Tivo What?

Are you listening, media planners? This is a recent article I had in my inbox from The Center for Media Research.


Product Placement to Offset Ad-Skipping

According to research released by PQ Media, global paid product placement spending surged 42.2% to $2.21 billion in 2005 with double-digit growth expected to continue in 2006 and beyond, as brand marketers scramble to effectively engage consumers worldwide.

Patrick Quinn, president of PQ Media, said "Product placement has evolved from a novel marketing tactic to a key marketing strategy on a global scale, as brand marketers seek more effective methods to make important emotional connections with consumers... there is a new media order emerging worldwide in which fear of ad-skipping technology, doubts about traditional advertising's effectiveness, and declining government media subsidies have fueled a dramatic increase in the value of seamless brand integration."

Global paid product placement spending in TV, film and other media is expected to climb another 38.8% to $3.07 billion in 2006, driven by the continued shift in the world's leading markets toward a paid placement structure from a barter and added-value model, according to the report.

Global Paid Product Placement Spending: 2000 to 2005 ($US Millions)
	Television		Film		Other Media*		Total
Year	Spend	Growth	Spend	Growth	Spend	Growth	Spend	Growth
2005	$1,429.3	56.8%	$ 721.8	20.5	$58.1	32.3%	$2,209.2	42.2%
2006	2,113.1	47.8	876.1	21.4	77.7	33.7	3,066.9	38.8
2010	5,561.6	--	1,768.5	--	221.3	--	7,551.4	--
Sources: PQ Media, iTVX

*Other media, including magazines, newspapers, videogames, Internet, music, books, and radio

The transition is moving slower in Europe due to stricter rules governing the use of product placement. But, opines the report, this will change by year-end 2007, when the European Union is expected to liberalize restrictions encumbering growth in this region, fueling significant upside in some European markets.

The US is by far the world's largest paid product placement market at $1.50 billion in 2005, up 48.7%, making the US the world's fastest growing market as well. The US market tends to be much more advanced than other countries, and it is the model to which most other countries aspire. The majority of spending in the US and abroad is derived from five key product categories: transportation & parts, apparel & accessories, food & beverage, travel & leisure, and media & entertainment.

The report forecasts that global paid product placement spending will grow at a compound annual rate of 27.9% in the 2005-2010 period to $7.55 billion, as product placement growth continues to significantly outpace that of traditional advertising and marketing. The overall value of the worldwide product placement market, including the barter/exposure value of non-paid placements, will increase 18.4% compounded annually to $13.96 billion in 2010.

New Nike Ad With Maria Sharipova

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P-_CgWugraA

Pretty dang sweet ad!

Garret

Tidbit on Marketing To Moms

According to Marketing to Moms, a division of BSM Media, Inc., word of mouth is the strongest form of marketing within the mom segment. 55% of mothers say they rely on recommendations when making purchases for the home, and that number jumps to 64 percent when it comes to buying a product for their child. Moreover, 71 percent of moms report they are likely to use the Internet for product information, advice or general information.

WOW. Who would have thought the data would be that strong on what motivates moms to buy. Not me. But it will certainly help us to develop marketing strategy for our clients that are involved in marketing to moms.

Garret

The Future of The Agency

An interesting look into the future of the agency, and some thoughts on why an ad agency is the best bet.

G


The Agency Of The Future--Or, Now What?
By Cory Treffiletti

Now what?

So you figured out search. You launched an affiliate program. You commissioned some amazing display units to run in banners, skyscrapers and L-Rec's. You built a profile page on MySpace. You did a partnership with one of the portals, and your Web site was featured in a movie. You may have even partnered with a mobile provider.

So now what?

Every few months, there's a new technology or a new tool launched that allows you to reach your customers in an exciting manner which "breaks through the clutter"--but not all of them are appropriate for your client or your brand. How do you make sense of all these twists and turns in the life of a media consumer? How do you decide what and what not to include? How do you navigate the open seas of marketing, so to speak?

It's not a new idea, but you need to become agnostic again and identify which of the new technologies and strategies are relevant. You need to rise above the cacophony of traditional and digital marketing and identify the tactical elements that are in harmony with your strategy. You need to analyze the porosity of the tools you're looking to utilize, and see which filter out the unwanted audience members and allow you to reach only those you intended to reach.

Not every new tool or development will be appropriate. Not every new idea is applicable, but you can't ignore them. Without third parties examining these elements and trying to determine what works and what doesn't, your marketing becomes stale, and you get lost in the race to garner the attention of the consumer.

There's been much written about the state of the agency world over the last few months, as a number of really intelligent people have recently fled the agency world and run to the safe haven of client-side marketing. I for one considered this tactic--and realized that those exciting new technologies and ideas were why I couldn't quite leave the agency world behind yet.

These third parties are needed to evaluate the changing landscape. If you want to get the most out of the agency of the future, challenge it. Ask it for a POV on new technology. Don't just ask it for the same old retread of what's been done before. Push the envelope and push your business forward!

