The opening keynote presentation at the ad:tech san francisco Conference this week was delivered by Jeff Hayzlett, Kodak's Chief Marketing Officer. Business updates included the following: The new Kodak business has transformed from print to digital and from B2C to B2B. The Kodak Gallery, where photos are organized, shared, and archived online, has 70 million members worldwide. The challenge is to move it from a site of 70 million users to a community of 70 million users. Blog outreach: Kodak was one of the first companies to hire a female Chief Blogging Officer. The blurring of advertising and content: the Kodak printer was placed in the Celebrity Apprentice show where apprentices competed in creating an ad in the streets of New York. About the Olympic game sponsorship: Beijing 2008 will be the last Kodak-sponsored Olympics. Hayzlett said that sponsoring the game is not a good media play for Kodak. Instead, Kodak will be in PGA. The 26 most difficult holes across 26 tournaments will be Kodak holes. You bet there will be big Kodak moments at these holes!
The title of this post is the same as the title of one of the latest and most popular reports issued by Forrester analysts Ron Rogowski, Harley Manning, and Steven Geller. According to the authors, a strong web contents should be focusing on the two key factors: reinforcing the brand and supporting user goals. A combination of the two doesn’t happen often. The authors suggest two ways of creating strong web contents that create the brand presence: communicate value in emotionally engaging way and deliver value by offering useful contents. The authors give best practice examples selected out of 153 reviewed company sites. For complete report, Stanford users should login into Forrester database with their Forrester accounts.
In 2007, a growing number of local television stations, including WNCN in Raleigh, N.C., and WCMH in Columbus, Ohio, began producing noon programming exclusively for the Web. Among newspapers, The Virginian-Pilot of Norfolk, Va., and The Ventura County Star in California started posting videos at lunchtime that have young journalists as hosts and are meant to appeal to 18- to 34-year-old audiences.
Yahoo’s daily best-of-the-Web segment, called The 9 and sponsored by Pepsi, is produced every morning in time for lunch. “Based on the traffic I’m seeing,” said Miguel Monteverde, executive director of AOL Video, “our nation’s productivity is in question.”
From an advertiser’s perspective, the Web is a more flexible medium than television, because technology makes it easy to monitor people’s behavior and adjust programming accordingly. Better still, marketers have found that consumers are up to 30 percent more likely to make a purchase after viewing an advertisement at lunchtime than at other times of the day.
“Not only is advertising volume and Internet use increasing during the 10 a.m. to 1 p.m. time period, but people are actually buying and purchasing and reacting to advertising,” said Young-Bean Song, vice president for analytics at Atlas Solutions, a unit of Microsoft that helps companies with digital marketing campaigns.
The New York Times
Silverlink Communications® Inc., the leader in healthcare communications, introduced at the Health 2.0 Conference, a fundamentally new capability to healthcare communications – called Adaptive HealthComm Science(TM) – a discipline that combines decision science methodologies and analytics with personalization technology. This proven approach merges world-class communications techniques from consumer industries with the unique characteristics of healthcare, to drive healthcare behaviors in scale. By leveraging Adaptive HealthComm Science, healthcare enterprises can dramatically improve the effectiveness of their communications programs, improving the member experience and driving down healthcare costs.
BusinessWire, March 04, 2008
I have to blog on the Super Bowl today. This year the Super Bowl ads, in my opinion didn't measure up. Perhaps I have ad burnout between all the political ads and weight loss companies trying to get you to sign up because of new year resolutions I have had enough.
Okay my rant is over, back to our scheduled blog. Take a look at the article posted on CNN today to see how much those super bowl commercials costs.
Did you miss the ads? You may catch them at MySpace Superspots.
2008 is the Year of the Rat, or the Year of the Mouse, as Disney prefers to call it and so enters Mickey Mouse to the China market again. The Disney campaign, called "Mickey brings you the magic of family happiness," launched in early January.
