Posts tagged advertising
Show me the innovation!
Jul 19th
Ever notice how much the term ‘innovative’ is bounced around? Here at UTalkMarketing we see it in almost every press release to come across our desk. But what is ‘innovative’ today?
Innovation is to use or show new methods and ideas of doing something that has essentially been done before.
We throw around the word innovation in marketing as if it were a prefix to the word advertising. Often, innovative is way off the mark.
So what is innovative?
Easy…campaigns that go where no campaign has gone before.
Campaigns are defined in an entirely different way than they were just 10 years ago.
Every element and medium has its own measure of success. The innovation stems from an idea that can be imbedded in multiple channels while presenting it in a different way for each.
Also, what may be innovative one week, isn’t innovative the next when 10 other brands have jumped on to it.
When I think of innovative campaigns I think of Mr ‘Old Spice’, or LG’s ‘Scarlet’ television launch. Or even Sony’s ‘Balls’ and ‘Paint’.
What do you think about when you hear ‘innovation’?
If you too are wondering how you can be more innovative come to our UTalkMarketing Marketing Innovation Expo, click here for more information
The new dawn of advertising is forcing change
Jul 12th
So what has the Allen & Co.’s annual conference for media moguls in the US resulted in? The promise of new advertising formats.
Such touted new formats will outperform current industry staples such as banner ads and search ads, but Google CEO Eric Schmidt isn’t worried, he’s instead championed “interactive video ads”.
There was a time when banners and search ads were the be all and end all of internet advertising. They are, of course, what made advertising all its money online in the first place. But not only is technology moving on, so is the competition and internet giants need to step up their game in order to continue to attract advertisers with their latest gadgetry and graphics.
Schmidt also talked up the idea of ads that act as mini webpages and allowed users to leave their comments as they would on social media.
Another idea touted at the conference was the idea of more localised ads. The idea of localizing ads (or location based advertising) comes on the back of the uptake of such social networking sites as Foursquared – which allow users to see each others exact location. This allows for targeted advertising too and has often been named “the next big thing in advertising”.
Whether that is true is yet to be seen. However, it certainly isn’t looking likely in the European ad market where internet users have constant voiced concerns over privacy. Facebook and Google have also constantly been in trouble with various regulators over privacy concerns in the region over various policies and practices.
The conference also talked about persuading media companies to change how they buy and sell online ads, hoping to expand the market by selling ads across a broader range of websites, or even media.
So things are about to change, that we already knew, but the question is, how much will the market and dampening economy allow the advertising market to change in the short-term?
Today’s Bellwether shows that confidence is down and marketing budgets have yet again been squeezed. So we do we have the capacity for a reinvigorated ad market with fancy new platforms?
With all the changes the media industry is currently undergoing in regards to paywalls, the iPad and various other new delivery platforms, the sector is bound to change sooner or later. One thing is for sure though, it’ll definitely be a long period of trial and error.
Facebook’s new ad format might just work
Jul 9th
Facebook is pitching its latest series of ad formats to big name advertisers such as Ford Motor and PepsiCo, but it needs you and your friends, too.
The latest ad format that the social network has come up with is a platform that tells users which of their Facebook friends have expressed interest in a brand or product featured in an ad.
The social-context ads, which Facebook actually started rolling out over a year ago, are based on data it collects on the likes and friends of its users.
The ads appear on the right side of a user’s homepage, with an image and headline from the advertiser.
Alongside the ads are the names of any of the user’s friends who have clicked on a button indicating they like the brand or ad. The user is also offered a chance to indicate he likes the ad via the ‘Like’ button.
Facebook says it is starting to see results with major marketers, such as a recent deal with Nike to buy ads on users’ homepages across 20 countries. The ads are reportedly selling for around US$100,000.
Sheryl Sandberg, Facebook’s chief operating officer, told the Wall Street Journal that, “Marketers have always known that the best way to sell something is to get your friends to sell it. That is what people do all day on Facebook. We enable effective word-of-mouth advertising at scale for the first time.”
As part of its bid for a bigger slice of the online-advertising pie, Facebook opened four international sales offices last year and another one this year in Hamburg, Germany – doubling its ad-sales staff since 2009. Read the rest of this entry »
Gaming is becoming more real – so are the ads
Jun 16th
In the last couple of weeks, I’ve noticed a lot more ads for the Nintendo DS. At first I thought it was trying to compete with the launch of Apple’s iPad. But no, today all became clear when the gaming company released its first 3D gaming console – and you don’t even have to wear those dumb glasses.
In back-to-back announcements at the E3 Expo in Los Angeles, Nintendo and Sony both laid out their plans to make gaming even more immersive.
