Blog covering all aspects of Internet marketing including search optimization & marketing, email marketing, blog marketing, video marketing, social network marketing, SMS marketing & online pr.
The two current predominant Web video advertising models are the tradition interruption method in the form of either a preroll or an ad in the middle of the video. The other form of video advertising is the overlay ad that Google introduced on their YouTube videos.
But both methods are still forcing commercial messages on an audience that hasn't specifically asked for those messages. Like traditional TV advertising, it's a crap shoot. You're likely to reach people who will be receptive to your message, but the vast majority will either ignore it or be annoyed by it.
Keyword search-based advertising has taught people that, like nearly everything else these days, advertising can be consumed on the audience's terms, not the advertiser's.
If you're going to depend upon third party content to find your audience, you've got a delicate balancing act to do.
The trick to really making video advertising work is to eliminate the actual advertisement entirely and replace it with hyperlinked product placements. Instead of being assaulted by a commercial message you didn't ask for, you would be able to mouse over any video element to discover ads. So, for example, if you really liked the tie a character in the video you are watching was wearing, you could click on that tie and be brought to the merchant's purchase page for that tie.
What we need is a video markup language that allows us to create interactive video. The World Wide Web Consortium's Synchronized Multimedia Integration Langauge (SMIL 3.0) is the most likely vehicle to accomplish this.
For $49.95 a year, subscribers had access to the paper's columnists' articles and the archives. There will be fees "for some [archive] material from the period 1923 to 1986."
Though TimesSelect had 227,000 paying subscribers from a base of 787,000 users, and earned the paper about $10 million a year in revenue, the volume of abandoned visitors from the search engines convinced the Times that they would make more money through online advertising than they would through web site subscription fees.
NYTimes.com gets 13 million unique visitors a month and figure they can use that volume coupled with registered user demographics and visitor behavior statistics to offer advertisers the ability to buy behaviorally-targeted advertising.
I've got to think that the decision to optimize the site for search engine marketing coupled with the buying of search engine keyword ads for breaking news helped drive traffic to the site. When they looked at their bounce rate--the percentage of users who abandoned the site when they bumped up against the paid content wall--they realized the pure advertising revenue model might just work.
I would not be surprised if the Times' next step would be to make more of their content embeddable and shareable online to drive traffic from blogs and online bookmark services and to add a commenting feature to articles to encourage visitors to stay at the site longer.
NBC should be uploading clips themselves. If they included the
commericals and tacked on some tracking tools, they could even charge
extra for value-added advertising.
The New York Times reports that Google and Viacom will be testing that very no-brainer concept. The Viacom clips "will be accompanied by advertising, with Viacom, Google and the site owners dividing the ad revenue." Eventually, Google wants to "allow any video programmer to use its system to distribute programming with advertising."
The Perfect Storm Of Online Political Attack Advertising
If you like your political campaigns with a heavy dose of anonymous, unregulated political attack ads, you'll love the Internet this election season...and every election season henceforth. Several factors converge this year to create the elements of a perfect storm of online political mud slinging.
Unregulated Online Speech
First among those factors is the Federal Election Commission decision in March that the FEC would only regulate "paid political ads placed on another person's web site," according to the AP story.
The decision is a sound one in that it protects political speech by ensuring that online opinion such as that found on a blog would not be considered political advertising subject to campaign finance laws. But the decision also leaves a loophole the size of a television production truck for 527 groups to drive right through.
Blogs As Distribution Channels
The second factor is the rise of the blog as not merely a platform for political speech but, more importantly, as a distribution medium. Traffic to blogs continues to grow, according to comScore Media Metrix: blog traffic is up 56% over the past year, representing 34% of
the total online audience.
Blogs act both as online centers of gravity where popular blogs attract a critical mass of like-minded people as well as micro-influencers of the long tail.
The long tail is an economic concept and phrase coined by Wired's Chris Andersonin his article of the same name. The basic argument is that in the digital age, with the distribution platform of the Internet, electronic products such as songs (MP3 files) can find a profitable (over time) niche audience that the physical limitations of the pre-Internet economy made impossible.
The same distribution mechanism works for the dissemination of ideas through blogs. There are countless personal blogs with an audience ranging from a handful of people (a circle of friends) to dozens or hundreds (a niche topical blog). The person behind such blogs is often seen as a trustworthy individual whose opinion is valued by its readers. Content that is distributed through these blogs, therefore, is influential to that small audience.
On the other end of the spectrum are the aforementioned centers of gravity: large, popular blogs with huge audiences of like-minded people. Political blogs are heavily represented in blog search engine Technorati's list of the Top 100 most popular blogs. These blogs also act is important distributors of ideas but it is very much like preaching to the choir.
The Rise Of Online Video
In May, Hitwise reported that "the market share of Internet visits to the 10 leading online video sites has increased by 164 percent in the past three months," with YouTube and MySpace.com as the market leaders. The widespread adoption of broadband Internet access has created an explosion in online video use because the increased bandwidth has made it an enjoyable medium.
