SAN FRANCISCO (AdAge.com) -- Want to know how long the line is outside your favorite club on a busy Saturday night? Or the guy-to-girl ratio at a bar before you pay the cover?
That's the promise of BuzzD, a new local-search/networking service from mobile pioneer Nihal Mehta. "It's the next generation of the mobile internet," said Mr. Mehta, who founded text-messaging company Ipsh and sold it in 2005 to Omnicom Group in one of the first holding-company mobile acquisitions.
The service is initiated through text messaging and gives users the lowdown on social venues in real time from their peers. Sending a message brings the user to a mobile website with friends' critiques, ratings of drinks and other information on social venues.
Partnerships
BuzzD launches this week in partnership with Flavorpill, a website that lists cultural events in major cities. Flavorpill Mobile initially will be available in six cities: New York, Los Angeles, San Francisco, Chicago, Miami and London. BuzzD also has partnered with another guide publisher, Time Out.
Helio is expected to be the first carrier to offer BuzzD, but Mr. Mehta said he plans to make it available on all the nation's major carriers.
Nokia's Nseries is sponsoring the launch. "Nokia looks at the mobile device as more than a device to make phone calls," said Camilla Pagliarolia, communications manager, Nokia U.S. The Flavorpill and BuzzD combination "uses the phone as a creative platform. It's a good fit for us," she said.
Generating revenue
BuzzD works without information about a user's location but eventually will add a GPS, Mr. Mehta said. While there is evidence that popular location-based services, such as mapping applications, are generating good revenue for carriers, it's still unclear whether location-based mobile social networks will do the same.
The Walt Disney Co. shut down its branded phone that allowed parents to locate their children. Boost Mobile said 171,402 subscribers use its Loopt service, which allows young adults to locate friends. Sprint, provider of the network for the Disney and Boost Mobile phones, has a similar location service, but a spokesman said Sprint does not share information about the number of subscribers using that service.
Roger Entner, senior VP-communications sector, IAG Research, said he's not sure the idea will work. "If I'm having a bad time, I might take the time [to write a review or critique the scene], but if I'm having a good time, probably not. That sounds like serious work at a time when I'm having fun."
Mr. Mehta said the concept has proven itself with Dodgeball, another mobile social network. "If you're having a good time, you want to connect with your friends," he said.
Wednesday, December 19, 2007
Digital M&A Trends for 2008
Published: December 17, 2007 - By Abbey Klaassen - AdAge
| SIZE MATTERS Especially as more marketers are looking for agencies that can handle their global marketing duties. Need proof? Look at the 1,000-person shop WPP is setting up for Dell. (And it's perhaps no coincidence WPP made several major purchases in 2007, including Schematic, Blast Radius and 24/7 Real Media.) Look for agencies and holding companies to continue to grow in 2008. |
| INTERNATIONAL INTEREST Thanks to the weak-dollar effect, several industry prognosticators suggest we'll see more international firms looking to snap up American companies. "On a per-employee basis, the U.S. is still a cheap market, as hot as it is," said Michael Seidler, CEO of Madison Alley Ventures. |
| NEXT-GENERATION AGENCIES Whether you want to call it an aQuantification of the business or an inevitable trend as more money moves to digital, a new crop of agencies rooted in search or digital creative are trying to expand into other areas and create a new breed of agency. AKQA, with private-equity investment, has been aggressive in this space. Also watch for the formerly search-centric iCrossing and 360i. |
| ANALYTICS WILL BE HOT -- AND EXPENSIVE As more marketers laser in on return on investment, expect the value of firms such as Web Trends, CoreMetrics and Omniture, which has been steadily gaining since its mid-2006 IPO, to rise. "It's driven by supply and demand and right now there's not enough really good companies across the sector," said Linda Gridley, president and CEO of Gridley & Co. |
| MIXED IPO PERFORMANCES Ms. Gridley's firm has tracked new IPOs for several years. She said there were five in the internet business in 2005 and four in 2006, and the share values of all but one have risen. In 2007, performance was mixed -- a trend she expects to continue. "You can get higher returns, but the risk is greater," she said. |
| THERE'S ALWAYS A BIGGER FISH If it seemed like all the big acquisitions already happened (Google-DoubleClick, Microsoft-aQuantive), think again. Likeliest candidates for giant acquisitions? Those with more than one technology or silo, said John Hawkins, partner at Generation, a coastal venture-capital firm. He said AOL is a great example of this philosophy -- even with all its 2007 acquisitions, people are already wondering where it will be when 2008 ends. |
| COMMERCE IS BIG If investments in commerce and transactional companies seem unfashionable, think again, advises Ms. Gridley. "They are at the heart of data centric and consumer-behavior-driven marketing." |
| STRANGE BEDFELLOWS At the onset of 2007, would you ever have guessed Microsoft would own an ad agency? "Ten years ago you had offline agencies buying online agencies," said Mr. Hawkins. "Now you have tech companies coming into the space. ... Tech companies, ad agencies and ad networks -- they're all coming together." |
| VERTICAL AD NETWORKS Expect media companies to continue to invest in this space, either acquiring or building out their own vertical ad networks. The idea behind the trend: While a magazine or TV net might have great reach in their specialized offline space, it's difficult to garner that scale online -- so they seek to aggregate and sell related sites. |
AD-NETWORK CONSOLIDATION
Then again, there are too many ad networks, said Mr. Seidler. This sector has seen astronomical premiums but having too many players negates the advantage of networks: scale. He suggests high-margin rich media networks and those with deep analytic backbones will grow more expensive while the price of commodity networks with lower margins will fall.
Monday, December 3, 2007
Retirees Surf and Respond
According to the Vertis Communications 2007 Customer Focus Tech Savvy study, twenty-one percent of total adults in 2007 have responded to direct mail advertising in the past month by visiting a sender's Web site. Findings also revealed that older men's responsiveness to direct mail advertising through the Internet has grown the most, with 28 percent of men ages 55-64 indicating this behavior and 15 percent of men 65 and older exhibiting the same pattern.
Jim Litwin, vice president of market insights for Vertis Communications, noted that "...targeting the older population may greatly increase the overall effectiveness of marketers' spending, particularly as men reach retirement and find more time to surf the Web."
The study further shows that women ages 35-44 have been the most likely to change their cell phone providers throughout the years, with 22 percent planning to switch providers in the next year, compared to 13 percent in 2005. And, women who earn more than $30,000 per year switch mobile phone providers more often, with 16 percent planning to change in 2007, compared to 6 percent in 2005. Older men ages 55-64 have remained the most satisfied with their cell phone companies over time, as only 13 percent of respondents indicated plans to switch service in the next year, no change from 2005.
The study, which surveyed 2,000 consumers via telephone, provided additional details:
When expressing interest in a product or company, 55 percent of total adults prefer some form of interactive follow-up communication from the company, which include e-mails personalized to their needs, generic e-mails or text messaging
Key observations, according to the Executive Summary:
Jim Litwin, vice president of market insights for Vertis Communications, noted that "...targeting the older population may greatly increase the overall effectiveness of marketers' spending, particularly as men reach retirement and find more time to surf the Web."
The study further shows that women ages 35-44 have been the most likely to change their cell phone providers throughout the years, with 22 percent planning to switch providers in the next year, compared to 13 percent in 2005. And, women who earn more than $30,000 per year switch mobile phone providers more often, with 16 percent planning to change in 2007, compared to 6 percent in 2005. Older men ages 55-64 have remained the most satisfied with their cell phone companies over time, as only 13 percent of respondents indicated plans to switch service in the next year, no change from 2005.