I think that for all the beatings agencies have taken over the past few years due to the repeated jabs from procurement specialists and tightfisted Mike Tyson-like budgeting, agencies are still the only ones capable of seeing the bigger picture through the trees. Media buying may be commoditized and creative may be squeezed, but I still see the agencies as the potential for an un-biased third party who can provide a no-holds-barred look at what needs to be done. They can help you evaluate these new trends if you allow them the freedom and push them for innovation. Your client-side team may be good, but they get mired in the details of the day-to-day. Use that outside force for what it was meant to be used for.

The agency is going to evolve to become a business partner rather than a marketing partner. Your agency should not only provide you with a campaign recommendation--but it should also provide you with projections and business analysis that demonstrates the kind of impact these efforts will have on driving the only thing that truly matters to any marketer: sales!

The agency of the future will be integrated into your business beyond the development of media and creative campaigns. The agency of the future will be able to answer the question, "Now what?" The agency of the future should be able to provide you with a bleeding edge analysis for what works, what doesn't, and--more important--how all these elements will work together in the coming years. This is the kind of insight no one but a third party focused on this kind of information can provide. This is where the agency of the future will prove its value.

So next time you get a down minute, pick up the phone and call your agency contacts and ask them, "Now what?" You should get some very interesting answers.

Mini Ad in Car & Driver

So last night my issue of Car & Driver showed up in my inbox, much to my delight. I know, I'm a nerd. I've accepted it. So, I did the same thing I do every time I get a new magazine--immediately dove in!

Leafing through the magazine, I saw many of the new 2007 model year cars. But as an ad-man, of course, the biggest thing I notice are the new car ads. The one the struck me the most was the new ad for the Mini-cooper. It was pretty awesome - I hadn't really seen a great Mini print ad since CP+B resigned the account to tackle the North American marketing account for Volkswagen. But this one is pretty cool - it's just a bunch of jumbled up words on a page, with the message, "complimentary decoder with every Mini purchase."

It's an interesting shift from Mini's recent strategy of pushing the car's "small" characterisics. Now, it's almost as if they're saying that owning a Mini puts you in an elite club that only Mini owners would understand. I'm not sure if the Mini brand has that kind of pull just yet (especially since the car's price tag is so attainable) but it's interesting. At the very least, it has the people talking and ME WRITING.

Here's a quick blurb about the campaign:

Click Here

More later, my people.

Garret Ohm

MySpace Is Insane

Check this article from CNN Money out. It's about the founders of MySpace. They are two dudes that at this point have to be pretty content with their lives. They took an idea they had for a social networking Web site and built it into by far the largest social networking site there is. I have to admit, we are a part of that network! Check us out here:

Anyway, here is a pretty cool article about the "Myspace Cowboys" and their glorious life after their company was gobbled up by Rupert Murdoch. I'm jealous. Pretty cool, though.

Click Here

Garret Ohm

Search Engine Results Happen For a Reason!

Hi all - Here's some commentary from Andrew Wetzler that I thought was interesting about paid search engine marketing vs. natural search. It's truly two different ballgames, and natural search results don't come without effort.

To me, this article is great motivation to get on board and start moving with your search engine marketing program, both paid inclusion and natural search engine optimization.

Cheers,

Garret Ohm

Strong Natural Positions Are Not A Birthright
by Andrew Wetzler, Friday, August 25, 2006

I WAS CHATTING WITH A marketing manager from a well-established West Coast real estate brokerage the other day. He expressed a philosophy that I have heard a million times before, and always wondered at, because it's amazingly misguided.

In a nutshell, he said that because his company is the leader in its market and has been around longer than anyone else, it should thus be at the top of the heap in the natural results. Furthermore, the companies who are showing up ahead of his company in the rankings are much smaller, with a lesser reputation--so, in effect, he said, they shouldn't be there.

Guess what. Those factors will make a huge difference on the paid side of the fence, but they don't mean a lot from an organic perspective. While some people bemoan the fact that the Internet has become a pay-for-presence entity, I give the engines, Google especially, credit for maintaining the integrity of their algorithmic results. As many of us have learned, achieving and maintaining impressive natural positioning doesn't occur by accident, nor is it a factor of your pedigree.

I have found that in many cases there is a generational factor in the mix when companies think like this. Their industry leadership position is more a function of time-in-the-game than anything else--and they are being run by individuals who are in the latter stage of their careers. In other words, their significant market share is a result of a competitive advantage that they have held for years.

It's got to be particularly disconcerting to see other companies forge ahead of them in the search results who haven't paid their dues, who are encroaching on their turf, or who may be in another time zone or even on a different continent. It has also got to be very scary, as the Internet and search do not represent any sort of comfort zone.

Businesses who share this mindset ought to accept these realities and get on board with search. The upside potential is too great--and the opportunity lost by staying on the sidelines is too significant.

