Tried Live.com?

Hi all -

I just read an article about it this morning. Has anyone tried www.live.com? It's Microsoft's entry into the search forum, and it seems at first eerily similar to Google. Check it out if you get a chance. One of the coolest things that I've seen about it so far, other than its appealing layout, is the ability to customize your search results.

Play with it a little bit. There's a decent chance that someday soon, www.live.com will be the majority of America's start page.

-Garret

AAB Golf Tournament

Hi all -

I just wanted to let you know that it's official. I am now the chairperson of the 2007 Advertising Association of Baltimore golf tournament. NICE! I played in the tournament this year at Mountain Branch, and hope to deliver an even better event this year.

If anyone is interested in sponsorship, or playing, give me a call or email!

Garret Ohm

Video Gamer Target Audience

If you had to guess what the typical demographic was for video gamers, what would you guess it would be? Me? Before reading the article below, I would have guessed that it would be 14-17 year old boys, with little to no annual income. WRONG. Check it out - this is good hard research from the Center for Media Research that suggests that the average video gamer is actually 41 years old and more than HALF are WOMEN. Stunning marketing research. Talk with you later,

Garret Ohm
We Know Target Audience Research


Average Video Gamer is 41 and Half Are Female

According to comScore Media Metrix, the second quarter results of Game Metrix, a quarterly syndicated study found that video games have much broader appeal than teenage boys. On average, gamers are 41 years of age with an average annual income of $55,000. Further, females account for 52 percent of the gaming audience. The average gamer has been online for nine years and 84 percent have broadband access at home.

When asked about their primary reason for purchasing their last game, more then one-quarter of those using each type of device stated that they purchased their last game because they had played it before and enjoyed the experience. The next most popular responses included "I heard good things about it" and "A friend recommended it," indicating the importance of word-of-mouth recommendations in influencing purchase behavior.

Erin Hunter, executive vice president of comScore's Media and Entertainment Group, says that "...These findings underscore the importance of marketing to, and listening to, experienced gamers. Familiarity with a particular game can influence both the gamers' direct purchase behavior, as well others' purchase behavior through positive word-of-mouth."

Top Motivations for Gamers to Buy Games
	Gaming Device
Reasons for Purchasing Last Game	Console	PC (CD/DVD)	Mobile
I played it before and liked it	24%	27%	29%
It's a sequel to a game that I like	16%	13%	8%
I heard good things about it	11%	8%	15%
A friend recommended it	9%	12%	8%
Price	8%	8%	9%
Got good reviews from critics/reviewers	7%	3%	6%
I saw/ heard an advertisement for the game	6%	4%	8%
I wanted to demo the game	5%	4%	6%
Someone gave it to me, but I did not ask for it	3%	8%	5%
Source: Game Metrix

Heavy gamers were more likely to accept and embrace in-game advertising than light/medium gamers. 37 percent agreed that featuring actual products or companies in games make the games feel more realistic, while 27 percent of light/ medium gamers agreed. Half of heavy gamers believe that advergaming "is inevitable and will be in all or most games in the future," compared to 42 percent of light/medium gamers.

(Heavy gamers played games at least 16 hours per week or played games on two or more devices for at least 11 hours per week. Light/ medium gamers played video games for less than 11 hours per week. One quarter of respondents qualified as heavy gamers, while the remaining 75 percent fell into the light/medium gamer segment.)

Ms. Hunter concludes that "From the advertiser's standpoint, gaming is a potentially powerful medium for reaching consumers who may not be reachable via more traditional means..."

For this release and more information about comScore Game Metrix, please visit here.

Most Affluent Women Have a Relationship With The Internet

Here are some cool research statistics that will definitely help us when planning media for clients looking to reach affluent women. It looks like pretty much all working women access the internet. Many of these women are actually purchasing products or services on the internet! Cool research, give it a quick look - it's from the Center for Media Research.