The study, which surveyed 2,000 consumers via telephone, provided additional details:
When expressing interest in a product or company, 55 percent of total adults prefer some form of interactive follow-up communication from the company, which include e-mails personalized to their needs, generic e-mails or text messaging
Key observations, according to the Executive Summary:
- Twenty-three percent of young men ages 18-24 are the most open to follow-up communication via text messaging,versus 5 percent of women their same age and 6 percent of total adults
- Women 65 and older are the least interested in personalized or generic follow-up e-mails.
- Forty percent of men 65 and older prefer an interactive e-mail from a company they have expressed interest in, compared to 23 percent of their female counterparts
- While 91 percent of men ages 25-34 have access to the Internet according to Vertis' study, 56 percent of these men do not read e-mail advertising
- For women earning more than $75,000 a year, overall e-mail readership has increased during the past two years to 50 percent in 2007
- While only 1 percent of total adults read all e-mail advertising available to them, 20 percent occasionally read e-mails personalized to them
- Twenty-eight percent of young men ages 18-24 would consider receiving investment advice through the Internet, compared to 13 percent of women their same age
- Twenty percent of men earning $75,000 or more each year would consider using financial products, services or receiving investment advice online, compared to 13 percent of total adults
- Women earning between $30,000 and $50,000 per year are least likely to consider receiving financial or investment advice online, at 8 percent, down from 11 percent in 2003
Store adds new dimension to online shopping
Consumers looking to avoid crowded malls and the tedium of online shopping can now shop in a virtual three-dimensional store.
Specialty retailer Brookstone opened the virtual doors to its 3D store, (http://kinset.com/brookstone.php) which combines a Second Life-like visual experience with real merchandise customers can buy.
The virtual store replicates the look and layout of a real store. Customers can move through the aisles and browse and zoom on products using a mouse and keyboard. Detailed information is available by stopping in front of an item.
"We think it really appeals to a younger audience for us, a demographic probably 25 to 40...because of the almost gaming nature of it," said Sweeney.
Certainly those adept at navigating through a virtual world will find the environment familiar. For new users, it will take some getting used to, Sweeney added.
Brookstone.com will still offer its wares in the conventional way, but offers the 3D store as an alternative.
"It really helps the evolution of the Internet shopping experience," Sweeney said.
By Reuters
Published: November 27, 2007, 12:16 PM PST
Friday, November 30, 2007
Future Techniques in Online Marketing
Senior Editor in Charge of Adotas, Sarah Novotny summarizes key future trends in Online advertising as predicted by Dilip DaSilva, Exponential's founder and CEO. Excerpting from the summary, Novotny says there are six key trends identified in this release.
1. In a world where nearly everything can be anonymously known about a registered user on a large site, marketers are making full use of the data to deliver on the promise of 1-1 marketing. Online advertisers wil create highly customized and immersive marketing experiences, fully leveraging the most up-to-date data from their databases.
2. While user generated content (UGC) is inappropriate for most major brands, we'll see more professionally-produced viral campaigns that capitalize on this genre, says DaSilva. With no standards, and lots of different players and technology, video buys are still incredibly labor intensive, and often require site-by-site exercise he says. Brand advertisers are clamoring for an affordable, brand-safe environment with the ability to target audiences with video.
Premium content is very expensive, and serious questions are emerging about the level of intrusiveness of running pre-roll. Professionally produced content affords a better value but is more difficult to find at scale. Overlay advertising will likely become the preferred solution, DaSilva anticipates, when it comes to monetizing the large volume of user generated video content, whereas pre-roll will continue to be tolerated in front of high-quality content.
3. 2008 is the year when we finally see a viable, truly local solution for local advertisers. The breakout leader in the online local space will be the company that provides the best user experience and repeat users, "without consumers being bombarded with national ads when they are looking for a local sushi restaurant." says the release.
We believe, reports DaSilva, that "vertical local" will play a vital role, becoming even more granular, or "hyper local," with legal, travel, and home services playing an important role as well. The release notes that Yellowpages.com and Superpages tend to attract the users who are searching for more services.
"Local CPC (cost-per-click) display" will evolve to be a major factor in 2008. This means local users on a national site will be shown display ads of local businesses in their area that are relevant to their interests, using data from the display network. These ads create a greater CTR and also the opportunity for local businesses to advertise on sites that they could not have accessed in the past.
4. As more advertisers launch online branding campaigns they increasingly want more metric feedback on the effectiveness of their online marketing efforts, beyond clicks, both to justify spending on the web and to help guide their future media allocations.
With the shift of TV to online, the industry has no choice but to embrace the emotional selling proposition where the emotional values becomes critically important in the buying process. This change will enable online buying to shift from a transactional strategy to an ongoing source for influencing the customer in different stages of the purchase funnel.
5. While the technology of computers acting as intelligent agents has largely lived in the research arena, it is now making its way into mainstream applications. (Some Online marketers) are now deploying applications that "learn," enabling users to structure and share the richness of their online experiences.
6. 2008 will see the increased popularity of Virtual Worlds. Users will increasingly shift towards specialty worlds more closely associated with their lifestyles or interests. This will be an opportunity for marketers to create whole worlds around products, or to customize environments inside specialty virtual environments.
Advertisers can create branded environments and even brand accessories. For example, Coke Studios is an online community with millions of users creating customized music mixes that can be shared and rated by others.
DaSilva concludes that "These are a few of the key topics we think will be consistently discussed during the conferences and industry events in 2008..."
For the complete prediction summary, please visit Adotas here.
1. In a world where nearly everything can be anonymously known about a registered user on a large site, marketers are making full use of the data to deliver on the promise of 1-1 marketing. Online advertisers wil create highly customized and immersive marketing experiences, fully leveraging the most up-to-date data from their databases.
2. While user generated content (UGC) is inappropriate for most major brands, we'll see more professionally-produced viral campaigns that capitalize on this genre, says DaSilva. With no standards, and lots of different players and technology, video buys are still incredibly labor intensive, and often require site-by-site exercise he says. Brand advertisers are clamoring for an affordable, brand-safe environment with the ability to target audiences with video.
Premium content is very expensive, and serious questions are emerging about the level of intrusiveness of running pre-roll. Professionally produced content affords a better value but is more difficult to find at scale. Overlay advertising will likely become the preferred solution, DaSilva anticipates, when it comes to monetizing the large volume of user generated video content, whereas pre-roll will continue to be tolerated in front of high-quality content.
3. 2008 is the year when we finally see a viable, truly local solution for local advertisers. The breakout leader in the online local space will be the company that provides the best user experience and repeat users, "without consumers being bombarded with national ads when they are looking for a local sushi restaurant." says the release.
We believe, reports DaSilva, that "vertical local" will play a vital role, becoming even more granular, or "hyper local," with legal, travel, and home services playing an important role as well. The release notes that Yellowpages.com and Superpages tend to attract the users who are searching for more services.
"Local CPC (cost-per-click) display" will evolve to be a major factor in 2008. This means local users on a national site will be shown display ads of local businesses in their area that are relevant to their interests, using data from the display network. These ads create a greater CTR and also the opportunity for local businesses to advertise on sites that they could not have accessed in the past.
4. As more advertisers launch online branding campaigns they increasingly want more metric feedback on the effectiveness of their online marketing efforts, beyond clicks, both to justify spending on the web and to help guide their future media allocations.