Cultural sensitivities runs high in China, however, the zodiac has helped Disney reopen doors. "Disney is about celebration, bringing families together. We did some research and the idea was very well received among Chinese," said Lance Diaresco, Hong Kong-based VP, marketing for China at Disney. To celebrate the Year of the Mouse, CCTV is putting back Mickey Mouse Clubhouse program on air during February and to rerun the show during the summer.
With limited exposure on television, Disney and BBDO Worldwide in Shanghai revamped the Chinese-language Mickey Mouse web site. With Touchmedia, a Shanghai-based media company, a Disney interactive game platform was created in taxis in China's first and second tier cities.
Read more in AdAgeChina, January 30, 2008
The last issue of the year, the Annual, of Advertising Age is all about advertising statistics and ranking. It’s divided into three sections: Marketers, Media, and Agencies. In Marketers section, you’ll find that the most advertising money is spent on cars and in retail sector. Find out how much the top corporations spend on promoting their brands and which media are the most popular, or check out the list of top agencies.
Find out more in print issue in Jackson's Reference Collection (Advertising section). Online access available for Stanford users.
Age and gender demos as a method for targeting advertising no longer matters. Statistics for broadcast media's famous sites showed that your advertising dollar can be half wasted. For example, 26.4% of ESPN.com's unique visitors are female. Less than half of AARP.org's visitors fall into the 55+ category. iVillage.com is just over 56% female ... The author argued that it's more important to focus on your interests, lifestyles and behaviors if I want to get a relevant ad message to you. The big selling point for digital media has been its ability to focus like a laser on the most qualified prospects for a product or service. There is value in audience-based guarantee system for digital media. The guarantees could be based on ratings against behaviorally and contextually defined audiences.
Reported in iMediaConnection
Here's an example of what Proximic wants to do to beat Google's AdSense by serving up context-specific ads to users. Watch video.
Nokia opened its first flagship megastore in Shanghai, its largest retail site worldwide to date. Nokia is the market leader, with nearly 30% share based on sales volume. Motorola and Samsung, meanwhile, have market shares of 18.5% and 10.8%, respectively, according to Analysys International. The new Shanghai outlet, located on Nanjing East Road in a prestigious fashion and business district, is the seventh of 18 planned flagship stores overall and is the second in Asia/Pacific, following Hong Kong.
By the first half of this year, the total number of mobile phones users in China exceeded 600 million. The number of subscribers has been increasing by an average of 6.76 million per month.
In an age of experience-driven consumption, retailers must do more than simple advertising and product placement, said Colin Giles, Nokia's China president in Beijing. Successful retail requires a personalized shopping experience for consumers to interact and become familiar with the products.
"A mobile phone is no longer a traditional communication device, as it has become part of our daily lives and represents a new lifestyle. The mobile device that you use is representative of your lifestyle, taste, and preferences--ultimately, who you are," said Mr. Giles at the opening ceremony last weekend in Shanghai.
Source: AdAgeChina
Olympic sponsors Coca-Cola, McDonald’s and Lenovo celebrated the start of the one-year countdown on Aug. 8 with marketing initiatives. Coca-Cola has 50+ billboard designs featuring Chinese athletes like Yao Ming, the N.B.A. basketball player, with a Coke. McDonald’s introduced the China Mac, which resembles a Big Mac but is adapted to appeal to Chinese tastes. It also sponsors an international competition for children to win trips to the Games. Lenovo partners with Google to use the Internet to find three “new thinkers who symbolize the ideals of the Olympics” to take part in the torch relay. Candidates must submit 50-word essays online to show they are such thinkers. Finalists will create 30-second videos for posting on YouTube.
A report from Group M underlined the importance of the Beijing Games to the global advertising economy. China is set to take over from the United States next year as the biggest source of growth in global ad spending. Although the United States remains a much larger advertising market over all, China will account for 24 percent of new spending worldwide, compared with 20 percent for the United States.