Nintendo showed off a 3D version of its DS handheld games console featuring a 3.5″ autostereoscopic 3D screen, which can be viewed without the use of active 3D glasses, and a touchscreen below it.
And advertisers are getting on board already. Earlier in the week, Domino’s Pizza announced its move into in-game advertising for the first time as part of an integrated football campaign.
The Sony PS3 activity, by digital specialists at ArenaMedia, forms a central plank of Domino’s multi-channel push that will also include TV, radio and social media.
Domino’s month-long in-game advertising targets 16 to 34-year old males playing a range of sports and racing titles on PS3 including NBA 2K10, Superstar Racing and Mx vs ATV Reflex. Ads will be shown to PS3 gamers who are connected to the internet.
In game advertising has been around for many years, but has struggled against regulation in the UK. While it is allowed, gaming companies must disclose the ads on the covers of games to warn player.
The concept has been called a bit of a ‘Marmite’ subject in the past. Some believe real world brands and products being forced into their games detracts from the experience, while others believe a well placed and well made ad can actually help ground the game in reality.
And as games become more real, ads are finding their place.
Sony Computer Entertainment president Kazou Hirai said in LA yesterday that making 3D playback available on the 35 million available PlayStation 3 consoles would give the new technology a significant boost and could speed up adoption of 3D TV screens.
“3D is one more leap in the entertainment experience, moving us forward to more realistic gaming.”
Games using the new controls will so far include Tiger Woods’ PGA Tour 2011, Toy Story 3 and SingStar Dance.
One last thing to add fuel to this fire: earlier this month a number of leading game publishers and businesses formed an in-game advertising steering group with the Internet Advertising Bureau.
The collaboration – which includes Sony, Microsoft, IGN, EA, DoubleFusion and IGA Worldwide – will work on developing and promoting in-game advertising in new titles this year.
Could 3D breathe new life into cinema advertising?
May 24th
Last week, digital transmission specialist Broadcast Australia became the first to broadcast 3D TV signals terrestrially over the air, as the rest of the world goes mad for all things 3D.
3D is attributed to making James Cameron’s Avatar the most successful box-office movie of all time.
And you’ll no doubt remember earlier this month when Hugh Hefner made headlines with his special 3D centerfold special June issue of Playboy.
And last week, Olympus launched a new advertising campaign for its new PEN E-PL1 camera that encourages viewers to go to a dedicated microsite (www.getolympus.com/PEN3d) and play around with 3D with a paper cut-out and a webcam.
3D is everywhere, and publishers and advertisers can’t seem to get enough of it despite reports that owning your own 3D set may actually be dangerous for your health.
So why all the fuss?
3D is about the next level, and the experience…as far as I can gather.
I remember going to Movie World on Australia’s Gold Coast when I was very young and saw a Marvin the Martian 3D movie there. It was pretty cool, fun, interactive…but it was also a novelty.
Imagine watching 3D all the time, it won’t always look so good. Perhaps this is a fad.
There’s a new movie out at the moment, Street Dance 3D. A movie about dancing in 3D. I can’t help but feel this is a space that is going to much like social media, a long-term experiment with sometimes, little pay off.
What do you think? Can advertisers benefit from our 3D fascination? It’s certainly going to be hard, and expensive, until the spectrum becomes mainstream. Still, there’s room to make a big impression.
3D advertising is one area expected to grow within in-theater advertising this year. Recently, Samsung ran a 3D ad in theaters prior to airings of the DreamWorks animated movie How to Train Your Dragon, for its new line of 3D TVs.
As more films are released in 3D, more theaters are investing in 3D-capable screens in the hopes of convincing consumers to leave their DVD players and video-on-demand behind and come to the movies.
3D, in fact, could mark the rebirth of cinema advertising. Since the beginning of the financially crisis, cinema advertising has suffered falls and failed to since report any growth since the recovery. 3D could be just what the medium needs to kick start growth again.
New app brings show reels to the masses
Apr 8th
SohoSoHo, the advertising reels directory, has launched an iPhone app that will make it possible for directors, their reps and producers to showcase, download and access their work on the move.
The ChilliBean-managed company offers a direct marketing channel for subscribers to the world’s leading advertising agencies – showcasing their reels, bios and latest news.
The app allows subscribers can share new projects, talent and new signings, while the search function enables agencies and brands to simply and quickly find and view work from a wide range of creative talent.
Part of ChilliBean’s range of services for the creative industries, the app also gives users the opportunity to view and save the latest reels and industry news and also make direct contact with subscribers via their iPhone, iPod Touch or iPad.