With the shift of TV to online, the industry has no choice but to embrace the emotional selling proposition where the emotional values becomes critically important in the buying process. This change will enable online buying to shift from a transactional strategy to an ongoing source for influencing the customer in different stages of the purchase funnel.
5. While the technology of computers acting as intelligent agents has largely lived in the research arena, it is now making its way into mainstream applications. (Some Online marketers) are now deploying applications that "learn," enabling users to structure and share the richness of their online experiences.
6. 2008 will see the increased popularity of Virtual Worlds. Users will increasingly shift towards specialty worlds more closely associated with their lifestyles or interests. This will be an opportunity for marketers to create whole worlds around products, or to customize environments inside specialty virtual environments.
Advertisers can create branded environments and even brand accessories. For example, Coke Studios is an online community with millions of users creating customized music mixes that can be shared and rated by others.
DaSilva concludes that "These are a few of the key topics we think will be consistently discussed during the conferences and industry events in 2008..."
For the complete prediction summary, please visit Adotas here.
Thursday, November 29, 2007
eToro Makes Forex Trade Child’s Play
Posted: 27 Nov 2007 02:56 PM CS - Techcrunch
Israeli eToro is taking a novel approach in simplifying Foreign Exchange (Forex) trading by packaging the complicated concepts involved in trading one currency against another, in fun non-threatening wrappers.
Just how big is Forex trading? Try an estimated $3.2 trillion in daily turnover—that’s ~35 times the average turnover of the NYSE. However, unlike stock trading which has been generally adopted by the mainstream, Forex trading to date has been mostly marginalized to professional traders. eToro wants to change all that.
I spoke to eToro’s CEO, Johnathan Assia, who explained that the real challenge for eToro is finding ways to present Forex data in a simplified and user-friendly manner that makes it accessible to ordinary users. To appreciate the challenge, take a look at the screenshot on the right depicting a typical Forex trading app interface. Now take a look at the screenshots below of eToro’s offering. Talk about a picture being worth a 1000 US Dollars Vs. the Japanese Yen…
Requiring a client download, eToro lets users practice play, or deposit funds for real money trading. The currencies available to trade are the US Dollar, British Pound, Australian Dollar, the Euro and the Japanese Yen. This is where it gets fun… There are four games to choose from:
Forex Marathon – You pick the currency you think will go up and have it compete in a foot race against the currencies you think will go down
Dollar Trend – Race the US Dollar against other currencies, choosing whether it will rise or fall.
Globe Trader – Manage your Forex trading portfolio by forging relations with other currencies on the map of the world.
Forex Match – Choose the currency you think will go up and
have it go one-on-one in a tug of rope against a currency you think will go down.
I was supplied with a real money account by eToro and managed to lose $17 in an hour’s-worth of play =(
When a user registers for a real money account, that account is actually opened at one of two foreign exchange trading brokers, RetailFX or IFX Markets. eToro decides which broker based on where it expects to make the most commissions on trades the user makes.
The one thing I found odd about eToro is its rigid insistence on the lack of parallels when comparing it to online gaming operators. This is a rather naïve point-of-view for several reasons: First, one of the company’s co-founders and its CTO is David Ring who was a key R&D leader at Israeli-based 888.com (a major online casino and poker room operator). Second, eToro’s client application is strikingly similar to gambling apps, and this cannot be a pure coincidence. Third, eToro is a BVI company, (a.k.a., a British Virgin Islands company)—classic tax strategy by gambling operators. Fourth, the company’s affiliate marketing offering is extremely reminiscent of gaming operators, “Receive 25% of eToro’s Revenues or Get $2 per every free registered user.”
It’s important to note that will all the similarities, eToro is in fact not a gaming operator. Forex trading is not considered gambling and therefore does not fall under the scope of H.R. 4777, the Internet Gambling Prohibition Act.
In January 2007 eToro raised a first round of financing to the tune of $1.7M from by private investors. In an interesting side note, one of these investors is Chemi Peres, who heads Pitango Venture Capital and also happens to be the son of statesman and current president of Israel, Shimon Peres
Israeli eToro is taking a novel approach in simplifying Foreign Exchange (Forex) trading by packaging the complicated concepts involved in trading one currency against another, in fun non-threatening wrappers.
Just how big is Forex trading? Try an estimated $3.2 trillion in daily turnover—that’s ~35 times the average turnover of the NYSE. However, unlike stock trading which has been generally adopted by the mainstream, Forex trading to date has been mostly marginalized to professional traders. eToro wants to change all that.
I spoke to eToro’s CEO, Johnathan Assia, who explained that the real challenge for eToro is finding ways to present Forex data in a simplified and user-friendly manner that makes it accessible to ordinary users. To appreciate the challenge, take a look at the screenshot on the right depicting a typical Forex trading app interface. Now take a look at the screenshots below of eToro’s offering. Talk about a picture being worth a 1000 US Dollars Vs. the Japanese Yen…
Requiring a client download, eToro lets users practice play, or deposit funds for real money trading. The currencies available to trade are the US Dollar, British Pound, Australian Dollar, the Euro and the Japanese Yen. This is where it gets fun… There are four games to choose from:
Forex Marathon – You pick the currency you think will go up and have it compete in a foot race against the currencies you think will go down
Dollar Trend – Race the US Dollar against other currencies, choosing whether it will rise or fall.
Globe Trader – Manage your Forex trading portfolio by forging relations with other currencies on the map of the world.
Forex Match – Choose the currency you think will go up and
have it go one-on-one in a tug of rope against a currency you think will go down.
I was supplied with a real money account by eToro and managed to lose $17 in an hour’s-worth of play =(
When a user registers for a real money account, that account is actually opened at one of two foreign exchange trading brokers, RetailFX or IFX Markets. eToro decides which broker based on where it expects to make the most commissions on trades the user makes.
The one thing I found odd about eToro is its rigid insistence on the lack of parallels when comparing it to online gaming operators. This is a rather naïve point-of-view for several reasons: First, one of the company’s co-founders and its CTO is David Ring who was a key R&D leader at Israeli-based 888.com (a major online casino and poker room operator). Second, eToro’s client application is strikingly similar to gambling apps, and this cannot be a pure coincidence. Third, eToro is a BVI company, (a.k.a., a British Virgin Islands company)—classic tax strategy by gambling operators. Fourth, the company’s affiliate marketing offering is extremely reminiscent of gaming operators, “Receive 25% of eToro’s Revenues or Get $2 per every free registered user.”
It’s important to note that will all the similarities, eToro is in fact not a gaming operator. Forex trading is not considered gambling and therefore does not fall under the scope of H.R. 4777, the Internet Gambling Prohibition Act.
In January 2007 eToro raised a first round of financing to the tune of $1.7M from by private investors. In an interesting side note, one of these investors is Chemi Peres, who heads Pitango Venture Capital and also happens to be the son of statesman and current president of Israel, Shimon Peres
Tuesday, November 27, 2007
How to do VIRAL
This guest post was written by Dan Ackerman Greenberg
, co-founder of viral video marketing company The Comotion Group and lead TA for the Stanford Facebook Class. Dan will graduate from the Stanford Management Science & Engineering Masters program in June.
Have you ever watched a video with 100,000 views on YouTube and thought to yourself: “How the hell did that video get so many views?” Chances are pretty good that this didn’t happen naturally, but rather that some company worked hard to make it happen – some company like mine.
When most people talk about “viral videos,” they’re usually referring to videos like Miss Teen South Carolina, Smirnoff’s Tea Partay music video, the Sony Bravia ads, Soulja Boy - videos that have traveled all around the internet and been posted on YouTube, MySpace, Google Video, Facebook, Digg, blogs, etc. - videos with millions and millions of views.