Reported in The New York Times
AdAge reports that people waiting in line to get the iPhone signal a major cultural shift in consumer behavior and consumer empowerment. As customers are buying the portable internet, portable entertainment, news, weather, sports, and shopping, portable branding communication naturally follows.
The author suggested four simple rules to follow in delivering messages to the mobile space:
1. Keep it simple. If you have tried to get your brand promise through in 60 seconds, try 2 seconds on a small mobile screen.
2. Text rules. Word-driven messaging is way cool in mobile media as younger consumers like to text, email, or IM.
3. Interactivity is key. Reinforcing a brand’s personality through interactivity is a big opportunity on third screen. For example, text voting has been a huge factor in the successful branding of "American Idol."
4. It’s personal. Mobile space is personal space, so if you have something to say, make it personally relevant.
According to eMarketer, U.S. mobile advertising is expected to grow from $421 million in 2006 to $4.7 billion by 2011 and globally it will be an $11.3 billion business.
Pepsi is going to the max with a new variant of Diet Pepsi, their first new brand in a decade. According to Advertising Age (June 25), Diet Pepsi Max is a cross between a soft drink and an energy drink, and is geared towards men -- the toughest diet market to crack. Much of their 55 million dollar advertising budget will be spent during National Football League programming, with baseball coming in second. Only time will tell if beer has met its Monday night match. But the real question is -- do we really need more caffeinated, hyper, football fans?
Stores magazine's May 2007 issue turns retailers' gaze toward Second Life in the article 'First Look at Second Life.' Author Susan Reda examines the attention this "virtual world" is generating with firms like Circuit City, Sears, Dell and Adidas, and describes their experiences in Second Life. Second LIfe 'residents' spend more than $1.5 million a day buying clothing, real estate and much besides. "Retailers need to figure out how to deliver an experience that's on brand, sustainable and participatory. Second Life is a world where businesses need to challenge the norm," opines Nita Rollins of Resource Interactive in Columbus, Ohio. Read more in the current issue in Jackson Library.
"And the top ten list for tonight ... " No, it's not David Letterman. Guy Kawasaki is at it again, with another of his own "top ten" lists. This time it's 'Top Ten Reasons Why PR Doesn't Work'. Actually, they're courtesy of Margie Zable Fisher of ThePRsite.com, who supplied them to Mr Kawasaki. Headings include "the client doesn't understand the publicity process", "the client and the PR person / firm are not a good match, and "clients get upset when the media coverage is not 100% accurate or not the kind of coverage that they wanted." If you're having your own PR problems, you might want to read all ten at his blog.
Keynote Presentation: The Digital Decade – What the Past Five Years Can Teach Us About the Next Five, by Brian McAndrews, Pres. & CEO, aQuantive Inc.
• Ultimately all media will become digital.
• In the next 5 yrs, a significant shift to the digital, 2-3 times larger, multichannel, and a key development will the with TV – by 2008, 60% of all households will have video on demand, e.g. TiVo.
• Same-time viewing becoming less and less common.
• Inserting dynamic ads into TV.
• Economic model – view ads in return for free programming.
• More fragmentation, multiple channels always on, video on demand, mobile channels, games, etc.
• Web site is replacing the 30-sec spot as the central expression of a brand as one can engage the customer for 30 secs, 3 mins or 30 mins – this is where marketers are heading today.
• M&As? At aQuantive, we are driven by what the customers want – more platforms, buying media, buying search, scale & scope, and especially geographic coverage.
• Global expansion is both an offensive move and a defensive move.
• Integration? The model of the future is that we have to think about all the channels upfront.
• Mobile? No advertising standard yet, need to sort out what content is suitable for mobile ads.
• Social media? Consumers are defining the marketplace. People will interact, express opinions, and share contents. Viral may become the new broadcast media.