It is well known that Bill Gates underestimated the potential of the Internet for a very long time. As a result, Microsoft didn't allocate the resources that it could have early on. When you look at the market leaders in the space, you see that MSN continues to play catch-up to both Google and Yahoo. In an eerily similar manner to my discussion with that real estate company, the long time market leader (Microsoft) didn't accept the realities of the changing landscape and failed to adjust quickly enough.

More About :05 Video Advertisements

Hi all -

:05 video ads are cool, and that's a fact. I especially love Eric Picard's creative graph in this article. I hope you enjoy it and that it opens your mind to the possibilities of using traditional media in a non traditional way!

The Importance of the :05 Video Ad

By Eric Picard

The :05 video ad format is rapidly gaining momentum, so today I'll call out the reasons it's such an important development.

DVRs

The :05 standard is beginning to take hold in broadcast TV because of the DVR. DVR users frequently fast-forward through advertising. Being human, they typically fast-forward too far into the content. So they rewind. Research shows they're seeing the last five seconds or so of the last ad in the pod.

Logically, the last ad is becoming more valuable. The new trend is for networks to place a :05 ad at the very end of a pod. Expect to see more :05 ads in that position.

The Annoyance Factor

When it comes to broadband video, there are even more compelling reasons to begin investigating the :05 format, especially when you consider new video consumption in emerging media such as portable video players.

We've done significant research into video ads' consumer annoyance factor. One of our strongest findings is consumer tolerance for ads lasts five to seven seconds then immediately turns to annoyance:

Given the very short durations of typical broadband video, this format provides a short brand and message exposure opportunity within a consumer's tolerance range. This should drive video consumption in a streaming Web page scenario as well as acceptance of video advertising. We're currently doing research on consumer acceptance of :05 video ad pods within longer-form content. I'll probably be able to share results with you in the coming months.

When you extend the video annoyance factor to other video media, such as mobile phones and portable video players, we believe (and should have data in coming months to back up) that video ad tolerance will be a significant hindrance factor to growth. Certainly other factors must be addressed, such as counting, tracking, and cross-media frequency of video messages.

Frequency by the Numbers

I'd also like to see research on the value of the :05 format as it relates to frequency. When a consumer's exposed to a :30 brand message in broadcast and the advertiser's goal is a reach of 3-5, is there enough impact in extending those frequencies through online video?

What about long-form video content (e.g., TV shows) offered either through streaming Web views or in portable video scenarios? Will consumers tolerate a :30 pre-roll ad, followed by content with several :05 ads by the same advertiser (and perhaps others) spread throughout with extensions of the original message? We saw ABC inserting just a few ads in primetime content offered streaming from its Web site. It denoted in the player exactly where the ads would show up. But it limited the number of ads to just a few.

Clearly, ABC is monetizing online content less effectively with only a few video ads, compared to the 20 or so ads per half hour of content on TV. Say the publisher is getting $40 CPM (define) for a primetime commercial. It has 20 commercials in a 30-minute show (a conservative estimate) and reaches 10 million households. That breaks down to about $400,000 per ad, or $8 million per 30-minute show.

If that same show ran online with the same number of ads, we can expect a $35 CPM for premium broadband video pre-rolls. If there's just one pre-roll and 5 million additional people watch the show online, we get an incremental $125,000 in revenue for the network for that show. With four additional ads inserted, that's $625,000.

What happens if we sell pods of :05 ads similar to the broadcast experience? With a conservative $10 CPM, we get $150,000

per ad in incremental revenue for the network. It's also a more palatable user experience. What if we turned those :05 ads into ads with enhanced targeting or with the ability to let the user telescope into a long-form ad? If we just get a 50 percent CPM lift, this would turn into about $225,000 of incremental revenue per ad per episode. It turns a dud of a show into a much more interesting investment. With targeting and enhanced ad formats, we could easily double revenue.

The industry must focus on pushing the :05 format to increase the amount of inventory available to advertisers and they can start creating short edits of ads for use in other media. Right now there are very few 1:05 video ads available to run on broadband, let alone :05 ads. We need creatives to master this format.

We must also lock down the definition of this short-form ad format. There's work going on in the EU toward an :08 standard (about half of a :15). If we're going to go short, we should do it in a way that will make consumers happy while retaining brand value.

The Difference Between Media Now and Media THEN

Hi all -

Seana has some good points in this article she wrote about how the people involved with new media used to bash TV and print and used to claim that it was a legitimate medium, possibly a bit prematurely. Now it truly IS a crucial medium, she sees that TV and print are crucial drivers to the Web and vice versa. They need to be used in conjunction with each other...integrated media, imagine that!

Enjoy!

Garret Ohm




We (Finally) Have A Seat At The Table
By Seana Mulcahy

Remember a few years ago? A typical day-in-the-life was assembling Powerpoint decks to justify why our prospects should advertise online. We all used the same facts and figures. We cooed about the Web being the fastest growing media in the history of time. We bashed television and print (oops). We also talked about how trackable online advertising was. We schlepped the deck around from prospect to prospect. We hoped for a mere percentage of a media budget to be carved off and allocated to our "new media."