Over the past year, I have run clandestine marketing campaigns meant to ensure that promotional videos become truly viral, as these examples have become in the extreme. In this post, I will share some of the techniques I use to do my job: to get at least 100,000 people to watch my clients’ “viral” videos.
Secret #1: Not all viral videos are what they seem
There are tens of thousands of videos uploaded to YouTube each day (I’ve heard estimates between 10-65,000 videos per day). I don’t care how “viral” you think your video is; no one is going to find it and no one is going to watch it.
The members of my startup are hired guns – our clients give us videos and we make them go viral. Our rule of thumb is that if we don’t get a video 100,000 views, we don’t charge.
So far, we’ve worked on 80-90 videos and we’ve seen overwhelming success. In the past 3 months, we’ve achieved over 20 million views for our clients, with videos ranging from 100,000 views to upwards of 1.5 million views each. In other words, not all videos go viral organically – there is a method to the madness.
I can’t reveal our clients’ names and I can’t link to the videos we’ve worked on, because YouTube surely doesn’t like what we’re doing and our clients hate to admit that they need professional help with their “viral” videos. But I can give you a general idea of who we’ve worked with: two top Hollywood movie studios, a major record label, a variety of very well known consumer brands, and a number of different startups, both domestic and international.
This summer, we were approached by a Hollywood movie studio and asked to help market a series of viral clips they had created in advance of a blockbuster. The videos were 10-20 seconds each, were shot from what appeared to be a camera phone, and captured a series of unexpected and shocking events that required professional post-production and CGI. Needless to say, the studio had invested a significant amount of money in creating the videos but every time they put them online, they couldn’t get more than a few thousand views.
We took six videos and achieved:
- 6 million views on YouTube
- ~30,000 ratings
- ~10,000 favorites
- ~10,000 comments
- 200+ blog posts linking back to the videos
- All six videos made it into the top 5 Most Viewed of the Day, and the two that went truly viral (1.5 million views each) were #1 and #2 Most Viewed of the Week.
The following principles were the secrets to our success.
2. Content is NOT King
If you want a truly viral video that will get millions of people to watch and share it, then yes, content is key. But good content is not necessary to get 100,000 views if you follow these strategies.
Don’t get me wrong: the content is what will drive visitors back to a site. So a video must have a decent concept, but one shouldn’t agonize over determining the best “viral” video possible. Generally, a concept should not be forced because it fits a brand. Rather, a brand should be fit into a great concept. Here are some guidelines we follow:
- Make it short: 15-30 seconds is ideal; break down long stories into bite-sized clips
- Design for remixing: create a video that is simple enough to be remixed over and over again by others. Ex: “Dramatic Hamster”
- Don’t make an outright ad: if a video feels like an ad, viewers won’t share it unless it’s really amazing. Ex: Sony Bravia
- Make it shocking: give a viewer no choice but to investigate further. Ex: “UFO Haiti”
- Use fake headlines: make the viewer say, “Holy shit, did that actually happen?!” Ex: “Stolen Nascar”
- Appeal to sex: if all else fails, hire the most attractive women available to be in the video. Ex: “Yoga 4 Dudes”
These recent videos would have been perfect had they been viral “ads” pointing people back to websites:
- Model Falls in Hole on Runway
- Cheerleader Gets Run Over By Football Team
- PacMan: The Chase
- Dude
- Dog Drives Car
- Snowball – Dancing Cockatoo
3. Core Strategy: Getting onto the “Most Viewed” page
Now that a video is ready to go, how the hell is it going to attract 100,000 viewers?
The core concept of video marketing on YouTube is to harness the power of the site’s traffic. Here’s the idea: something like 80 million videos are watched each day on YouTube, and a significant number of those views come from people clicking the “Videos” tab at the top. The goal is to get a video on that Videos page, which lists the Daily Most Viewed videos.
If we succeed, the video will no longer be a single needle in the haystack of 10,000 new videos per day. It will be one of the twenty videos on the Most Viewed page, which means that we can grab 1/20th of the clicks on that page! And the higher up on the page our video is, the more views we are going to get.
So how do we get the first 50,000 views we need to get our videos onto the Most Viewed list?
- Blogs: We reach out to individuals who run relevant blogs and actually pay them to post our embedded videos. Sounds a little bit like cheating/PayPerPost, but it’s effective and it’s not against any rules.
- Forums: We start new threads and embed our videos. Sometimes, this means kickstarting the conversations by setting up multiple accounts on each forum and posting back and forth between a few different users. Yes, it’s tedious and time-consuming, but if we get enough people working on it, it can have a tremendous effect.
- MySpace: Plenty of users allow you to embed YouTube videos right in the comments section of their MySpace pages. We take advantage of this.
- Facebook: Share, share, share. We’ve taken Dave McClure’s advice and built a sizeable presence on Facebook, so sharing a video with our entire friends list can have a real impact. Other ideas include creating an event that announces the video launch and inviting friends, writing a note and tagging friends, or posting the video on Facebook Video with a link back to the original YouTube video.
- Email lists: Send the video to an email list. Depending on the size of the list (and the recipients’ willingness to receive links to YouTube videos), this can be a very effective strategy.
- Friends: Make sure everyone we know watches the video and try to get them to email it out to their friends, or at least share it on Facebook.
Each video has a shelf life of 48 hours before it’s moved from the Daily Most Viewed list to the Weekly Most Viewed list, so it’s important that this happens quickly. As I mentioned before, when done right, this is a tremendously successful strategy.
4. Title Optimization
Once a video is on the Most Viewed page, what can be done to maximize views?
It seems obvious, but people see hundreds of videos on YouTube, and the title and thumbnail are an easy way for video publishers to actively persuade someone to click on a video. Titles can be changed a limitless number of times, so we sometimes have a catchy (and somewhat misleading) title for the first few days, then later switch to something more relevant to the brand. Recently, I’ve noticed a trend towards titling videos with the phrases “exclusive,” “behind the scenes,” and “leaked video.”
5. Thumbnail OptimizationIf a video is sitting on the Most Viewed page with nineteen other videos, a compelling video thumbnail is the single best strategy to maximize the number of clicks the video gets.
YouTube provides three choices for a video’s thumbnail, one of which is grabbed from the exact middle of the video. As we edit our videos, we make sure that the frame at the very middle is interesting. It’s no surprise that videos with thumbnails of half naked women get hundreds of thousands of views. Not to say that this is the best strategy, but you get the idea. Two rules of thumb: the thumbnail should be clear (suggesting high video quality) and ideally it should have a face or at least a person in it.
Also, when we feel particularly creative, we optimize all three thumbnails then change the thumbnail every few hours. This is definitely an underused strategy, but it’s an interesting way to keep a video fresh once it’s on the Most Viewed list.
See the highlighted videos in the screenshot below for a good example of how a compelling title and screenshot can make all the difference once the video is on the Most Viewed page.
6. Commenting: Having a conversation with yourself
Every power user on YouTube has a number of different accounts. So do we. A great way to maximize the number of people who watch our videos is to create some sort of controversy in the comments section below the video. We get a few people in our office to log in throughout the day and post heated comments back and forth (you can definitely have a lot of fun with this). Everyone loves a good, heated discussion in the comments section - especially if the comments are related to a brand/startup.
Also, we aren’t afraid to delete comments – if someone is saying our video (or your startup) sucks, we just delete their comment. We can’t let one user’s negativity taint everyone else’s opinions.
