Advertising

Been Saying it for years

No one clicks on Ads.  I don't.  My friends sure don't.  We're looking for engaging and useful expeerinces. and can't wait to find a few from your brand.  Ad Age reports that the data is event WORSE than it was 2 years ago for display advertising (at least as a standalone Direct Response medium):

The number of people online who click display ads has dropped 50% in less than two years, and only 8% of internet users account for 85% of all clicks, according to the most recent "Natural Born Clickers" study from ComScore and media agency Starcom. As the pool of people who click on banner ads rapidly decreases, it begs the question: Is the long-used click-through rate now officially useless?

Fast Facts

  • 85% of clicks on ads come from 8% of web users
  • Only 16% of web users click display ads (down from 32% in 2007)
  • Consumers exposed to a display ad were 65% more likely to visit the advertiser's site
  • Banner exposure correlated with search volume and length of microsite interaction (minutes)

Ok, so that's better than nothing.  The clicks people are counting on aren't coming from the people you think.  Facebook and Twitter aren't dominated by early adopters any more.

So what are the ad plays that work?  Are we left just with off-site retargeting?  With remessaging based on search engine activity?  Profiling and social network analysis?

When working with major brand dollars, you've just got to think  bigger than clicks, and more holistically than conversions.  I'll be writing in the coming weeks about how that perspective among the industry's biggest spenders needs to evolve.

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Earned Media and the need for chatter

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AdAge asks, Is No Chatter Worse Than Negative Chatter? Good question- for many brands, the passion that drives affinity is just as desirable as the passion that drives hatred.  I'm reminded of this Scion ad, which really drives the point home: stand for something or go home.

Scionxbugly

Such is the challenge of Earned media- you have to attract attention while still being YOU.  If there's nothing worth saying about your brand, then you're beyond help in any advertising medium.  Stick with the paid stuff.

But when there's something or someone to love, to hate, to act as an ally or fight as an enemy, you've got your in. 

You can't force people to tweet your brand or your hashtag- you're going to have to do something to create the emotion behind those actions.  Are you talking to #BlameDrewsCancer? Are you finding what's funny about your product and getting that on video?

Look.  Listen.  Plan.  Blow it up big.  Measure.  Repeat.

Hospital TV spots offer real stories of patients

This piece from yesterday's NYT seemed to be heralding some great TV ads for the health and wellness industry.  The drama of real stories at akronchildrens.tv is powerful and real.  The spots break throguh because they are about people, the drama of trying to get better, and not exaggerated claims about the quality of service.

What I really liked the "commandments" that NY ad shop DeVito/Verdi crafted for its hospital campaigns, that sounds like it's got a few things to say for other ads:

“No pictures of doctors,” it begins, “no smiling people, no fancy machinery, no over-promises about medical care, no complicated medical terminology: just truthful expressions of critical care and breakthroughs.”

It's about selling the environment that the hospital creates for its patients, not the cliched descriptions of 'teamwork' and dedication.  

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Food Brand Site Done Right: Kashi

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In the wake of the Skittles dustup, what can a food brand do?  I wanted to comment on Charlie's post, but I decided yesterday that I didn't have anything to add- Charlie said it right. I  knew that I didn't really like the site, thought it was derivative of Modernista's home page...but what was Skittles  supposed to do?  What can the web do for food brands until mind control beams?

Skittles_at_bsbnyc

After seeing a Kashi ad on TV, enticing me to visit their web site and get a free frozen entree, I said, let's just see about this. Conclusion: Kashi did something very cool. 

As background: I love Kashi.  I didn't always.  Kashi used to be these crazy rice puffs my friend Matt would eat, and I wasn't really up for that.  After I started trying to eat better about 18 months ago, I discovered Kashi frozen entrees, and shortly thereafter the GoLean cereal.   In my apartment right now I have Kashi GoLean cereal on the shelf and a Southwest Chicken frozen entree in the freezer.  I am a loyal consumer.  I tell people about Kashi products.  A lot.  The products work in my lifestyle: whole grains, protein, and trying to avoid artificial sugars.  But not everyone is as vigilant as I am :)

Now, as a comparison, it might not be fair to suggest that Skittles can claim any kind of identification with me, because hey, when was the last time I bought candy?  OK.  However, what Kashi executes is something that is relevant, connects you to the core of the company, and gave me something in return. Here's the Black Bean Mango Frozen Entree.

Kashi1

See the additional contest on the right?  You better believe I want a year's supply of Kashi food! 