Luckily, those days are over. Now I spend my time (per prospects' request) illustrating the most effective ways to advertise online. We talk about integration and synergy. We urge clients and prospects not to think about the digital space as stand-alone. We often struggle to quantify vehicles such as word-of-mouth, viral, blogging and podcasting.

I just read a great article in Strategy + Business magazine called "The Future of Advertising Is Now," which says that the "future" of the digital space is finally arriving. This writer couldn't agree more.

It's time for big media companies (and the rest of us) to look at all media platforms holistically. We need to keep a close eye on how the consumer uses media. Advertising nowadays must have a multi-platform approach. According to the article, when brand marketers and media companies consider this concept they:

• "Shift spending and management attention to digital media, and use those media to more effectively influence consumer purchase behavior.
• Develop formats to promote interaction with audiences, especially their most likely consumers.
• Create new research approaches and metrics that measure outcomes, not inputs.
• Combine "above-the-line" advertising (TV, radio, and print) and "below-the-line" marketing (promotions, sponsorships, events, public relations) in new two-way, integrated campaigns.
• Create their own branded entertainment assets and appeal to customers directly through them.
• "In-source" new skills and capabilities to achieve greater sales impact and other measurable results."

Many of us still, however, experience brands only allocating 5 percent to 10 percent of their marketing dollars toward the online space. This still does not make any sense to me. Is it just habit? Is it lack of trust in the medium? Do these folks take in account broadband's being in about two-thirds of American households? Do they realize how many people are beginning to use TiVo, DVRs and cable on-demand features to skip commercials altogether? Haven't they read about the infiltration of blogs, social networking sites, video on demand and the like? Why the hesitation? Will anyone move away from a TV-centric media buying mentality?

I was watching the Emmys last night. Conan O'Brien was talking about the threat of TiVo in his monologue. He said, "Now viewers can skip commercials with TiVo instead of just leaving the room." Isn't it true? He then talked about losing the younger audiences: "And the kids aren't watching us, they're watching a cat on a toilet on YouTube!"

Funny thing is, it is true. I was watching with my resident 16-year-old. She sat for a few minutes here and there, but kept getting up from the couch. She kept grabbing the clicker, going over to VH-1 and all sorts of music videos. Then she left the couch to go into the kitchen, hop on the computer, etc. She had music streaming on her PC, was downloading music, looking at Web sites and IMing friends. Oh yes I forgot, her phone kept chiming that she had text messages.

Certainly this scenario pertains to a younger audience. However, sitting down for an entire Emmy show was almost painstaking. The format seemed, well, I don't know--old. There was really nothing that kept me engaged. The commercials were a blur to me. I have to give those advertisers a bit of credit, though. They had Web sites to log onto and URLs tagged all over the place. However, I don't remember anything creative or compelling enough to make me want to log on.

So all in all, we have a permanent seat at the table--but we still only have a few percent of media dollars. What do we need to do as an industry to get the share we deserve? Is it creative? Strategy? As I scratch my head, help me out--post your thoughts to the Spin blog. As Gloria Gaynor once belted out, "I will survive. I will survive...hey heyyyyyyyyyyyyy.

Advertising Push vs. Pull

This is an article written by Tony Mikes from The Second Wind Network, of which we are members. It's a network of about 700 small and medium sized advertising agencies. Here Tony writes about the push/pull strategy difference between the Web and traditional advertising. Pretty good stuff:

Advertising Needs a New Model
Read this carefully:

The old advertising model where advertisers and their agencies pay for the privilege of exposing an audience to their message is fading away. It is fast being replaced by one in which advertisers pay only for real and fully measurable actions by consumers.

If you believe this, then you must realize how important it is for your agency to fully embrace internet marketing.

On the internet, only those who already want what your client offers even come close to seeing your marketing. They actively seek your client’s products and then click through to find out more. In this environment, you deal with interested prospects. It’s very efficient.

With traditional media, you hope that your marketing; TV, radio print, out-of home, etc is being viewed and noticed, and that it inspires prospects to check into it further.

Hoping to be noticed is the problem. Every time you run a spot or place an ad, you hope that maybe your target audience might be out there watching or listening. But, in reality, you have no idea where your prospects are at that moment. They may be in the bathroom, making a sandwich, away for the week and not reading the paper, or even worse, using Tivo on your ad as well as any others. This is just NOT very efficient.

Today’s consumers are very smart. They know how to use media, they are fairly cynical about advertising and they really don’t have a lot of time. So, highly directed media that allows them and enables them to find what they want, quickly and completely, is mandatory.

At the same time, it is becoming very clear that today’s consumers are hungry for something more than a transactional relationship with companies. They yearn for a more intimate, more caring relationship with their favorite brands. They WANT to be loyal, and they want to be advocates of their brand choices.

All of this absolutely fits the new model of convergence in media.