The video sites allow anyone to upload their video for the world to see and give anyone the ability to easily display video by providing the code to easily paste into their own blogs or websites.
So, again, these video sharing sites act both as centers of gravity for online video and as a distribution center for the long tail. All a 527 need do is upload their video, get the word out, and watch a million flowers bloom.
The Rise Of Social Networking Sites
MySpace.com began life as a social networking site that only recently added video sharing to the mix because of the popularity of YouTube. YouTube, conversely, is primarily a video sharing site that has a lot of social networking features. Both are among the most popular social networking sites, according to data released in June by comScore.
Social networking sites are also seeing a stratospheric rise in popularity, as people are increasingly enjoying the ability to connect with other like-minded people. These sites serve as centers of gravity through which political ideas can be distributed from trusted sources.
We have some local examples here in Minnesota. Democrat Amy Klobuchar is running for the US Senate seat being vacated by Senator Mark Dayton. She's running against Congressman Mark Kennedy. While Kennedy has no presence at YouTube, the Klobuchar campaign has uploaded their first TV ad to the site:
Paul Ostrow is a Minneapolis city councilman who is running for Congress in Minnesota's 5th Congressional district. His campaign has uploaded to YouTube short (less than a minute) video clips of him on explaining is position on a variety of issues. Ostrow explains his position on energy policy:
You will also see freelancers unconnected with any campaign uploading videos as demonstrated with Governor Tim Pawlenty's announcement speech:
And, finally, expect a lot of parody and satire video such as this one lampooning Florida Congresswoman Katherine Harris:
[NOTE: I published this first in the Politics In Minnesota newsletter.]
The practically overnight popularity of YouTube and other video sharing sites has opened up a new channel in citizen marketing and branding. One result is the fanboy ad, a consumer created video advertisement that is either a variation of an already-existing corporate produced TV spot, or an entirely new idea created by a citizen.
One of the most popular videos running on Google Video for a while was a citizen-created advertisement for the Jeep Wrangler. It's a very simple piece with clean production value that looks as if it could've come out of any ad agency in the US. Except for the content: The Jeep fanboy ad consists simply of 15 seconds of a close shot of a young woman's breasts bouncing as she's driving a Wrangler. The fade-out reads: Jeep. Bouncy and Fun. Watch it:
As you can imagine, though the objectifcation aspect of the spot is potentially offensive, the spot is probably not going to hurt among the Wrangler's target demographic of young men. Another fanboy Jeep ad at Google Video pits the vehicle against the old arcade video game character Frogger. The clip is mildly amusing and probably works for the Wrangler's Gen X consumers.
The two Jeep fanboy ads are relatively harmless. But the citizen branding phenomenon can cut both ways, as this faux ad highlighting the difference in packaging approaches between Microsoft and Apple demonstrates:
But even this example of citizen branding is relatively benign, because it takes a general shot at Microsoft as a corporation but doesn't really criticize or rebrand any of their products. Burger King, on the other hand, may have their hands full. A search for Burger King at Google Video returns clips of the Burger King mascot strolling the beach with a bikini-clad babe, and the mascot flipping the bird in front of BK competitor stores to the tune of Men Without Hats' Safety Dance.
And there are more that you probably don't want to watch at work. This spoof of a Visa Priceless ad you definitely won't want to watch at work and it will certainly offend some people, so you've been forewarned. But it is perhaps the best example of how citizen branding can completely mess with a company's own branding efforts.
I'm not sure I know what the best response to these ads would be. It appears that for Jeep, Microsoft, Burger King, and Visa, silence is their approach and I don't know that it's not a bad response. I do know that it is a phenomenon that marketers and PR professionals need to think long and hard over, because fanboy ads are fundamentally changing the nature of product branding.
This is a superb example of how to extend a television commercial online. You've probably seen this spot for Comcast high speed Internet featuring their spokesturtles, Bill and Karolyn Slowsky:
It's a cute ad that effectively makes the point that cable broadband is faster than DSL broadband. As a television commercial, it's an excellent piece of work that stands on its own. But the message is extended at the close by telling the viewer to go online to TheSlowskys.com.
The web site is the personal blog of Bill and Karolyn Slowsky that extends and reinforces the points made in the TV spot. As a viral marketing tool, blog let's you send virtual (belated, of course) greeting cards. You can watch the TV ads from the site. You can even IM them and a real person responds.
The blog promises an online chess game. You can browse Bill's photo album, a collection of pictures of speed bumps. A post from January 29 congratulates the Chicago White Sox on winning the World Series...in October. Everything on the blog reinforces the idea of slowness.
The ad has been uploaded to Google Video and YouTube and, as of this writing, has been viewed 1,027 times at YouTube during the past week. This viral marketing campaign extends the commercial's value even further at virtually no cost at all.
Google has added a demographic targeting feature to their AdWords search engine advertising program. The AdWords site tool allows you to pick your preferences in up to three different demographics and it will then analyze your preferences and give you a list of sites within the Google Network whose audience matches your demographic preferences.