I decided to join their community, which actually has some very interesting things about reaching goals, whatever they might be, in wellness and mind/soul health, not just nutrition.  How about: Challenge yourself to sanitize your sponges?  I think this site does great things for the brand.  Is it personable?  You bet.  Here's the Kashi Customer Relations staffer's profile:

KashiCommunityManager Anjanette  

If you're wondering what at thoughtful company Kashi is, check out their registration Captcha.  I'm not opposed to ones like ReCaptcha, which I think works rather well, but this was fantastic, and so refreshing:

With the Kashi Captcha, You could request a verification email instead, but why would you want to?

You could request a verification email instead, but why would you want to?

I willingly entered my home address three times on Kashi.com because I realized, if there is one food brand I wouldn't mind hearing from, it might be Kashi. The TV campaign Kashi is running, which offers a free frozen entree, and encouraging visitors to join a well thought-out community site is at least a viable alternative to creating a social media firestorm just so people will talk about Skittles.  Instead, try Kashi.

So who IS getting hired by agencies during the recession?

Will it be "Liberal arts poet types" or quant analysts?  I think over the long term we'll clearly need both, but as someone who fits somewhere in the middle, and more frequently fits the qual jobs than the straight quant jobs, I can see the problem in viewing this as black and white. 

In this mediapost article "Industry Execs Find Opportunities In 'Deep, Dark Period' Tim Hanlon, EVP and Managing Director, Publicis' new media unit VivaKi Ventures suggests that "agencies have to increasingly invest in data-focused engineering-mind talent rather than "liberal arts poet-types." 

Jim Spanfeller, president and CEO of Forbes.com did not agree.  In his view,  "[at] the end of the day, agencies are about big ideas...I worry when it becomes too much about data churning."

The question is, for agencies, how much can you bill for the idea vs. "measurable media."  At the point where digital dollars are cut, some clients will want to cut the pure idea-generation first. The optimization of ad buys and e-commerce sites using customer segmentation, behavioral targeting, multivariate testing and ad networks and exchanges require talent who can crunch the increasingly complex data coming out of digital advertising activities.  I recall seeing a report on viral advertising which took graduate level-statistics and epidemiology to produce; definitely not your typical "narrow tie" ad man's talents.

But the people who have a feel for the brand, who think of new approaches, who develop long-term plans...what of them? Truly empathic work around a brand that connects a company with its customers and inures them to the company for the long term.   I believe that smart managers on the client side know this, but truly smart management, and truly exceptional companies, are rare.  So what is an agency to respond to?  Is it equipped to fight its clients, to fight for long-term value creation and its digital instincts?

See the agency layoffs twitter @adagencylayoffs; there are shops hiring, but a lot of people are being let go.

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Facebook Deal-breaker

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I have now seen this "Get Your Obama Check" ad about 30 times in the last 48 hours.   ObamaCheck

As a resident of planet internet I've gotten used to the morass of spam that hits my email account, with offers from every salacious, medical, impossible, fraudulent, Canadian, or just mis-spelled offer in the land.  I'm fine with my mental state, my body, and my darn watch for now, thank you very much.

I don't really see the value in the display ads on Facebook thses days.  The dating ads were under my skin for a while- they just seemed to have mean ad copy that took advantage of my profile to target me and be mean.

And now, in this climate, the "Get Your Obama Check" is beyond the pale, a scam sending in $2.99 to "get $12,000" is ridiculous. It's the kind of late night drivel we've seen for years.  I implore Facebook to get rid of these ads, and for my fellow citizens to report such ads as tasteless, opportunistic scams. 

Where will Facebook build significant advertising value?  Does such a thing exist when most people I know deploy a combination of resentment and unconscious filtering to ignore the ads we see?  Did you think that I didn't notice your addition of a third ad slot in the right gutter, Facebook? 
Even at 150 million monthly active users, I'm skleptical of the long term advertising value proposition if Facebook is going to let these kinds of ads destroy what little positive perception Facebook ads enjoy.

Perhaps the pro version of Facebook polls and Facebook's Lexicon utility are where the real money is- if that's so, why should Facebook still be taking these scammers' money?

Is Consumer Generated Media the same as "Media"

P&G Ad Man: "I Don't Want To Buy Any More Banners On Facebook." .

There is a good semantic argument that McConnell has, in the sense of  consumer generated media not being the same as media inventory. McConnnell is reacting to monetizing the “real estate”- that is, the ancillary spaces, the page gutters or top borders etc.

 

As much as people are giving up privacy, I agree they are not upset about this fact.  Yet what they are getting really good at is ignoring advertising. 