On one hand, buyers want the efficiency of on-line, and on the other, they want a strong brand relationship.

Your agency can supply both. Unlike internet-only agencies whose only stock in trade is based on CPC, CPA and other click metrics, and unlike old-fashioned traditional agencies (where you used to reside), your agency can combine converged philosophy and strong brand relationships with razor sharp measurement.

There are two ways to do this:

1. Grow your brand development capabilities. You are already good at branding. This is not brand development. Branding is what you do after you develop a brand for a client. Brand development is helping your clients to find the “sweet spot”. It’s their claim of distinction, the promise they make to their customers. It’s the truth of the company. The brand truth or promise is very important in this age of very smart, but relationship-starved consumers. The Brand Establishment is a group of agencies within Second Wind who have decided to devote themselves to brand development . If you are interested, call Jim Hughes at 949-633-2222.
2. Learn all you can about internet marketing metrics. Research and become familiar with SEM (search engine marketing), SEO, organic search, internet advertising, rich media, e-mail marketing, gaming, mobile marketing, blogs, vlogs, podcasts, shoshmosis, wikis and the other 21st century tools, that are now an important part of any company’s marketing mix. Then put all your new knowledge to use, and put a program in place, in-house! The internet is such a powerful and incredibly efficient marketing tool that you can’t afford not to be good at it as your agency progresses.

Integrating these marketing strategies and forming a convergence style will set you up as an important marketing partner for prospects and clients in the future.

It's Been A While

Hi all -

Well, I've been off getting hitched and whatnot, so it's been a while since I've posted. I'll do some solid advertising and marketing-based commentary very soon, I promise, but in the meantime, many many good solid articles have been sent to me that I wanted to post. Here they come! Enjoy!

Online Video Advertising: A Primer for Publishers
by Jesse Chenard, Monday, August 28, 2006

Once upon a time, way back when, in an innocent time before snakes on planes, video was a novelty for Web publishers. Seen as a marketing tool to drive awareness for offline properties or products, online video was rarely part of a commerce or advertising solution (read: cost center.)

Enter 2006. No longer is online video a loss leader for Web publishers. It's increasingly a prime revenue source and major opportunity. With opportunity, of course, comes complexity. How do you make an online video effort not only engaging and attractive for end users, but also profitable and successful from a business standpoint?

Step 1: Start with good content. The first ingredient is good content. Without it there isn't much draw and certainly very little revenue. For sites like YouTube, content is entirely composed of user submissions. (I won't touch the whole copyright debate here.)

On the opposite end of the spectrum are content producers. In some cases they are making the content available for syndication but increasingly, are also looking to go directly to consumers with their own Web sites. In between you have the aggregators who get their content from a mix of user-generated and professionally produced sources.

Step 2: Determine your business model. The irony of online video for publishers is that the more successful they are at getting eyeballs, the more expensive it becomes. There are myriad examples of great content that cost someone a lot of money. Jib-Jab's first video cost hundreds of thousands of dollars in streaming costs and bursting fees and, unfortunately, had no business model to recoup those losses.

How are you going to monetize your online video? Do you sell access to the video, or do you sell access to the consumers of the video? If your choice is to sell access to the video, then you have to start looking at DRM solutions, payment processing, fulfillment and customer support. Increasingly, though, publishers are going for the latter business model: allowing access to their consumers via video advertising, sponsorships, companion banners, etc.

Step 3: Ad sales: remember that every stream served with no ad is a lost opportunity for revenue. Assuming that you've chosen advertising as your revenue model, you need to identify where those ad dollars are going to come from. You have a few choices here. The most obvious is to sell the inventory yourself. If you are a large publisher and have the in-house staff to support it, you will probably do very well with this method. But be careful--many large publishers are finding that the months it takes to get a video ad sales team up to speed can be very costly.

If you don't fall into that category, don't despair. There are other options, from working with rep firms to video ad networks. In the banner world, the majority of successful publishers take a mixed approach, with internal ad sales representing the majority of their inventory, but one or more ad networks moving unsold inventory. We see this as the most successful model for online video ad inventory as well.

Step 4: Decide on distribution How are you going to distribute your content? There are basically three choices--and your decision should be guided by your projected volume and uptime requirements:
1. Build out or leverage your own hosting infrastructure for delivery. At lower volumes, this is your most cost-effective solution.
2. Engage a CDN (content delivery network)--at higher volumes, economies of scale kick in and CDNs can handle a lot more technical complexities, including load balancing. Once you're at a point that downtime is costly, this makes a lot more sense.
3. There are full-service shops who will handle the distribution for you, as well as everything else, at a cost.

Step 5: Decide on presentation and delivery The first decision is which video format to use (WM, Flash, QT or Real). The criteria are: target audience, desired reach, quality concerns, security needs and whether you need live or on-demand. More and more publishers are using Flash. It seems to offer the best combination of these factors with the largest user base.