Almost All Affluent Working Women Turning to the Internet

According to new research by The Media Audit, affluent working women with family incomes of $75,000 or more are growing in number and 94.3 percent access the Internet during an average month. From 2004 to 2005 the percent of affluent working women making five or more purchases on the Internet increased from 54.1 percent to 56.6 percent. The percent making 12 or more purchases in the same years increased from 30.0 percent to 32.2.

Bob Jordan, president of International Demographics, Inc., said "From 2004 to 2005 affluent working women increased from 8.7 percent to 9.2 percent of the 137 million adults in the (markets surveyed)... (and) have also made some rather dramatic changes in their media habits."

"The percentage of working women that spent at least 430 minutes a week on the Internet (heavy users) jumped from 48.6 percent in 2004 to 50.8 percent in 2005," says Jordan. "Heavy use of radio, television, newspapers and direct mail all declined within this group. The collective Internet changes for this group are significant, and other media is... paying the price"

Among all adults, just 35.2 percent have homes valued at more than $200,000. Among affluent working women the percentage is 63.9; 31.0 percent have homes valued at $400,000 or more. "These are mostly college educated (58.1 percent) two income (69.0 percent) families," says Jordan.

The 10 markets with the highest percentages of affluent working women are:

• Washington, DC, 14.7
• Southern New Hampshire, 13.0
• San Jose, 12.5
• Hartford, 12.3
• Minneapolis-St Paul, 11.9
• Little Rock, 11.7
• Omaha-Council Bluffs, 11.7
• San Francisco, 11.6
• Baltimore, 11.4
• Madison, 11.3

On the other hand, Jordan pointed out that a community may not be "poor" even with a low percentage of affluent working women. As an example he noted that even Daytona Beach, which has the lowest percent of affluent working women (3.6 percent) of the markets surveyed, ... is ninth among the 87 markets in percentages (13.9 percent) of affluent empty nesters with household incomes of $50,000 or more."

For more, go to The Media Audit here.

Advertising Goes Down The Toilet

Hi all -

I read this article at www.brandchannel.com and really enjoyed it. I thought you would as well. It's about the power and/or danger of advertising where people do their business. No, not THAT kind of business......

Enjoy: http://www.brandchannel.com/start1.asp?fa_id=335

Sincerely,

Garret Ohm
garret@thecyphersagency.com

Wal Mart's Christmas Gift List

From AdAge...
Wal-Mart's launch of a new kind of "wish list" Christmas site for children has drawn the ire of consumer advocates. "If you show us what you want on your list, we'll blast it off to your parents," says an animated holiday elf named Wally who guides children through a seemingly endless conveyor belt of toys on the retailer's website. Children who click a "yes" button to have a product e-mailed to their parents hear a round of applause. If they click the "no" button, the rejected toy gets boxed up and unceremoniously sent to a dump truck.

The animated Wally, and his elf friend Mary, characters with quirky accents and irreverent attitudes, are also the stars of an upcoming 60-second, 3-D spot that will run in cinemas this holiday season, and they will also appear in TV spots and in a special comic book that will be sent to children who visit the website of the nation's largest toy retailer.

Campaign for a Commercial Free Childhood is launching a letter-writing campaign among its 7,000 members asking Wal-Mart to close down the site. "Families have a hard enough time navigating holiday commercialism without the world's largest retailer bypassing parents entirely and urging children to nag," said Susan Linn, co-founder. "For a company that purports to be family-friendly and promote family values it's very disrespectful of both parents and children." What do you think?

So, did Wal-Mart overstep its bounds with a holiday website that allows children to build a toy wish list that the retailer e-mails to their parents? What do you think?

Garret Ohm

Cool Ads

Hi all -

A friend of mine that is in the business passed along some cool non-traditional advertising techniques that I wanted to pass along. Check them out:

An ad for a plastic surgeon...















Fun ad for a music-related client...





















Folgers Coffee...





















Firearms expo...





















An ad for a solution that helps stop nail biting...





















Pretty sweet, huh?

Garret

Blogging About Blogs

Just a quick note to promote a very good Blog that deals with Internet useage. If you want to check it out, go to:

http://weblogs.hitwise.com/

Garret

Did You Know?