Daniel Hearn, Client Services Director of ChilliBean said: “We wanted to provide a service that would give our subscribers the platform to be able to view and access their reels anywhere. This industry is all about getting your work in front of the right people and at the right time – be it on the tube, at a market or major event, and with the SohoSoHo app, when an opportunity arises to show off their work, our users can now just reach into their pockets.”
Goodbye to the Facebook “fan.” Hello to the “like.”
Apr 1st
Facebook is replacing its “fan” buttons with “like” buttons on ads that direct users to big brands’ “fan pages” in a bid to further monetise the social networking site.
That’s according to new internal information acquired by All Things Digital.
Brand ‘fan pages’ are nothing new, of course but the problem for Facebook is they can be set up and operated for free.
All that free exposure to 400 million users via what is in effect a microsite for nada? Naturally Facebook is not happy so is now encouraging brands to buy ads on the site promoting the pages.
The move from ‘Fan’ to ‘Like’ has been prompted by a couple of developments.
First up is the fact that users have demonstrated the success of the ‘like’ button in other contexts – such as status up dates and photos. Facebook claims this is used twice as frequently as the ‘become a fan of’ button.
Secondly, and perhaps more importantly, is the bigger picture. Facebook, according to All Things Digital, will be driving to add the ‘like’ button throughout the Web as a way of funneling more and more interaction onto its platform.
“‘Like’ offers a simple, consistent way for people to connect with the things they are interested in. These lighter-weight actions mean people will make more connections across the site, including with your branded Facebook Pages,” Facebook said a FAQ Sheet, All Things Digital claims to have get its hands on.
“I believe this will result in gaining more connections to pages since our research has shown that some users would be more comfortable with the term “Like”. The goal is to get the most user connections so that you can have ongoing conversations in the news feeds of as many users as possible.”
It adds, “The core functionality of Pages will not change. For instance, your Pages will still have distribution into your fans’ News Feed and you can still call the people who “Like” your Page, “Fans”-your Fans are still your Fans.”
Will users notice the difference in the change of buttons? Possibly. Will they care about the name change? Probably not.
Will the name change increase user engagement with brands? Facebook seems to think so. I’m not so sure.
After all, at the end of the day, it’s about whether you like a brand or not; not really about the difference between ‘like’ or being a ‘fan’.
Taking advantage of digital. Murdoch might be on to something…
Feb 12th
Given the disastrous circulation figures in the magazine industry, it’s no wonder the newspaper industry is looking to protect itself. Pay walls might actually be the way to go – just as long as they can get advertisers on board.
The debate about pay walls rages on in the media industry. Rupert Murdoch sure is determined to protect his vast empire, despite that fact his company, New Corp, continues to do well. But if the magazine ABCs are anything to go by, ‘ol Rupert might actually be on to something.
Yesterday’s ABC figures for consumer magazine sales for July to December show serious decline across the industry.
The PPA sold it like this: “In a world of ever more free content on the TV, radio and the internet, the UK public bought well over 1 billion magazines in 2009 and more than 85 per cent of UK adults continue to buy magazines.”
But figures reveal that the sector is continuing into decline consumer magazines falling by 1.3 per cent in the second half of 2009.
Yes we can attribute that to tough trading conditions, but it’s not like the economy is showing any signs of a full recovery anytime soon.
In the past couple of years, as advertisers have fallen away from magazines and favored other avenues such as sponsorship, magazine titles have looked to ramp up their digital activities.
However, magazine websites often only provide the reader with bitesize information and teasers, requiring the reader to then go buy the magazine that has ‘just hit newsstands’.
With the take-up of Kindle’s and the iPhone, consumers no longer need the physical magazine in their hands and are lacking in the time to actually sit and read them cover to cover.
But people do still read online. That we know. So perhaps if magazines offered online subscriptions they would increase their lunch-time reading audiences and advertisers would likely follow.
The advantage of the pay wall, as Murdoch sees it, is that readers can read both the online and printed version for one price. So if you have a subscription to, say the New York Times, and never read it in the printed version, the revenues from the pay model online will still trickle down keeping both versions alive.
It’s the best of both worlds. Or is it? What do you think?
The magazine industry has to do something now if it wants to protect its future. But first and foremost, it has to reassure its advertisers that it at least has a plan.
Marketers still searching Facebook for that “Holy Grail”
Feb 1st
Facebook was offering up the “Holy Grail” of advertising in 2007. Two years on, what’s changed, better still, what has improved?
It’s no secret that Facebook has never been the “Holy grail” of advertising that is so promised in November 2007. Yes the site had to undergo some radical changes after the failure of Beacon, but the site still offers up some 350 million consumers. Surely advertisers can take advantage of this, but how?