We usually get one comment for every thousand views, since most people watching YouTube videos aren’t logged in. But a heated comment thread (done well) will engage viewers and will drive traffic back to our sites.
7. Releasing all videos simultaneously
Once people are watching a video, how do we keep them engaged and bring them back to a website?
A lot of the time our clients say: “We’ve got 5 videos and we’re going to release one every few days so that viewers look forward to each video.”
This is the wrong way to think about YouTube marketing. If we have multiple videos, we post all of them at once. If someone sees our first video and is so intrigued that they want to watch more, why would we make them wait until we post the next one? We give them everything up front. If a user wants to watch all five of our videos right now, there’s a much better chance that we’ll be able to persuade them to click through to our website. We don’t make them wait after seeing the first video, because they’re never going to see the next four.
Once our first video is done, we delete our second video then re-upload it. Now we have another 48-hour window to push it to the Most Viewed page. Rinse and repeat. Using this strategy, we give our most interested viewers the chance to fully engage with a campaign without compromising the opportunity to individually release and market each consecutive video.
8. Strategic Tagging: Leading viewers down the rabbit hole
This is one of my favorite strategies and one that I think we invented. YouTube allows you to tag your videos with keywords that make your videos show up in relevant searches. For the first week that our video is online, we don’t use keyword tags to optimize the video for searches on YouTube. Instead, we’ve discovered that you can use tags to control the videos that show up in the Related Videos box.
I like to think about it as leading viewers down the rabbit hole. The idea here is to make it as easy as possible for viewers to engage with all your content, rather than jumping away to “related” content that actually has nothing to do with your brand/startup.
So how do we strategically tag? We choose three or four unique tags and use only these tags for all of the videos we post. I’m not talking about obscure tags; I’m talking about unique tags, tags that are not used by any other YouTube videos. Done correctly, this will allow us to have full control over the videos that show up as “Related Videos.”
When views start trailing off after a few days to a week, it’s time to add some more generic tags, tags that draw out the long tail of a video as it starts to appear in search results on YouTube and Google.
9. Metrics/Tracking: How we measure effectiveness
The following is how we measure the success of our viral videos.
For one, we tweak the links put up on YouTube (whether in a YouTube channel or in a video description) by adding “?video=1” to the end of each URL. This makes it much easier to track inbound links using Google Analytics or another metrics tool.
TubeMogul and VidMetrix also track views/comments/ratings on each individual video and draw out nice graphs that can be shared with the team. Additionally, these tools follow the viral spread of a video outside of YouTube and throughout other social media sites and blogs.
Conclusion
The Wild West days of Lonely Girl and Ask A Ninja are over. You simply can’t expect to post great videos on YouTube and have them go viral on their own, even if you think you have the best videos ever. These days, achieving true virality takes serious creativity, some luck, and a lot of hard work. So, my advice: fire your PR firm and do it yourself.
Monday, November 26, 2007
You talk, they hear on Web
Companies are reading and listening to what is being said online as they seek to take advantage of new marketing opportunities evolving on social networking Web sites
By Eric Benderoff | Tribune staff reporter | November 23, 2007
You may never hear a word from a conversation analyst, but there's a very good chance one is paying close attention to what you're saying on blogs, in Web forums or in product reviews on sites that sell books or blenders.
Somewhere, someone is reading and analyzing your words.
"I pay attention to what people say online," said Leah Jones, one of these so-called conversation analysts, who works for a recently formed division of public relations giant Edelman called Me2revolution.
She is part of a growing practice at such companies as Kraft Foods Inc. and Procter & Gamble Co. that listens closely to what people say as the Web continues to morph from a medium of static sites to a place where dialogue and interactivity dominate.
The companies are adding positions like community manager, new media strategist or blog strategist, and are actively engaging on the Web.
"If you have a social media strategy, you need the right people," said Jeremiah Owyang, the recently hired senior analyst for social computing at Forrester Research.
He and Jones are typical of the types of people paying attention to how people interact online. Both are active bloggers and social networkers (Owyang counts more than 1,500 friends on Facebook, for instance) and well connected to an assortment of communities online. "My job is research and education," Jones said. "I do a lot of small group training on social media."
Behind this tidal wave of new positions in companies and consultancies is the explosion in popularity of social networking sites and online conversations opening new potential marketing opportunities to companies looking to interact with consumers.
One example is that Facebook and MySpace, two of the Web's top destinations, have introduced new advertising platforms to reach the millions of users at each social site. According to a November survey from eMarketer, advertisers are expected to spend $900 million on social networking sites this year, but by 2011 that is expected to reach $2.5 billion.
Northfield-based Kraft is actively engaged in social networking. This year it opened a grocery store in the virtual world of Second Life (www.second life.com), and it is conducting a contest on MySpace asking people to submit a short video on why they love Kraft Singles. MySpace users can vote for the winning video, which will be announced at the end of December.
For consumers, social media "gives them an opportunity to tell us exactly what they want and what's important to them in an uninhibited environment," Andy Markowitz, Kraft's director of digital media, said in an e-mail. "We're listening and learning as we go."
Owyang said 2008 will be a key year. "For the first time, you will start to see budgets set aside for social media strategies and processes," he said.
But companies have to tread carefully. Unlike traditional advertising messages, Web ads and social networking strategies that try to covertly blend into the mix often backfire, leading to severe consequences.
"To get a true sense of what people are saying on blogs or in forums, we don't get involved in the conversations," Jones said. But if she or someone else from a company she counsels inserts themselves into a conversation, there should be "full disclosure. If I e-mail a blogger, I tell them I'm Leah, I work at Edelman and I'm writing you because ... ," she said.
Fake blogs can hurt brand. In the past, there have been so-called fake blogs set up by companies that were exposed as frauds, including one by Sony Corp. last year to promote its PSP hand-held game player, that can potentially damage a brand.
And not all social media is being used to pitch products. "It can be used for building better products or used to support products," said Owyang, who was hired at Forester after serving as Hitachi Ltd.'s first community manager. "As customers get more involved, expect their feedback to shape new products."
Deborah Schultz, who consults on social media strategies for Procter & Gamble, calls the emerging social practice "conversational marketing." "I'm actually thinking of calling myself a 'digital anthropologist,' but there's more money in being a 'social media strategist,'" she said. "It's absolutely a good time to be doing this, because how companies need to relate to the customer is completely changing."
That can be tricky to manage, Schultz said, and partly explains why companies want to tap into people who have experience interacting online to implement the strategies. "Relationships take time, and they are messy," she said. "There is a give and take, and companies have to realize it can take a long time. "You wouldn't show up at dinner party you weren't invited to and suddenly start selling Tupperware."
Building social media strategy
Jones said Me2revolution's clients include Microsoft Corp., Nissan Motors, Unilever PLC and Wal-Mart Stores Inc., all of which are trying to tap into the conversations about their products that are happening online.
"Everybody knows social media is important, and they want to move the conversation forward," she said. Next year, she said, most of her clients will have a social media strategy "as part of their program, not as an add-on." "When we look at 2008, we're asking, 'What's our news? What's our online strategy? What are our conversation strategies?'" Jones said.
But Schultz cautions that tapping into social marketing is so new that measuring things like brand equity and customer engagement is hard to determine. "That's what we don't know yet," she said.
That thought was echoed by Debra Aho Williamson, a senior analyst for eMarketer. The group's forecast that ad spending will nearly triple by 2011 is based "on the idea that the proof will come, and that marketers will see solid [return on investment] from delivering a brand message to one person and having that person pass along the message to friends," she wrote in a November report.