Did you know?

54% of consumers resist marketing?
56% of consumers actually avoid products that are overmarketed?
69% of consumers actually go out of their way to block advertising?

It's true - the research tells us so. So how are YOU reaching out to your target consumer?

When Brands Collide

Hi all -

The other day I bought a pair of shoes. Anyone that knows me knows that this can be a huge undertaking. Usually, it involves at least a lap and a half around Arundel Mills mall. For those of you who are counting, there are 19 stores in Arundel Mills that sell men's shoes. 19! I usually have to stop at every one, just to make sure I'm not missing any.

So the shoes I bought are shown here (well, those are like mine - mine actually have white in the back where the black is....):













Guess what type they are? Most people know that the three diagonal stripes comes from the Adidas brand (four is K Swiss, two is Steve Madden). But it clearly says Goodyear on the side of the shoe. What the heck?

Well, being the brand-phile that I am, I had to buy the pair of shoes that had not one, but TWO brands incorporated into the shoe. Now, I'm not sure how it all went down, but I can totally rationalize why both of these companies probably got together on the deal where Goodyear would supply the rubber for the soles of an Adidas shoe.

My guess is that Goodyear marketing executives were sitting around the conference room table thinking about innovative new ways to get the Goodyear name out in front of their target audience, which I'm assuming is largely Males 18-35 that are into the performance of their automobile. And if you've been reading my other blogs, you know that breaking through to this group is harder than ever....

So someone probably started thinking of how they could cross promote with other brands that are popular with this audience. Maybe they even thought - "hey, maybe we could provide free Goodyear rubber in exchange for prominent brand placement." Someone probably started thinking about what brands use rubber...."hey, shoe companies use rubber. What's a popular shoe brand with Males 18-35? ADIDAS."

Then, someone gets on the phone with Adidas' marketing department and makes the offer to supply the rubber for the soles at no charge, in exchange for them putting out a co-branded shoe. Pretty cool idea, and in my opinion I think it works well. If nothing else, it shows innovative marketing. And I have to say it produced a pretty cool darn shoe. Which, incidentally, is a damn good shoe for driving - it's excellent for the heel and toe downshifting method!

So the lesson here? I think that brands big and small need to look further into cross promotions. I think this is going to be an even more effective way to enhance your brand awareness as time goes by.

Cheers, that's all for now...

Garret Ohm

The New Mass Comm

Hi all - while I was out winning The Brick Companies Classic, this ended up in my Inbox from The Center for Media Research. It's a good article about the "future" of mass communication. With these 16-34's getting older and the new generation being even more digitally savvy, marketers really need to watch how they integrate these new mediums into their advertising budgets. We're working with a couple of new retail clients right now, and this is definitely an area of consideration for us - in fact, we're even suggesting a couple of clients who focus on females 16-34 start a Myspace page! Fun times....

G



Digital Consumers are Transforming Mass Communication

A new study by Universal McCann, "The New 'Digital Divide', How the New Generation of Digital Consumers are Transforming Mass Communication," concludes that consumers are increasingly relying on non-traditional platforms for entertainment, news, social interactions, shopping, and other daily activities.

The Executive Summary reports that there was a time when music was the great divide between generations. Today, technology has become the source of the "generation gap." A younger, tech savvy segment adopting new media platforms, with the 16-34 age group leading the way in socializing:

• The age group 16-34 is 25% more likely than ages 35-49 to use instant messenger, with over 75% of ages 16-34 currently using at least one service.
• About 40% age P16-34 belong to a social network site; this is twice the percentage of 35-49 year olds.
• Nearly 40% of are16-34 have met someone face to face after meeting on the Internet.
• Yahoo, AOL and MSN Messenger are among the top Internet services in terms of awareness and use by ages16-34.
• This is followed closely behind by social networking site, Myspace.com with 43% of 16-34's being current users. In comparison, only 16% of 35-49's are using Myspace.

