Why tap-dance in a closet when you can do splits center stage?

A different second act for the banner

At Linkstorm we have chosen to take a different approach to improving banner efficiency that stands in contrast to both how “other vendors” think about targeting as well as engagement.

Targeting: We believe that the best targeting technology can never truly know what the user really wants. Our format is designed to allow the user to quickly identify and navigate to content that is relevant to them.

User Engagement: We believe that the best place to convert a customer, whatever the campaign goal is, is on the advertiser’s site, not in the banner. Our banners are therefore designed to be a conduit rather than a destination, where we increase both the quantity and quality of the traffic the advertiser receives. Simply, more & better clicks.

- vidar

Google to enter clean energy business

I’m extremely excited to see that Google has chosen to turn green by investing in companies that offer green energy technology, as well as invest in its own research for the development of renewable energy.

Granted, the real-world impact of Google’s involvement might be small at this stage, but it’s a significant step forward in the right direction, and it sends a strong message:

• Google is showing that it makes business sense for companies to turn green.
• Google is showing that protecting the environment is every business’ business. Companies can and must step outside their core business to solve environmental challenges, instead of expecting under-funded, renewable research initiatives to magically produce results.
• Google is betting on that being environmentally conscious will pay dividends with consumers who subscribe to a green philosophy. Strangely enough, this is how capitalism may be the best ideology to save the environment.

http://www.news.com/Google-to-enter-clean-energy-business/2100-13844_3-6220341.html?tag=st.num

One Page eCommerce Websites

I come across these one page websites from time to time. Most often via a link in an email newsletter that I shouldn't have subscribed too. These websites (i.e. one-pagers) are sometimes dozens of 'screens' long and tout one product, and one product only. 

The benefit of the one page is that it seems like such a quick read. But it never is. These pages are pushing products with a feel similar to cable TV infomercials running in the AM hours. ("If that wasn't enough, you'll also get widget Z free for just trying our product!")

However, something tells me that both of these marketing techniques work and give a pretty decent ROI. 

Are any 'serious' company using this marketing approach?  Should they? The jury (me) is out. How about you?

What’s Steve Jobs Thinking? There’s a 75% chance this is it

So, the answer to my previous post has been attempted to get answered by Piper Jaffray:

http://www.appleinsider.com/article.php?id=1719

WEB 2.0 Hype, Hope and Unbridled Enthusiasm

One of the most frustrating things about working in an interactive agency is all the hype you have to sort through and explain to clients and prospects. They tear out pages from Wired magazine or send us a link to some article about a new technology that will solve everything, including world hunger.

“Why don’t we have this – why aren’t we doing this. I want my Web 2.0!”

I did say frustrating, but don’t get me wrong; it’s not something I’d rather do without!

It’s the price to pay for progress. In fact, I’m thrilled about the Web 2.0 hype – first of all because it is not all hype – but most of all because people are energized. Marketers are looking to the web for solutions, looking to dotcom agencies for reach and ROI.

It has really taken us quite some time to recover from the burst of the dotcom bubble. Not until the last couple of years has the web started to get its edge back; financially, in terms high-profile innovation and investments, ad spend and the impact on our lives in general. Dotcom is no longer a swearword.

There will be another shakeout, like in any maturing market. I don’t necessarily think the industry as a whole got it ‘right’ this time either. But smart companies are making new mistakes, not old ones. That’s what’s cool and that’s why Web 2.0 is more than new technology – it’s also new hope and energy.

Social tagging as marketing & spam

Marketers are still scratching their heads as to the impact of social tagging. It’s clear that it’s becoming a very powerful search methodology where any netizen, not Google or Yahoo! get a say in what’s relevant content. The search algorithm is no secret either: whichever site is most often associated (tagged) with term ‘X’, gets on top. At least it is for now.

Even Tom Hespos has discovered it, although his musings on the topic underscores that it’s seemingly not yet on the radar as a marketing tool.

Unfortunately, I think the democratic nature of this social tagging may lead to its downfall. It might be just a matter of time before sites like del.icio.us and Furl will be rendered useless by spammers who find ways to flood the system with bogus tags.

UNLESS, there is be a way to for these services to detect and block spamming. The best way to achieve this is probably to ask marketers to stay away from social tagging all together. With email the challenge in detecting spam is that spammers and legitimate marketers through their distribution methods have more in common with each other than with person-to-person email. How’s a poor spam filter supposed to know the difference? Don’t let the same thing happen to social tagging. Let spam stand out like a sore thumb!