 

From: Robert Stribley
Sent: Wednesday, November 19, 2008 12:18 AM
To: Andrea Harrison; Branislav Peric; coi.socialmedia.aarf
Subject: RE: The dark side of social media

 

When I read this article, I thought, wonder how much of McConnell’s thoughts come down to something  as simple as a generation gap? Then earlier this evening, I Ws reading Emily Nussbaum’s excellent 2007 article “Say Everything” and it confirmed it for me. Compare McConnell against some relevant excerpts:

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CBS Scores Again with NotaFathersDay.com

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This week's episode of How I met Your Mother mentions another online tie-in related to the show: www.notafathersday.com. Perennial womanizer and keeper of the Bro-Code Barney Stinson proposes a holiday for single men: Not a Father's Day.  

As soon as I saw the episode I went to the web site, and sure enough, you can buy all the outrageous merchandise showcased in the episode from the store on the site.  Made me smile that the show followed up so well on slapcountdown.com and The Robin Sparkles video (this is to say nothing of Barney's Blog on CBS.com which is also fantastic).  These are very smart plays which are written into the universe of the show without being heavy-handed- it doesn't have to be increadibly complex webisodes and adventuires to give fans a little better chance to engage with the  show and its characters.

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CMO strategy in a downturn

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My newest contribution to the Razorfish Headlight blog is now live.   I tried to look at many of the different elements affecting sales and marketing decisions online and in America; I have a very strong perspective that there MUST be a strategic opportunity somewhere for a company seeking to create value.  

These recommendations could translate to other industries, particularly durable goods which are typically financed.  See CMO strategy in a downturn at headlightblog.com.  

Also this month are excellent articles on digital advertising by my colleagues Neal Gorevic, who writes about dealers using video advertising, and Blake Kimball, who writes about new media planning tactics.

Dear Lance Armstrong, here is what I'm tired of

Tired?  Tired?  I'll tell you something, Lance Armstrong.  I'm tired of being tired of your ads.  I almost wish your silhouette were dancing and trying to sell me a mortgage I can't month.  At least those ads had some pizazz.

Dear_lance_these_ads_suck_a_lot

These ads are worse than the "still single" ads I see of Facebook.  Yes, I am, thanks for reminding me about how many weddings I went to this summer.  But at least those have hot chicks.  Sometimes.

I'm a person. YOU ARE STILL A PC.

So, I was about to begin this post with a congratulatory note of sorts, directed at Microsoft's marketing dept.  I was briefly interrupted by a magical TD pass by Jay Cutler, but now I'm back. 

I went looking for the video of the ad I just watched on TV.  I am not going to describe it, but it was a reasonable effort, if a decade late (in internet time).  the first result I found was Microsoft's site for this particular campaign, http://imapc.lifewithoutwalls.com/ The glorious thing about this site, is that the first thing it tells me is I need Silverlight to view the site.  How can I "get into the campaign" if I can't even view the fun parts of the site?

So, I have news for you, Microsoft advertising campaign:  I'm a person. YOU ARE STILL A PC.   I don't see how this does anything except make people who own a PC feel a little better about what they already are, which is a person with a computer.    Windows just can't deliver on the feeling of life/computers just plain working- not even the advertising can do that!!  That's Apple's bag, sorry.   

Also, part of the campign was produced using Macs.  Awesome.  And the Broncos scored again.

Turning Legacy Brands into the Face Of Innovation

How do you position your legacy business as an information source that will evolve with the state of  technology art?  This Yellowbook.com ad seems aimed at that (the tattoo removal search is maybe more common than I would have thought, and reminded me of this SNL commercial for Turlington's Tattoo removal creme...hmmm)

In any case, it makes me wonder about what's possible for brands like this.  Can Yellowbook really transform itself into a cutting-edge information resource, make itself more than just names, addresses, and advertisements?  It makes you wonder. Is the ad representative of a desire, a plan perhaps, to embrace new technologies and find the most innovative solutions to empower the information seeker of the future.  If this company, any company, can do it, they are headed for something great.  Don't just let the future happen to you.

 


Link: YouTube - Yellowbook TV Ad, Say Yellow to the Future, Tattoo.

Marketer Owned Social Networks

Darren is right on target when he says users don't want to join multiple social networks just for a particular element of their personality.  I think I'm pretty much locked in to LinkedIn and Facebook- there's not much else I think I really need- I am not one of those people who thinks twitter is a social network.  The smartest brands are creating content that energizes users within their exisitng communities, and creates a lasting association with the product or brand.

A splinter effect of the niche social net phenomenon is the marketer-owned social network, like Saturn's recently launched social network-called ImSaturn. I don't have high hopes- trying to shift a conversation entirely to your site is going to alarm the most enthusiastic elements of your target audience.  They'll wonder what they won;t be allowed to do there.

A bigger question in my mind is what the company thinks it is getting out of these initiatives.  I still remember when GM killed and recalled is Saturn EV-1, which had about as dedicated a user base as you can imagine- people were evangelists about this revolutionary automobile. GM will never be able to recapture the enthusiasm it had with those users, whose zeal to protect the environment was swept away by a change in corporate strategy. 