Finally, what technologies will you use for ad insertion? There are many criteria to look for. I'll list a few, but I don't have the room to go into detail. I promise a future column on this topic if you're interested.
1. Do you just want pre-roll and post-roll, or do you think you might need mid-roll as well--the ability to create custom combinations?
2. Will you use multiple ad sales sources?
3. Are you working with an ad network that supplies ads dynamically?
4. What are your distribution requirements? Will it work with your CDN?
5. What are your ad-logic server requirements?
6. Can you skin and customize your player?
7. What are your requirements for companion banners?
8. Does it integrate with your CMS and workflow processes?

As I said before, with opportunity comes complexity. But I hope I've given you some tools to help you know what decisions you need to make and how to begin or improve your existing solution. In the end, you'll find that making money from online video advertising isn't a fantasy.

Jesse Chenard is Chief Technology Officer at Tremor Network. Jesse authored the Ad-inStream patent and was previously a senior sales engineer at Speedera Networks.

Cell Phone Advertising Takes Hold

Here's a good article from USA Today about a new advertising medium that is quickly gaining pace - cell phone advertisements. Further media segmentation! A media buyer's job is getting harder by the day - they need to be more in tune than ever with the wants, needs, habits of their target audiences.

http://www.usatoday.com/money/advertising/2006-08-08-mobile-ads_x.htm

What do you think? I have to learn more about this subject - how would we as an agency even go about buying ads on cellphones? Post if you know something - the more resources the better. I have a strong thirst for knowledge!

Garret Ohm

Delivering On The Promise

Hey, y'all. I've been out sick, so my apologies for not posting. I know you were all checking this site feverishly to see if I had updated the content. Anyway, this is a cool article that I had in my email when I came back to work.

It talks about creativity in email. Creativity is something that has been on my mind a lot lately, which you know from reading my other blog posts, right? : )

Talk with you again soon, I promise.


Delivering On The Promise
by Bill McCloskey, Wednesday, August 9, 2006

DELIVERABLITY. THIS IS THE MAIN topic of discussion these days in the world of e-mail marketing. But I wonder if we spend nearly the time we devote to white listing, ISP relationships, and Goodmail to actually thinking about what is getting delivered in the first place. There is a decided lack of creativity that goes into our electronic epistles, with rare exceptions.

I continue to marvel at the time and care companies such as Lexus devote to their outbound marketing efforts, but yet they seem the exception that proves the rule. Alcoholic beverage companies might come up with a holiday e-mail that has interest once a year, but where is the ongoing humor that Tanqueray expends on its messages?

For all the thought that Scion puts into its messaging when it targets the gay community, thousands of others find it difficult to come up with unique messaging for any market sector.

Generic images. Text chosen not for its impact, but for its ability to slip through spam filters. Copy with all the subtlety of the ads in the back pages of comicbooks. Where is the e-mail that impacts my life, makes me laugh out loud, furthers the brand equity I have with the product or service?

As an industry, we've embraced mediocrity, become more concerned with permission than persuasion. We've embraced the transactional but turned our backs on the transformative.

E-mail is the most intimate and powerful of marketing channels, and yet it is rarely used that way. A few weeks ago, I wrote about theater producer Ken Davenport, who sent out a thank-you note to those who filled the seats at his show on Saturday night and encouraged them to bring their friends to share the excitement the next week. There was a guy who understood the power of the medium and possessed the creativity and enthusiasm that more people in our industry need.

How about telling me a story that arcs over several days or weeks? How about engaging me in a dialogue on how to market to me--a real, two-way conversation, and not just a survey. How about reintroducing rich media into the e-mail mix, something that seems to be hard to find these days. How about giving me a real reason to care about your brand?

All too often, we get instead (as has been reported in this column) the car company that can't be bothered to put an e-mail newsletter together, the guitar manufacturer that would prefer not hearing from its customers through e-mail, the poor design, the broken links, the lack of a welcome letter, the lost opportunity, the missing graphics, the same boring message delivered ad nauseam.

What we need is the creative shop that embraces e-mail and transforms it, much like Crispin Porter + Bogusky have transformed television spots and Web ads. Some forward-thinking companies are doing it now: Unilever, Sara Lee to name a few. But for so many others, it is not deliverability to the inbox that they need to focus on; it is delivering on the experience I want when I opt in to be marketed to.

This Makes My Heart Beat Fast

Consumer Generated Media Taking OVER!

Media Specialists Must Grasp Consumer-Generated Media
By Max Kalehoff

As advertising dollars continue to bum-rush the Internet, many media specialists contend that blogs, discussion groups and other forms of consumer-generated media represent easy, additional inventory to grow and satisfy demand. Indeed, several of the biggest media companies--like Yahoo, MSN, News Corp., IAC and others--are placing big bets on the promise of consumer-generated media as ad vehicles. CGM has arrived as a center of gravity, and advertising is following.