That said, marketers, it about time you started to take advantage of social bookmarking and tagging!

Encourage and enable your brand loyalists to tag you. That’s not spam, that’s just another flavor of viral marketing, one that could actually improve the quality and usefulness of social tagging. It might be the closest thing to public service marketers will ever do. Don’t let that hold you (‘cough’… us) back.

Positioning Revisited

Charles Revlon once said: “I don’t sell lipstick, I sell hope.”

Reading my favorite staple marketing blogs, it seems that there is no lack of interest and articles regarding positioning, but most of them fail to address what I perceive to be the fundamentals.

1 – First of all choose your category, or more specifically, a frame of reference;

• A packaged goods example: Coca Cola can be perceived to belong to the ‘soft-drink’ category, in which Pepsi would be a competitor. Coca Cola could also belong to the ‘thirst-quenching drinks’ category, in which Snapple and Gatorade and tap water would be additional competitors.

As you can see, the choice of frame of reference is a choice of which market to compete in, and should be guided by determining:

a) The problem the product or products are proposed to solve

• E.g. people who buy power drills are actually in the market for holes. While conventional wisdom would put the power-drill in the ‘power tools’ category, think twice. Wouldn’t the ‘hole making’ category make more sense? Or does it belong to the ‘makes you feel handy’ category?

b) Which frame of reference the product likely to generate the greatest revenue? Consider competition, awareness, price point, etc.

When Charles Revlon said that he didn’t sell lipstick, but hope, do you think it had impact on positioning and marketing? You bet it did. Nobody sold just lipstick after that.

2 –Identify the norm

What are the points of parity for your ‘frame of reference’?

I.e. What minimum features or properties of the product(s) must exist in order for customers to perceive your product(s) or company as a legitimate and credible market offering?

• For example, a new car without airbags or a stereo would be sub-par/below norm compared to most cars. Likewise, customers might not perceive an Italian restaurant truly ‘Italian’ unless it is run by people with Italian origin or roots.

3 – Going beyond the norm

Once the point of parity has been determined, one needs to investigate how one’s product differs, or goes above and beyond parity on three levels:

Points of difference are identified as product performance associations, product imagery associations and consumer insights associations.

A) Product performance:
The ways in which a product or service attempts to meet customers’ functional needs.

• E.g. Benefits that prompt usage (“this product fits my needs because: …”)
• Benefits relating to reliability, durability and service
• Associations regarding service effectiveness, efficiency and empathy (personal relationship)
• Image and style associations (For example, the Jaguar automobile evokes associations of leather and rosewood; Starbucks evokes associations of coffee aromas, leather chairs, people reading, Harley Davidson evokes associations of chrome, leather jackets, noise, macho-lifestyle).

B) Product imagery:
Associations informed by experience.

· Own product usage or,

· Depictions of who uses the product and under what circumstances. (E.g. what kind of person would buy a Porsche? What person would buy an Apple laptop?)

C) Consumer insight:

• Reflect the extent to which the product, or the company offering the product, can show that they have insights into their customers’ problems or goals, and can make the case that they have the solution.

Thinks about these things first. Then start thinking about positioning. For example, start here.

What’s Steve Jobs Thinking? Probably Nothing.

There has been quite a debate with dystrophic and optimistic projections equally divided on the future of the MacOS and the Apple’s hardware. Everybody is trying to decipher Steve Job’s playbook as it really mattered what he’s thinking anyway. Granted, he made a bold move with moving to Intel chips, and he might have a handful of scenarios on its effect on the market and how to respond over time. Or maybe not.

Take the iPod, for example. When copycats started to integrate video with their products, Jobs dismissed it as a feature without merit. He said that while music is something that can be enjoyed to it’s fullest through any device that plugs into your ears, a small screen will can never to the same justice to video. I agreed then, and I agree now. However, the market begged to differ. Now video iPods are what’s hot and the cell phone industry attempts to bring small-screen video to the masses.

Thus, I’d be surprised if Jobs has more than a 2 year plan at the best! Jobs strength lies in making bold moves that shake the market and then adjusting his course to maintain momentum. Right now, to paraphrase Seinfeld, I think Jobs is thinking about “nothing.”

If only many small startups could be this nimble….