• Marketers need to listen to consumers – go to blogs, the big focus group, to see how people are reacting to your brand messages.
Chris Anderson (The Long Tail) on his blog of the same name comments on Nathaniel Talbott's ruminations on the analogy between the transcontinental railroad and mid-American real estate, and iTunes and the musical marketplace of today. Even as the 1869 railroad enabled folks from the crowded East coast to move to the 'long tail' of the interior, iTunes enables listeners to move away from the 'hits' in music. What would Leland Stanford, head of the Central Pacific RR, say about this?
See these and other interesting observations by Anderson -- such as his review of the analysis of the Long Tail in the media by Lex Miron of CIBC's World Markets' Media and Entertainment practice, or his praise of Rupert Murdoch as an Old School tycoon who may be surprisingly well-poised to flourish in the New School of the media world.
Analysis of U.S. consumer activity at top online properties and categories for February 2007 introduced a new suite of metrics based on site “visits.” The “visits” metric, defined as the number of times a unique person accesses content within a Web entity with breaks between access of at least 30 minutes, is a way of measuring the frequency with which a person views content, thereby illustrating a key component of user engagement. More at: comScore Media Metrix.
The best website metrics is to understand the bottom line, i.e. for example, how much does it cost to get a reader for your website. A reader is a visitor who enters the site and does not bounce off. Cost-per-reader is determined by combining the CPC with the clickthrough rate for the landing pages, thus:
In the above example, a company pays $2.50 per click in advertising, and 35 percent of people who click the ad leave without going beyond the landing page. The net result is that it costs $3.85 to get someone to read the site.
Web analytics at iMedia.
Google has teamed with Echostar to offer a national, auction-based ad-sales system for inventory running on 120-plus cable TV networks. The advertiser will bid for inventory on that particular daypart and channel. All bidding will be based on household cost-per-thousand viewers, or CPMs.
Twenty-four hours after bidding closes, Google will report back on the bids that won, the ads that ran, and the audience for those specific ads. Unlike TV-reporting -- in which a marketer is given the overall rating for the program -- Google will report a rating for that specific ad. If a program generated 1 million viewers, but 50,000 tuned out before the commercial break commenced, Google would only report an audience of 950,000 for the ad. The system will provide the first second-by-second rating for each ad so a marketer can see how well the ad held the audience through its 30 or 60 seconds -- and how many tuned out.
Story at AdAge.com. (Stanford users may obtain access at the Information Desk of Jackson Library)
Are you really in control of your corporate image? Church of the Customer highlights the new book Citizen Marketers, which argues that a solitary citizen today with a broadband connection and inexpensive tools has a better chance than ever of influencing the public's perceptions of huge corporations. "Control is out of control. People are creating content about products and services whether companies like it or not. They are the new cultural influencers." Citizen Marketers examines the work of everyday people who build content on behalf of products, brands, and companies, and provides a framework for working with them.
In addition, on their PR page you will find impressive metrics on the growing power of social media. For example, by last July 50 million blogs had been created -- and their number was doubling each month. And by last year, MySpace had over 100 million registered members. 7,200 new blogs are being created every hour.
It's not your father's Internet any more. Opines the Wall Street Journal: "Drop everything and read this book."
As the blogoshere becomes increasingly crowded, it is difficult to find the best and brightest. Tod Anderlik, marketing and PR consultant (and fellow blogger) has waded into the mire with his Power 150. He has created a list ranking marketing blogs on the World Wide Web. What gives his list significance is that each ranking is arrived at via a proprietary multimetric algorithm of Todd’s own creation, combining Google page rank, the number of Bloglines subscribers, Technorati ranking -- and Todd’s own subjective opinion. The list is interesting, and you will be amazed (or dismayed) to discover how many good sites are out there that you do not know.