By Eric Benderoff | Tribune staff reporter | November 23, 2007
You may never hear a word from a conversation analyst, but there's a very good chance one is paying close attention to what you're saying on blogs, in Web forums or in product reviews on sites that sell books or blenders.
Somewhere, someone is reading and analyzing your words.
"I pay attention to what people say online," said Leah Jones, one of these so-called conversation analysts, who works for a recently formed division of public relations giant Edelman called Me2revolution.
She is part of a growing practice at such companies as Kraft Foods Inc. and Procter & Gamble Co. that listens closely to what people say as the Web continues to morph from a medium of static sites to a place where dialogue and interactivity dominate.
The companies are adding positions like community manager, new media strategist or blog strategist, and are actively engaging on the Web.
"If you have a social media strategy, you need the right people," said Jeremiah Owyang, the recently hired senior analyst for social computing at Forrester Research.
He and Jones are typical of the types of people paying attention to how people interact online. Both are active bloggers and social networkers (Owyang counts more than 1,500 friends on Facebook, for instance) and well connected to an assortment of communities online. "My job is research and education," Jones said. "I do a lot of small group training on social media."
Behind this tidal wave of new positions in companies and consultancies is the explosion in popularity of social networking sites and online conversations opening new potential marketing opportunities to companies looking to interact with consumers.
One example is that Facebook and MySpace, two of the Web's top destinations, have introduced new advertising platforms to reach the millions of users at each social site. According to a November survey from eMarketer, advertisers are expected to spend $900 million on social networking sites this year, but by 2011 that is expected to reach $2.5 billion.
Northfield-based Kraft is actively engaged in social networking. This year it opened a grocery store in the virtual world of Second Life (www.second life.com), and it is conducting a contest on MySpace asking people to submit a short video on why they love Kraft Singles. MySpace users can vote for the winning video, which will be announced at the end of December.
For consumers, social media "gives them an opportunity to tell us exactly what they want and what's important to them in an uninhibited environment," Andy Markowitz, Kraft's director of digital media, said in an e-mail. "We're listening and learning as we go."
Owyang said 2008 will be a key year. "For the first time, you will start to see budgets set aside for social media strategies and processes," he said.
But companies have to tread carefully. Unlike traditional advertising messages, Web ads and social networking strategies that try to covertly blend into the mix often backfire, leading to severe consequences.
"To get a true sense of what people are saying on blogs or in forums, we don't get involved in the conversations," Jones said. But if she or someone else from a company she counsels inserts themselves into a conversation, there should be "full disclosure. If I e-mail a blogger, I tell them I'm Leah, I work at Edelman and I'm writing you because ... ," she said.
Fake blogs can hurt brand. In the past, there have been so-called fake blogs set up by companies that were exposed as frauds, including one by Sony Corp. last year to promote its PSP hand-held game player, that can potentially damage a brand.
And not all social media is being used to pitch products. "It can be used for building better products or used to support products," said Owyang, who was hired at Forester after serving as Hitachi Ltd.'s first community manager. "As customers get more involved, expect their feedback to shape new products."
Deborah Schultz, who consults on social media strategies for Procter & Gamble, calls the emerging social practice "conversational marketing." "I'm actually thinking of calling myself a 'digital anthropologist,' but there's more money in being a 'social media strategist,'" she said. "It's absolutely a good time to be doing this, because how companies need to relate to the customer is completely changing."
That can be tricky to manage, Schultz said, and partly explains why companies want to tap into people who have experience interacting online to implement the strategies. "Relationships take time, and they are messy," she said. "There is a give and take, and companies have to realize it can take a long time. "You wouldn't show up at dinner party you weren't invited to and suddenly start selling Tupperware."
Building social media strategy
Jones said Me2revolution's clients include Microsoft Corp., Nissan Motors, Unilever PLC and Wal-Mart Stores Inc., all of which are trying to tap into the conversations about their products that are happening online.
"Everybody knows social media is important, and they want to move the conversation forward," she said. Next year, she said, most of her clients will have a social media strategy "as part of their program, not as an add-on." "When we look at 2008, we're asking, 'What's our news? What's our online strategy? What are our conversation strategies?'" Jones said.
But Schultz cautions that tapping into social marketing is so new that measuring things like brand equity and customer engagement is hard to determine. "That's what we don't know yet," she said.
That thought was echoed by Debra Aho Williamson, a senior analyst for eMarketer. The group's forecast that ad spending will nearly triple by 2011 is based "on the idea that the proof will come, and that marketers will see solid [return on investment] from delivering a brand message to one person and having that person pass along the message to friends," she wrote in a November report.
Monday, November 19, 2007
The Digital Skills Job Seekers Need to Survive Now
Five Types of Hires Organizations Claim They Crave
By Abbey Klaassen Published: November 12, 2007 - AdAge
It used to be so simple.
Back in the day, agencies and marketers seeking great creatives and account and brand managers had a pretty straightforward sense of what they were looking for. Likewise, job seekers could safely ensure they had the key skills with which to populate their résumés for maximum effect.
But now, as new technology has spawned unprecedented complexity in the advertising, marketing and media landscape, so too has it forced the need for greater complexity in new hires. The digital skills that job seekers must have and that hiring organizations demand are varied, nuanced and cutting-edge. And they're required assets if digital professionals want to get ahead in this industry.
Here are the five types of hires organizations claim they crave:
1. HACKERS Not the law-breaking kind, said Organic CEO Mark Kingdon, but "Web 2.0 junkies who live on Del.icio.us, TechCrunch and Digg and peruse ProgrammableWeb.com looking for the latest mashup. ... These people signed up early as Facebook developers, trade the latest apps and regularly hack around on Organic's own social network (called Organism) to add new functionality, change their template, hide Easter eggs and leave us special 'surprises.'" While technology has always been important to firms such as Organic, those companies are no longer just looking for people who know how to build sophisticated and complicated content-management systems but people who like to tinker, who understand how to build on top of application programming interfaces, creating Google Maps mashups and Facebook apps. And passion for these kinds of tools is a must, said Jenny Wall, president-interactive at Crew Creative.
2. TECHNOLOGICALLY CURIOUS OK, it's not necessary for everyone to be able to build the next great Facebook app, but everybody needs to be curious about and aware of what kinds of digital innovations are cropping up and where marketers might fit into them. Crew's Ms. Wall said her account team "needs to be on top of the Facebook open application program or the new [Apple] Leopard blogging software."
3. ONLINE EAVESDROPPERS Conversations are going on all over the web about brands and products -- and agencies and marketers are increasingly looking for people who can help mine those insights, which can be used to help identify emerging problems. That chatter can also be a source of campaign ideas. For example, Mr. Kingdon said, look at the community groups that have formed on Facebook because of their affinity for Jeep. He called it a "great source of inspiration."
4. DATAHEADS "Most marketers aren't quants," said Steve Rubel, a senior VP in Edelman's Me2Revolution who's chronicled industry changes for the past decade. He said the companies that are able to use data to their advantage, building relationships and unearthing trends, will be the big winners. "Marketers need to at least have a good grounding in how to use new kinds of data, even if they leave the crunching to others," he said.
5. TRAILBLAZERS A trailblazing attitude is less a digital skill and more of an inherent quality that the digital age requires. And it was this quality that Greg Schwartz, VP-sales at Zillow.com, was seeking as he built his staff. "I was looking not just for folks with a talent for internet advertising but those that flourish in a non-structured start-up environment," he said. Start-ups often can't compete on dollars -- but they can compete by having environments that foster and require innovative thinking and challenges to conventional wisdom. Start-ups also require a little extra acumen because they often don't have the scale of the giants.