Not Scrabulous? You're probably screwed, then!

This just feeds my theory that branded/sponsored ROBUST services will defeat apps which are basically just ads which do something silly.  I don't want to be a ninja or a a vampire bat behind the wheel of a Ford Model T drinking a Mike's Hard Lemonade wondering if my friend "sitting next to me" is more like an obscure TV character or an obscure movie character!  Those apps are attracting $.15 CPMs!!!!! 

Link: Facebook Platform Faces Rough Road Ahead, Despite Successes.

In the long run, more engaging apps such as Scrabulous are set to do better not only because they attract more dedicated users, but because they provide better opportunities for direct monetization, even if their CPMs are also quite low. Ravikant made a point to say that travel, dating, book, and game-related apps have the brightest futures whereas “everyone else is kinda screwed”.

Esther Dyson in WSJ- Google and Microsoft are so 5 years ago

This is a perceptive piece.  I should men tion that I think it partially confirms my assessment of Facebook's Beacon launch strategy, which was to build awareness through fear/backlash and then re-tool to the edge of user tolerance for privacy/utility trade-offs.

The commodification of online advertising services/platforms and its increasing irrelevance to the user present a challenge, and an opportunity. 
Dyson writes:

Each user determines who will get into his own garden, whether friends or vendors. ...Value is being created in users' own walled gardens, which they will cultivate for themselves in real estate owned by the social networks.

I don't think this means that everything becomes a social network, but companies should think hard about how to be friends with their best customers when traditional advertising (even web advertising) is so easily AdBlocked, DVR'd, or simply ignored.

Link: The Coming Ad Revolution - WSJ.com.

Who clicks on ads? And what might this mean?

I was pointed to Who clicks on ads? And what might this mean? by Nate via Jonah Keegan's ad ecologies  post.  My thoughts:

  • Agree that there is a mis-match of perception about value of ad inventory
  • Who clicks on ads is generally a far cry from the audiences that advertisers pay to reach- the impact of brand advertising is probably understated by an alnalysis of who "clicks"
  • What does this mean for site business models based on advertsising to upscale and connected audiences?  Probably advertisers looking for exposure/impressions in their demographic will do ok, but CPC or CPA models will fail very badly.
  • I still predict that within a few years major brand advertsising will be about brand relevant services which create a unique experience and allow users to connect to each other and the brand around an activity

The irony here is that it seems to come full circle to something like Facebook's disastrous Beacon technology, using people's behavior-on site and off- to create the advertising the people in their network see. 

Unfortunately, the involuntary nature of such advertising messages (or the prospect of ruining a surprise Christmas present, which is my favorite anti-Beacon anecdote to date) disturbed the notion that people should choose their causes. 

Causes- and brands and products- will ultimately find stronger support by empowering users consensually rather than sneaking up on them. 

My company is a Neural Net Processor, a Learning computer

From: Advertising Age - Digital

Microsoft has called Avenue A | Razorfish the "learning vessel" in its ecosystem  and rivals are quick to suggest that if you re an agency client you exist to provide insights to Microsoft.

So now that we compete with "tra-digital agencies" (thank you, Grey worldwide, for coining that gem- MediaPost ) we are also a learning "vessel"?

Arnoldschwarzeneggerjudgementdaypho

However, if I were a vessel, I'd be the SeaQuest DSV.


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On Google's Dominance- Is Automated Advertising Missing The Point

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Maurice Saatchi writes in the FT that the ROI optimization inherent in buying targeted and automated advertising on platforms such as Google's AdWords misses the larger point about the human role in audience persuasion.

Admittedly, Saatchi and  Saatchi is part of Publicis’s ( nearly $6bn in annual revenue) empire , and their offline media buying and planning business is probably a decent chunk of that.  But near the end, there is this snippet: 

Human nature is not amenable to prediction based on the trends or tendencies prevailing at the time. It is amenable to startling creativity of the kind practised by great artists, directors, writers, musicians, actors, who know how to touch a chord in humans everywhere. They are the people that are needed to help advertisers navigate the internet because, as Aristotle knew 2,000 years ago: “Fire burns both here and in Persia. But what is thought just changes before our eyes. The decision rests with perception.”

 
I think this is an interesting question. If search advertising promises to present advertising messages only to those who show intent to purchase a product or service, is the search advertiser avoiding the true persuasive challenge of advertising? 


I'm tempted to think that any large advertiser would be foolish to fully ignore mass media campaigns and market research.  Metrics will have a place in advertising campaigns for the foreseeable future, but if Google's advertising platform gave advertisers the feeling that they left money on the table (in unrealized sales from persuasive campaigns), surely advertisers would start buying different ads?