But I fear that too many advertising and media specialists are jumping in head-first with little appreciation or respect for this new world, which is fundamentally different. Unlike most other media, CGM is generally for, by and all about the consumer. Media departments, both traditional and interactive, should slow down and better understand the world of CGM before applying traditional conventions, which are often rooted in oversimplified constructs of controlled impressions, reach and frequency.

So what are some of the new dimensions that media specialists need to embrace?

CGM = Extreme Intimacy and Interactivity

First, it's important to note that levels of audience interactivity and intimacy with CGM can be extraordinarily high. The fact is that media buyers have a legacy of paying for eyeballs by placing ads primarily in low-engagement, impersonal and passive vehicles. But in CGM, especially when passionate audiences are actively participating and communicating with one another, sensitivity to surrounding advertising messages has potential to increase dramatically while tolerance decreases. (A good analogy is those interruptive telephone solicitations we all used to get at the dinner table. Thank God for the Do Not Call registry!)

Of course, there is a wide spectrum of interaction and intimacy across CGM platforms: personal blogs, real-time chat rooms, private chats, public discussion boards, password-protected e-mail groups and a host of other venues. And there is no absolute rule for what different points along those spectrums mean for the effectiveness of different forms of advertising. But the fact remains: these two dimensions differentiate CGM from other media vehicles and should be watched for their potential impact, good or bad.

CGM Niches Require Greater Contextual Acumen

Second, it's important to note that CGM is not only prolific, but seemingly feasible as an advertising vehicle thanks to aggregation and networks. But that newfound reach is complicated by vast niche content, which can equate to huge content variation and unpredictability. That means smart, automated and contextual targeting tools and strategies are critical. This is true for placing ads in contexts where you want them, and where you really don't.

Becoming A Participant Necessitates Non-Advertising

With so much money pouring into the Internet, media departments are increasingly moving beyond advertising on CGM platforms and into the role of active participant. While media professionals have impressive budgets and skills in paid-media planning, too often that expertise brings approaches that clash with the norms of uncontrolled social media.

Disruptive, abundant, irrelevant, self-congratulatory or exaggerated communications (or often gimmicks) may be tolerated in paid, one-way media, but the game changes with CGM. Becoming an active participant in CGM means entering into direct conversations with consumers, where there is a far greater expectation of humanness, honesty and transparency. There is an expectation of conversation and social exchange, specifically not advertising. Respecting this core rule of most CGM venues is paramount.

CGM: It All Starts With Customer Respect and Listening

Is CGM an area media specialists should avoid? Absolutely not! While CGM can seem a strange and unwieldy place, the reality is that it is here to stay and is likely to grow in importance. Media specialists must embrace it.

But more important than a new advertising medium or venue in which to hawk products, CGM represents one of the most powerful listening devices advertisers and their media specialists have ever had. CGM represents a massive, public megaphone for the consumer, aimed straight in the ear of the advertisers. This is enabling consumers to hold advertisers more accountable than ever before--accountable for their products, customer service, competitive differentiation, value and, yes, the integrity of the very advertising and marketing communications themselves! CGM is helping to dismantle many of the artificial walls that traditional paid media helped to create between advertisers and their customers.

So what is the bottom line with CGM? Whether in the context of media planning or active participation, media specialists must respect the consumer like never before. And there is no better way to embrace this notion and all its nuances than to heavily engage in CGM as a consumer, yourself.

Max Kalehoff is vice president of marketing for Nielsen BuzzMetrics, a global measurement service for consumer-generated media.

Print Advertising...

In my job, I read a lot of print ads. I read through like sixty five newspapers and magazines every day. Ok, that's a bit of an exaggeration, but I do read through quite a few. Just today, I read through every section of the Capital Gazette, The Baltimore Sun, and The Washington Post. Then I started on magazines. I went through Baltimore magazine, Washingtonian, What's Up Annapolis, Inside Annapolis, Washington SmartCEO and Corridor Inc.

Why do I do this, you ask? I actually enjoy looking at ads. I love this business, and I love my art. However, the main reason I do this is because looking at the business that are advertising gives me a good idea of the businesses that would probably be interested in working with an agency to make said advertising even better. Get it? Plus, if I see an advertiser that is spending a pretty penny on some really stinky ads, I go after them even harder, because then I KNOW we could do better.

Lately, I've been noticing that the ads have been....meh, not that great. They haven't been extra specially terrible, and they most certainly haven't been awesome. Just...mediocre. So many advertisers are just wasting their money with mediocre ads. Ads that get their name out there, but don't get noticed. They don't command attention. They have no drama, no creativity.

Yeah, Mr. Advertiser, I'm calling you out. Your ads are boring. Why? I think I know. You're scared. You're scared of straying from the norm and offending someone. You're scared of alienating a couple people in your target audience, so you stay safe. I'm here to tell you that you're making a big mistake. Safe doesn't do anyone any good. Would you rather dazzle many and offend a few, or dazzle and offend nobody? If you don't dazzle anyone, nobody's going to take notice of your ad, and nobody's going to purchse your product or service.