For all you marketing aficionados out there, Lane library has an exhibit surrounding the use of doctors espousing the safety of smoking in advertising. The ads cover the period from the 1920’s thru 1950’s and are beautifully displayed. In some cases smoking was even suggested as a cure for a sore throat! Reactions from people vary from astonishment to humor. The exhibit is called Not a cough in a carload: Images from the tobacco industry's campaign to hide the hazards of smoking, and was put together by Robert Jackler, Professor and Chair of Otolaryngology, Head and Neck Surgery, and Professor of Neurosurgery and Surgery, Laurie Jackler, Artist, and Robert Proctor, Professor of History. It’s worth going over to Lane and taking a look.
With the departure of Paul Pressler from Gap retail is in the news this week just as the NRF wraps up their annual convention in New York. The NRF has posted a long list of handouts from presentations given at the convention on its website. Topics cover diverse areas such as:
Multichannel Retailers that Thrive Online
Apparel Innovation
State of Global Retail - Planting Seeds for Sustainable Growth
For a complete list go here.
Hispanic Business December 2006 issue has a special report on the Media and their interaction with the Hispanic market through advertising, marketing and other participation. The section includes a list of the top advertisers / brands in the Hispanic market from July 2005 to June 2006, as well the top 20 independent Hispanic advertising agencies. Other articles target Terera Zubizarreta, founder of Zubi Advertising, soon-to-be owner of Univision, Haim Saban, participant in the Fox News Apprentice Program, Victor Garcia, and award-winning filmmaker / choreographer Kenny Ortega. Also included is a list of Spanish radio's 10 top-billers in 2006. Read the issue and learn more about this growing market, in Jackson Library.
The cover story of December's Wired magazine proclaims "TV advertising is broken, putting $67 billion up for grabs. Which explains why Google spent a billion and change on an online video startup." Author Bob Garfield explains the power of YouTube with some stats: 'Noah takes a photo of himself every day for six years', a time-lapse documentary of Noah Kalina (who?) over 2,356 days -- 3 million viewers in six weeks. Or 'sweet tired cat', 27 seconds of a drowsy kitten dozing off -- nearly 2 million views in two weeks. Or 'evolution of dance' -- 35 million viewers in six months. The staggering ad potential may go a long way to explaining why Google forked out $1.65 billion in stock for YouTube -- the equivalent of what Target paid for 257 Mervyns department stores. Included in the issue are other stories relating to the YouTube phenomenon, such as the hit Lonelygirl15 Web cam. YouTube seems to have struck a nerve. Is YouTube the next boob tube? YouTube co-founder Chad Hurley: "Everyone, in the back of his mind, wants to be a star." The next Uncle Miltie may be out there somewhere .....
Are your customers happy? If not, you might want to read about today's best practices in customer service. FastCompany presents their 2006 Customers First Awards. 'Customer Champions' include Mandarin Oriental, NASCAR, American Girl and others. 'Honorable Mentions' include Title Nine Sports, Best Cellars, and Cold Stone Creamery, to mention a few. And then there are the 'Local Heroes', including Babeland, Elephant Pharmacy, Pinkberry and Flight 001. Learn what the 'Companies That Love Their Customers' are doing right.
"Does it seem as if Christmas creeps up earlier every year? That's because it does," according to an article from Advertising Age.
Last year, Wal-Mart set the stage by moving its holiday ads up three full weeks to Nov. 1. This year, the first to roll out the holiday campaign is Lowe's, on October 23 - a full week before Halloween!
A recent survey shows that "40.4% of consumers started to shop for the holidays this year before Halloween, up from 40.1% in 2005." Many businesses are racing to attract these early shoppers. However, some worry the holiday hype could backfire.
Foodie star Rachael Ray is suddenly everywhere, it seems. Is she a 'Branding Goddess'? That's the title of this interesting blog entry by Grant McCracken, which marvels at her meteoric rise and its marketing implications. Unless you're a premium member of the Ray Fan Club, this catalog of Everything Rachael will probably tell you all want to know, and more.