Trailblazers are, however, fairly easy to pry out of large media companies, said Mr. Schwartz: "Slinging banner ads leaves a lot of people uninspired."
By Abbey Klaassen Published: November 12, 2007 - AdAge
It used to be so simple.
Back in the day, agencies and marketers seeking great creatives and account and brand managers had a pretty straightforward sense of what they were looking for. Likewise, job seekers could safely ensure they had the key skills with which to populate their résumés for maximum effect.
But now, as new technology has spawned unprecedented complexity in the advertising, marketing and media landscape, so too has it forced the need for greater complexity in new hires. The digital skills that job seekers must have and that hiring organizations demand are varied, nuanced and cutting-edge. And they're required assets if digital professionals want to get ahead in this industry.
Here are the five types of hires organizations claim they crave:
1. HACKERS Not the law-breaking kind, said Organic CEO Mark Kingdon, but "Web 2.0 junkies who live on Del.icio.us, TechCrunch and Digg and peruse ProgrammableWeb.com looking for the latest mashup. ... These people signed up early as Facebook developers, trade the latest apps and regularly hack around on Organic's own social network (called Organism) to add new functionality, change their template, hide Easter eggs and leave us special 'surprises.'" While technology has always been important to firms such as Organic, those companies are no longer just looking for people who know how to build sophisticated and complicated content-management systems but people who like to tinker, who understand how to build on top of application programming interfaces, creating Google Maps mashups and Facebook apps. And passion for these kinds of tools is a must, said Jenny Wall, president-interactive at Crew Creative.
2. TECHNOLOGICALLY CURIOUS OK, it's not necessary for everyone to be able to build the next great Facebook app, but everybody needs to be curious about and aware of what kinds of digital innovations are cropping up and where marketers might fit into them. Crew's Ms. Wall said her account team "needs to be on top of the Facebook open application program or the new [Apple] Leopard blogging software."
3. ONLINE EAVESDROPPERS Conversations are going on all over the web about brands and products -- and agencies and marketers are increasingly looking for people who can help mine those insights, which can be used to help identify emerging problems. That chatter can also be a source of campaign ideas. For example, Mr. Kingdon said, look at the community groups that have formed on Facebook because of their affinity for Jeep. He called it a "great source of inspiration."
4. DATAHEADS "Most marketers aren't quants," said Steve Rubel, a senior VP in Edelman's Me2Revolution who's chronicled industry changes for the past decade. He said the companies that are able to use data to their advantage, building relationships and unearthing trends, will be the big winners. "Marketers need to at least have a good grounding in how to use new kinds of data, even if they leave the crunching to others," he said.
5. TRAILBLAZERS A trailblazing attitude is less a digital skill and more of an inherent quality that the digital age requires. And it was this quality that Greg Schwartz, VP-sales at Zillow.com, was seeking as he built his staff. "I was looking not just for folks with a talent for internet advertising but those that flourish in a non-structured start-up environment," he said. Start-ups often can't compete on dollars -- but they can compete by having environments that foster and require innovative thinking and challenges to conventional wisdom. Start-ups also require a little extra acumen because they often don't have the scale of the giants.
Trailblazers are, however, fairly easy to pry out of large media companies, said Mr. Schwartz: "Slinging banner ads leaves a lot of people uninspired."
Land Grab for Women Online
Warner Bros and Lifetime launch female focused digital networks
By Andrew Hampp - Publich 13th November in Adage
Look out, iVillage. The women's digital-entertainment market officially got more crowded this week with the arrival of two female-targeted community sites with established brands and broad reach on their side.
First up is MyLifetime.com, the new online destination for Lifetime. The women's cable network is taking an ambitious stab at aggregating female entertainment online by partnering with the Glam Media network, along with RealArcade for games, Revolution Health for health content, About for how-to content and Hearst Digital for shared broadband-video and lifestyle channels.
Warner Bros. Television also is looking to expand its reach in the women's-entertainment category online. It launched MomLogic.com today to serve moms advice, short-form video and ads from charter sponsor Unilever.
Extending online reach
An increasing number of traditional players are eyeing digital networks as a smart way to extend their online reach. Martha Stewart Living Omnimedia recently unveiled Martha's Circle, an ad-sales network composed of shelter- and lifestyle-related sites, such as Apartment Therapy, 101 Cookbooks and Style Me Pretty. MSLO estimates the network will generate almost 20 million ad views per month.
Like NBC's alliance with iVillage, Lifetime's partnership with Glam Media gives the cable channel something few TV brands can claim online: scale. Dan Suratt, Lifetime's exec VP-digital media, was hired by former Lifetime CEO Betty Cohen last year to expand the network's reach online, starting with a revamp of its old domain, LifetimeTV.com, in April.
The goal is to associate the Lifetime brand with lifestyle content online for the "woman who's dealing with the daily rigors of life in general and looking for an escape -- even if it's just for 20 minutes," Mr. Suratt said.
Women on the web
There's a land grab for the audience and market share NBC and iVillage have failed to dominate. The Glam portfolio of sites recently became the most trafficked women's network online (25.5 million visits in October 2007 vs. 18.5 million for iVillage), and Lifetime's site was head and shoulders above those of its cable competitors, Oxygen and We, in terms of traffic last month. With 2.3 million registered users on LifetimeTV.com (compared with 333,000 for Oxygen and 82,000 for We), MyLifetime.com has a good head start toward becoming a scaleable media community for women online.
Lifetime's online audience skews a good decade or so older than Glam's median age of 33. It's the boomer side of Lifetime's target demo that the two companies hope will drive the next wave of digital growth and social networking, according to Glam CEO Samir Arara. "They're extremely valuable. ... From a brand perspective, having a strong audience of 20s and 30s and adding to it 40s and 50s is a very normal continuation of the focus we've had."
To be successful, My Lifetime will need to build a robust ad network for the multitasking online woman. Glam has an extensive portfolio of fashion and beauty sites with advertisers such as P&G, Chevy Malibu and Neiman Marcus onboard, while Lifetime brings package-goods and food marketers Stouffer's, Dunkin' Donuts and Kentucky Fried Chicken.
My Lifetime plans to expand into social networking with profile pages and message boards in first-quarter 2008. This past summer, Lifetime scored a hit with "Army Wives," which had an even larger life online through its community of fans and real-life army wives. As a result, traffic to LifetimeTV.com in July surged to 3.7 million unique visits, nearly double the 1.97 million in January.
Strong TV brands
Like Lifetime, Warner Bros. has strong TV brands in its stable to lure its audience online: "The Ellen DeGeneres Show" and "The Tyra Banks Show." But syndicating content to other key mom blogs will play just as important a role in essentially building a new site from scratch, much in the same way the WB's TMZ.com was able to build buzz and scale before becoming a syndicated TV show this season.
Michael Teicher, exec VP-media sales for Warner Bros. Television Group, said the goal is for lightning to strike twice for the digital-to-TV model, with the help of daytime TV and the marketing team at Unilever to pitch in from the content side.
Unilever, the first sponsor of Warner Bros.' Mom Logic, knows a thing or two about the demo from its brands Dove and Suave, which launched its own branded web entertainment for the maternal set earlier this year with MSN and Sprint called In the Motherhood.