I was there at the IAB Engage conference in 2007 listening to Facebook executives explain how they were launching something revolutionary in the digital marketing landscape. But despite all the fact and figures that pronounce the majority of ad budgets are going to social networking sites, why have the ads not got any better?
Alterian’s “Annual Survey 2009″ — which included 1,068 marketers, 62% North American, 36% European and 2% from the Asia-Pacific region — found that 40% of respondents were shifting more than one-fifth of their traditional direct marketing budgets toward digital and social media channels.
Overall, 66% of marketers plan to invest in social media, while 67% increasingly important or critical to success.
So where are all these ad dollars going then?
Just today, UTalkMarketing reports that Facebook is increasingly falling victim to hackers which could lead to users distrusting advertisements they see on the site. What’s a way around this for advertisers and marketers then?
The key is engagement. And to be honest, it’s probably a drum you’ve heard us bang before.
But with more and more users less likely to leave Facebook and as the number of users goes over and above 350 million worldwide, marketer would be silly to ignore the medium.
However, the key for advertisers now is to find the right way to advertise on the site.
Fifty-seven per cent of marketers plan to use their budgets to improve their websites so that they can open dialogues and increase engagement with consumers.
But how do marketers do this?
Here are some simple steps to get you started:
Step 1
Go the advertising page on the Facebook website. Click on the “Advertising” link at the bottom of the page. Click on the “Create Social Ad” button to get started.
Step 2
Insert your website. This is where users who click on your ad will be directed.
Step 3
Target your ads. On the next page you’ll have the opportunity to choose the demographics you want your ad displayed to. Choose a gender, age group, educational status, relationship status or political views or leave the options blank to create a more inclusive group. In the keywords section, put in keywords relating to the interests you would like your targeted group to have.
Step 4
Create your ad. Move to the next page to input your Facebook ad. Create a short, catchy title and a few sentences of copy to explain your website or product. To insert a photo, click “Upload Photo” from the drop down menu below.
Step 5
Choose whether you want to pay per click or per view. When you pay per click, you’ll only pay Facebook when someone clicks on your ad. When you select pay per view, you’ll pay every time your ad is displayed to a user. Then, click on the appropriate tab.
Step 6
Set a budget. Put in the amount of money you’re willing to pay every day. You may pay less than this, but this is most money you’ll pay for one day of Facebook ads.
Step 7
Bid for ad space. Facebook determines which ads to display by how much you’re willing to pay per click or per 1000 impressions. Choose the maximum amount you want to pay. The amount you actually pay depends on how much other advertisers have bid, so enter the maximum amount you’re willing to pay.
We’re still waiting for the “year of social media” and 2010 could be it. There certainly are a number of tools now available for marketers to track ROI on Facebook, but I’ll save that for another post.
How to create and tailor your next ad simply by listening in…
Nov 23rd
A number of big brand advertisers and marketers and experiment with developing ad campaigns based on what consumers are talking about on the web.
Monitoring what internet users say in their instant messages, social networks and blogs isn’t anything new, of course. There has been many a study telling us what the most popular brands discussed on the internet is (Apple’s iPhone, Vegemite, Starbucks and Microsoft just to name a few).
But now, marketers are using new technologies to scan the web for key words to find out what consumers are—and aren’t—saying about their brands, according to the Wall Street Journal.
Marketers can then incorporate those findings into their more-conventional research to create specific text and photos for their ads given what consumers seem to want – or, what they say they want, at least.
Furthermore, once the campaigns are up and running, advertisers are using the same web-scanning technologies to gauge consumer reaction to their messages, and to fine-tune them.
Marketers have long drawn on information from the web to help them design their web sites and online marketing campaigns.
Now, more of them have begun to use it to guide their marketing across a range of media, including print and TV, and in choosing the overall strategy for those campaigns.
Digital marketing and advances in the technologies available to marketers and advertisers don’t just mean more channels to advertise – they mean more channel to listen, too.
Jason Falls, a social media consultant and blogger on socialmediaexplorer.com, said that it is “imperative” that companies and brands can gauge public opinion about them by listening in to online conversations.
He added that companies could also then interject in these discussions and that while marketers may not have control over the conversations, they should at least have a participatory role in them.
Services such as Google Alerts and searches on Twitter, Google Blogs and Bing can allow companies to keep track of conversations about their company.
According to recent research from Harris Interactive and Tealeaf, more adults are turning to social media to talk about problems they have had with brands and companies.
Here are some sites to help you:
and the old favourite, Google Alerts
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