Whether you are a symphony manager looking to increase attendance or starting up your own theatre company, Arts Reach magazine, founded by GSB alum John Zorn, may be just what you need. Subtitled "The Art and Science of Enhancing Your Mission, Attendance and Fundraising", its articles target the specific fundraising needs of the artistic and performing community.
Recent pieces include 'Top Ten Signs It's Time To Outsource Your In-House Telephone Campaign', 'Creating Anniversary Buzz', 'The Death of Performing Arts Subscriptions - Or Not?', and 'Engaging the Younger Demographic'. Job listings and conference announcements are also included.
Check it out, in Jackson Library. Access to the electronic version is also availble to Stanford users at the Information Desk of the library.
There is a new trend to design storefronts without a front window especially in malls. So as you head out on your Christmas shopping expedition, you won't be able to browse the windows to see a sample of the merchandise inside. Instead you will basically see a wall. Read about it in this New York Times article.
There's an article in the Oct.11th New York Times, about a GSB PhD alumnus, Prof. Brian Wansink and his work at Cornell University. The article, 'Seduced by Snacks? No, Not You' speaks about how eaters are influenced by any number of things to overindulge. His research in part influenced companies to come out with those "100-calorie" snacks packs that you see in the grocery aisles these days.
This is one of the most popular emailed articles at the New York Times site.
Las Vegas-based Redux Beverages launched an energy drink called Cocaine, dubbing it "The Legal Alternative". Sorry to disappoint, but the drink does not actually contain cocaine. Instead, each 8.4 fluid ounce can has 280 milligrams of caffeine - something like three times as much as in a Red Bull energy drink. For more detail, see the ABC news story 'The Ultimate Energy Drink: Cocaine'.
The Marketing News Blog at the American Marketing Association also has a disussion on ethical questions in the branding of Cocaine.
Guy Kawasaki (The Macintosh Way, How to Drive Your Competition Crazy) takes on venture capitalists at his blog Signal Without Noise. He posted this controversial take on VC in January, where he listed his 'Top Ten Lies of Venture Capitalists'.
The cover story of the October 2 BusinessWeek, 'Click Fraud: The Dark Side of Online Advertising', serves as a wake-up call about online scams that are taking a toll on the advertising costs of thousands of companies. BW studies the people and technology behind this phenomenon -- and how it "poses the single biggest threat to the Internet's advertising gold mine". When giants such as Google recycle ads to dubious sites, 'legit' marketers can get billed as those ads are accessed. And those clicks can come from anywhere on earth, authors Brian Grow and Ben Elgin document. Defined as 'clicking on Internet advertising solely to generate illegitimate revenue for the Web site carrying the ad", click fraud is a growing concern in an economy where spending on Internet ads is growing faster than any other sector of the ad industry.
Diego Rodriguez at his metacool blog writes about 'brand fractalness'. He cites a child who recognizes, by visual cues alone, that an Apple outlet near Stanford is thereby an iPod outlet.
Elsewhere citing Yvon Chouinard of Patagonia, Rodriguez observes: 'Patagonia still vibrates in sync with every fiber of Chouinard's body. That's brand fractalness -- I think if you're doing things right, you are your offerings, and your offerings are you and everyone else who produces them and adopts them into their own lives.' He comments: 'Brands are fractal entities, and the meaning of the whole is to found in the execution of even the lowliest detail.'
'How much of your organization's brand is in you?' Rodriguez asks. 'And vice versa?'
From Guy Kawasaki's blog Signum sine tinnitu comes this response to a panel of today's youth he moderated:
"The bottom line message is that before you waste your marketing dollars, you should watch what the panelists had to say ... "
The Churchill Club presentation 'Next Generation Insights' featured young adults aged 15 - 24. Among other things, they send 4000 text messages per month -- vs. watching one or two hours of TV per week. From such insights, Kawasaki calls this blog entry 'Is Advertising Dead?'
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