So I say, let it all hang out. Blow your target audience away with an aggressive, edgy ad that drives home your messages. And don't be afraid to turn a few off. If they're not going to purchase your product or service because of an ad, they're probably not the right customer for you. So be it!

Safe is for wusses. Any advertisers that aren't afraid of stirring it up and making a scene - I encourage you to contact me via email. To see some of said advertising, visit www.bestadagencyever.com. There, I promise you'll see some good stuff - including the words pedophile, wuss, and yes, ASS. Enjoy.

Garret Ohm

Quiznos. Mmmm, EAT FRESH.

So I was headed home from a late night at work and really didn't feel like cooking. So I stopped at the neighborhood Quiznos for a quick bite. Now, this wasn't the first time I've eaten at Quiznos, by any stretch. As a matter of fact, I've eaten lunch there a couple of times this week. They have the best (fast) salads on Earth, and the Roadhouse Ranch has only 1 net gram of Carbs, which is great for my girlish figure.

The thing that made this different than most of my early evening visits, is that I was feeling really weak. That is, I was craving something and had every intention to indulge. You see, the one thing I crave more than the toasty goodness of a Quiznos Turkey, Ranch & Swiss sub, is a chocolate chip cookie. Ah yes, I love them soft, gooey and REALLY chocolatey. Mmmmmmm.

Anyway, so tonight I go in line, order my sub, and then go to pick up my chocolate chip cookie. I pick it up, put it on the counter to pay, and then decide to go ahead and ask the nice man behind the counter how much it is. "One Fifteen," he says. ONE FIFTEEN? As in, one dollar and fifteen cents??? $1.15? EACH? "Yes," he says. I quickly picked the cookie up from the counter and put it right back on the shelf. Now I love me some cookies, and I'll indulge from time to time. But I saw the exorbitant price of the cookie as a sign from above, that I shouldn't be buying the cookie.

It just started me thinking. How can Quiznos have the nerve to charge $1.15 for one stinkin cookie. A cookie that probably cost them $.10 to make. Now, I'm a fan of business and I believe in a capitalist society, but $1.15 for one cookie is just plain out of control. Hear me out. Not only are the cookies expensive, but so are the subs and salads. And on top of that, I could just go over to the neighborhood Subway and get a similarly sized sub and 3 (yes, 3) chocolate chip cookies for about $2-3 less than Quiznos.

I like Quiznos, but not that much. Quiznos, as a brand has done a great job in attracting me to its concept and keeping me there, but they lost me on the pricing. If Quiznos and Subway were priced consistently, I would probably choose Quiznos more often. So what is it - cockiness? Is there target audience more affluent than I am? Are they testing this pricing strategy? I'm not sure, but I DO know, the my fast food sub joint visit is going to be at SUBWAY.

Here's a link to their site, just because they serve up succulent, gooey, chocolatey, and CHEAP chocolate chip cookies: www.subway.com.

Cheers,

Garret Ohm
Eat Fresh

Logo Eggs

After I wrote my last blog entry, I was surfing the net for advertising related news articles and found an article that was definitely pretty damn cool. It seems some dude had the idea to start lasering freshness stamps onto the side of eggs so that consumers can't be duped into buying repackaged eggs that were no longer safe to eat (it happens!).

Although he didn't intend on it, Mr. Parker had just uncovered one of the newest add mediums out there: eggs. Yup, his company hopes to use the technology used in stamping freshness dates on eggs to begin to sell to advertisers. Think about it - an ad for Jimmy Dean sausages printed right on all of the eggs. SWEET.

It's kind of like logo golf balls. But way better tasting. I wonder what's next? What do you think? Ads on the sides of houses? Ads on your Ipod? Ads on your bar of soap? Nothing is sacred!

Here's a link to the whole article. More later people. Take care,

Garret Ohm
www.thecyphersagency.com

In Your Face! Wall Street Journal Sells Front Page Ads

I just read this article recently online at www.nytimes.com about how the Wall Street Journal is reportedly beginning to sell advertising on the front page of its daily newspaper. So for a price of about $75,000-$100,000, advertisers hoping to gain the attention of this "large, affluent and influential" target audience can purchase an ad. My guess is that this space will be used often by two types of companies: young companies backed by lots of venture capital and a solid and different concept, and fortune 500 companies.

It should be pretty interesting when it starts, but it's not an entirely new concept. Apparently, lots of British rags have already been doing this (shocker: Europe is once again ahead of the pack when it comes to advertising!).

I wonder what consumer reaction will be. I don't think it will be a negative reaction at all. Consumers are so used to having ads pumped into their daily life that it won't phase them. I think the advertisers that jump on this at the beginning will see the most value because they will be perceived as cutting edge, but as all consumers do, we will become trained to zone the ad out before long. It certainly won't have a negative enough effect to offset the tens of millions of dollars in revenue that this will generate over time for the Wall Street Journal!

It just goes to show you - nothing is sacred, and everything has the potential to be used as an ad. Here's the whole article: Link

Garret Ohm