David Cohen EVP, U.S. Director of Digital Communications concluded that "there is no doubt that we are moving rapidly from a world of passive receptivity to active engagement. No longer can we simply broadcast our messages to a mass audience and hope that our standard metrics of reach and frequency will guarantee success. Accountable engagement innovation is the battlefield of the 21st century..."

The younger set has adopted many of these emerging technologies at a faster rate with three out of four of the 16-34 heavy Internet users currently using instant messenger. Additionally, there are twice as many 16-34s visiting social networking sites than those 35-49. Other findings include:

• 71% of the 16-34 year olds have participated in a blogging activity.
• The 16-34's are three times more likely (25%) than those 35-49 to manage and/or write their own blog.
• While personal and family/friend are the most common types of blogs among the younger group, more than 40% are developing photo and pop culture (music/film) blogs as well.
• One third of 16-34's have participated in peer-to-peer file sharing compared to just 12% of those 35-49.
• Thus far, just 10% of 16-34 year old heavy Internet users say they have used IPTV and only 14% have used voice over Internet protocol.
• When asked which information source they would miss the most, television came out on top, with 27% of 16-34's and 29% of 35-49's saying they would miss this medium
• There are still low levels of usage and intention to use RSS feeds, with nearly half of our sample unaware of what they are.

Email Marketing

So are email marketers getting smarter, or are consumers starting to greet email marketing with (slightly) open arms? You tell me...From the Center for Media Research.

Garret

E-Mail Marketing Getting High Click, Open, and Conversion Relative to Cost

WebSurveyor Corp., partnering with Internet Retailer released an August survey of IR e-newsletter readers revealing that web merchants have very ambitious plans to increase both the size and scope of their e-mail marketing efforts. 18.4% expect to grow their opt-in lists by more than 50% within the next year, while another 25.1% will increase their lists by 16% to 50%.

Reported by Mark Brohan in a recent article, he says that 73% of chain retailers, catalogers, virtual merchants and consumer brand manufacturers taking part in the monthly survey on e-mail marketing, spend 5% of their marketing budget or less on e-mail marketing, yet just over half of respondents, 50.6%, report that 6% or more of their sales come from e-mail marketing, with 25% saying the proportion is over 11%.

The report found that

• 57% of the respondents have opt-in lists of fewer than 50,000 names
• 24.3% have 51,000 to 400,000 names
• 9.1% have 401,000 to 1 million names
• 10% have more than 1 million

63.8% of retailers conduct up to three e-mail campaigns each month and another 25.2% conduct between four and eight campaigns, says the report. 62.8% also indicate that they've increased the frequency of e-mail campaigns in the past year.

E-mail marketing consultants consider an open rate of about 20% and a click-through rate of 4% to 5% to be a highly effective e-mail campaign.

• 26.5% of participants in the survey report open rates of 20% or more (11.2% reported 20% to 25% while 15.3% said more than 25%)
• 11.8% report open rates of 16% to 19%
• 14.6% report e-mail open rates of less than 5%
• 6.2% say open rates of 1% or less.

Click-through and Conversion averages are growing:

• 17% report e-mail click-through rates of 16% or more
• 28.9% report click-through rates of 6% to 15%.
• 20.2% of respondents report e-mail sales conversion rates of 1% to 2%
• 26.5% with conversion averages of between 2.1% and 4%
• 14% with conversion rates of between 4.1%
• 10%, and 3.2% with sales conversion averages greater than 10%

Brohan concludes that by working smarter with existing resources while controlling costs, web retailers expect a sizeable return on their investment in e-mail marketing. Compared to the rising cost of paid search, he says, which can absorb up to 50% of a big retailer's total annual online marketing budget, e-mail marketing remains relatively inexpensive.

• 41.6% of all retailers taking part in the research spend less than 1% of their total annual marketing budgets on e-mail. That compares with
• 31.3 % spend between 1% and 5%
• 13.8% commit 6% to 10%
• 5.6% spend from 11% to 15%
• 3.8% from 16% to 25%
• 4.1% with e-mail budgets that account for 25% of their overall marketing budgets