The Minnesota Twins just released two spots for their new television advertising campaign and they're available at their web site. One features Torri Hunter at a kid's birthday party and the other features Joe Mauer in a take off of the 1979 Coke commerical featuring Pittsburg Steelers defensive end Mean Joe Green.
Sites such as Google Video and iFilm have got the viral marketing aspect of online video figured out. Those sites provide code for many of the videos they offer so site owners and bloggers can easily paste the video into their site. This is another indication of the explosion of what I'm calling the Sharing Web. As more and more people begin to blog and use such social networking tools as del.iciou.us and Flickr, the viral component of online marketing becomes more important than ever.
Unfortunately, the Twins don't offer code for their commercials but iFilm does, so you can compare the Joe Mauer spot with its predecessor, the Coke ad:
Late last month, Experience, Inc., a career services provider, released the results of a survey of college-educated 18 to 34 year-olds' online shopping behavior. Experience claims that 18 to 34 year-olds are responsible for $175 billion in annual consumer spending.
The survey found that 98% of college students have bought a product or service online.
They conduct online research before buying:
Less than one hour of research: 27%
1-2 hours of research: 53%
3-5 hours of research: 17%
Six or more hours of research: 3%
The report states that "Because college students spend a significant amount of
time online researching products and services before purchasing, when
they do purchase, they do it online."
Perhaps. It would be interesting to know what they were buying online. I'd be wiling to bet that college students are primarily small ticket buyers online: Books, music, web site subscriptions, etc., and that might explain why most spend little time doing online research. It doesn't take a lot of research to determine if you want to buy a book or some music.
I'd also be willing to bet that there's a strong correlation between the amount of time spent researching a product online and the price of the product. That is, people will conduct much more thorough and extensive research for a big-ticket item such as a car or an HDTV and that the larger the price, the less likely they will be to buy the item online.
The report also states that 18 to 34 year-olds respond to online advertising. More than 50% said they have bought a product or service based on an online ad and 34% said Internet ads were the most influential way to motivate them to learn more about a product or service.
What types of online ads will most appeal to this group?
Sponsored link related to the content they are reading, 41%
A contest or promotion offering value, 34%
Personalization based on their pofile or online behavior, 17%
While advertisers seem to have finally figured out that it makes eminent sense to put your television ads--especially your Super Bowl commercials--online, reprisemedia is making the case that many Super Bowl advertisers did not fully leverage their TV spots by extending their ad campaigns online. Their 2005 Super Bowl Search Marketing Scorecard [PDF] is a fascinating look at how some Super Bowl advertisers capitalized on Super Bowl related searches to extend their ad campaigns online.
Reprisemedia reports which Super Bowl advertisers bought what search keyword ads and sponsorships on the three major search engines, Google, Yahoo!, and MSN.com. Considering that they only address paid search advertising and not the natural search results, I don't know how fair it is for them to label "winners" and "losers", but it's interesting nonetheless.
For example, people often search using well-known brand names. If someone looking for the Pepsi Super Bowl ad searches using the word "Pepsi," they'll find a link in the natural results to Pepsi.com and when they go to the site, there is a link on the front page for TV commercials. But Pepsi hasn't bought any search engine advertising for the keyword "Pepsi"--nor should they have--so is that considered poor search marketing? I say not at all; that's smart.
Relatedly, Yahoo!'s Buzz Index provides fascinating insight into search behavior in the wake of a singularly unique popular culture touchstone event. On the Saturday before the Super Bowl, Buzz Index posted a review of pre-Super Bowl searches and yesterday they posted a review of food-related searches performed on Super Bowl weekend. Take a look at today's top searches in Yahoo! Buzz to see overall Super Bowl related searches; then go to the TV searches and NFL searches to see the leaders and movers in those categories.
Data from two new surveys will help inform teen marketing strategies. The data from Forrester Reseach and BIGResearch provide insight into online teen marketing strategies.
Forrester's latest survey of Canadian and US teen consumers (21-21 years of age) reveals that more than two-thirds of of them own PCs, DVD players, home stereos, mobile phones or handheld devices and a quarter of them own MP3 players and camera- or Internet-connected or phones. Teens are overwhelmingly gamers, with more than 90% owning a gaming device, and three-quarters playing games (both online and offline) on their computer.
Forester found that teens spent an average of 11 hours per week online, compared to the 8.5 hours their adult counterparts spent online per week. Nearly 80% of teens visit games sites, close to 50% visit movie web sites and more than a third visit music sites.
An effective way of reaching these teens, then, would be through in-game advertising, advergaming, or by advertising on gaming web sites.
Finally, Forrester found that approximately half of 12 to 21 year-olds get purchase advice from their friends and family, and 65% tell others what products they like. That's seconded by a BIGResearch survey of 18 to 24 year-olds that found that Word of Mouth was the most influential media for making electronic purchases, followed by TV, Magazines, and the Internet.
These finding reinforce the point I made in my last post about online fashion marketing that online marketing aimed at teens needs to incorporate the technologies with which they are fluent.
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