"There are sites out there that really serve the same target audience, whether it's selecting the best school for your children or finding the best coupons," Mr. Teicher said. "We will create affiliation agreements with them and that will allow us to cross-promote and drive our traffic."
Time will tell
While time will tell if the increased investment in women's digital entertainment will pay off in page views and digital dollars, buyers are still going to put their dollars where their worn-out marketing phrases are.
"It's kind of boring to say, but we really think content's king in this category," said Jeff Marshall, senior VP-digital managing director at Starcom/Pixel.
"It's a two-way street: You have a built-in understanding of the audience from the NBCs and Lifetimes of the world, but your audience are looking to them to produce that content as well. It makes sense, and with the tried-and-true women's-content creators, they don't necessarily have a firm understanding [of the ad component]," he said. "Creating ad space and filling that ad space more holistically by creating programs and ways to incorporate brands in more meaningful ways is where we need to go in the future."
~ ~ ~
CORRECTION: An earlier version of this story incorrectly noted that the Glam portfolio of sites received 25.5 million impressions in October 2007 vs. 18.5 million for iVillage. In fact, the 25.5 million represents visits. Also, the last name of Glam CEO Samir Arora was misspelled as Orara.
By Andrew Hampp - Publich 13th November in Adage
Look out, iVillage. The women's digital-entertainment market officially got more crowded this week with the arrival of two female-targeted community sites with established brands and broad reach on their side.
First up is MyLifetime.com, the new online destination for Lifetime. The women's cable network is taking an ambitious stab at aggregating female entertainment online by partnering with the Glam Media network, along with RealArcade for games, Revolution Health for health content, About for how-to content and Hearst Digital for shared broadband-video and lifestyle channels.
Warner Bros. Television also is looking to expand its reach in the women's-entertainment category online. It launched MomLogic.com today to serve moms advice, short-form video and ads from charter sponsor Unilever.
Extending online reach
An increasing number of traditional players are eyeing digital networks as a smart way to extend their online reach. Martha Stewart Living Omnimedia recently unveiled Martha's Circle, an ad-sales network composed of shelter- and lifestyle-related sites, such as Apartment Therapy, 101 Cookbooks and Style Me Pretty. MSLO estimates the network will generate almost 20 million ad views per month.
Like NBC's alliance with iVillage, Lifetime's partnership with Glam Media gives the cable channel something few TV brands can claim online: scale. Dan Suratt, Lifetime's exec VP-digital media, was hired by former Lifetime CEO Betty Cohen last year to expand the network's reach online, starting with a revamp of its old domain, LifetimeTV.com, in April.
The goal is to associate the Lifetime brand with lifestyle content online for the "woman who's dealing with the daily rigors of life in general and looking for an escape -- even if it's just for 20 minutes," Mr. Suratt said.
Women on the web
There's a land grab for the audience and market share NBC and iVillage have failed to dominate. The Glam portfolio of sites recently became the most trafficked women's network online (25.5 million visits in October 2007 vs. 18.5 million for iVillage), and Lifetime's site was head and shoulders above those of its cable competitors, Oxygen and We, in terms of traffic last month. With 2.3 million registered users on LifetimeTV.com (compared with 333,000 for Oxygen and 82,000 for We), MyLifetime.com has a good head start toward becoming a scaleable media community for women online.
Lifetime's online audience skews a good decade or so older than Glam's median age of 33. It's the boomer side of Lifetime's target demo that the two companies hope will drive the next wave of digital growth and social networking, according to Glam CEO Samir Arara. "They're extremely valuable. ... From a brand perspective, having a strong audience of 20s and 30s and adding to it 40s and 50s is a very normal continuation of the focus we've had."
To be successful, My Lifetime will need to build a robust ad network for the multitasking online woman. Glam has an extensive portfolio of fashion and beauty sites with advertisers such as P&G, Chevy Malibu and Neiman Marcus onboard, while Lifetime brings package-goods and food marketers Stouffer's, Dunkin' Donuts and Kentucky Fried Chicken.
My Lifetime plans to expand into social networking with profile pages and message boards in first-quarter 2008. This past summer, Lifetime scored a hit with "Army Wives," which had an even larger life online through its community of fans and real-life army wives. As a result, traffic to LifetimeTV.com in July surged to 3.7 million unique visits, nearly double the 1.97 million in January.
Strong TV brands
Like Lifetime, Warner Bros. has strong TV brands in its stable to lure its audience online: "The Ellen DeGeneres Show" and "The Tyra Banks Show." But syndicating content to other key mom blogs will play just as important a role in essentially building a new site from scratch, much in the same way the WB's TMZ.com was able to build buzz and scale before becoming a syndicated TV show this season.
Michael Teicher, exec VP-media sales for Warner Bros. Television Group, said the goal is for lightning to strike twice for the digital-to-TV model, with the help of daytime TV and the marketing team at Unilever to pitch in from the content side.
Unilever, the first sponsor of Warner Bros.' Mom Logic, knows a thing or two about the demo from its brands Dove and Suave, which launched its own branded web entertainment for the maternal set earlier this year with MSN and Sprint called In the Motherhood.
"There are sites out there that really serve the same target audience, whether it's selecting the best school for your children or finding the best coupons," Mr. Teicher said. "We will create affiliation agreements with them and that will allow us to cross-promote and drive our traffic."
Time will tell
While time will tell if the increased investment in women's digital entertainment will pay off in page views and digital dollars, buyers are still going to put their dollars where their worn-out marketing phrases are.
"It's kind of boring to say, but we really think content's king in this category," said Jeff Marshall, senior VP-digital managing director at Starcom/Pixel.
"It's a two-way street: You have a built-in understanding of the audience from the NBCs and Lifetimes of the world, but your audience are looking to them to produce that content as well. It makes sense, and with the tried-and-true women's-content creators, they don't necessarily have a firm understanding [of the ad component]," he said. "Creating ad space and filling that ad space more holistically by creating programs and ways to incorporate brands in more meaningful ways is where we need to go in the future."
~ ~ ~
CORRECTION: An earlier version of this story incorrectly noted that the Glam portfolio of sites received 25.5 million impressions in October 2007 vs. 18.5 million for iVillage. In fact, the 25.5 million represents visits. Also, the last name of Glam CEO Samir Arora was misspelled as Orara.
FW: Generation V (apparently)
From: Melissa Bolling
Conversation: Generation V (apparently)
News
Forget Generations X and Y: Here comes Generation V
Companies must overhaul their marketing plans to target the latest group,
Gartner says
Heather Havenstein (Computerworld) 15 November, 2007 08:00:02
Much has been made of the stereotypical characteristics of the generations
that followed the Baby Boomer era. The same can be said of the latest
generation, but Gartner warns marketers to define them by their online
actions rather than their birth dates. In a report released this week,
Gartner said that traditional marketing methods won't work with this new
group of consumers.
The latest group, dubbed Generation Virtual, or V, is made up of people from
multiple demographic age groups who make social connections online - through
virtual worlds, in video games, as bloggers, in social networks or through
posting and reading user-generated content at e-commerce sites like
Amazon.com, said Adam Sarner, senior analyst at Gartner.
The V generation is made up of people who are drawn to the Internet's "flat
meritocracy" where people can gain status and acknowledgement through ways -
like providing advice or recommendations or excelling at a video game - not
generally available in the physical world. Basically, Generation V is made
up of people who replace physical experience with an online experience,
Sarner added.
The online distinction is important, he noted, because companies looking to
sell products and services to this generation of consumers can no longer
rely on traditional demographic data like name, age and address to tailor
marketing messages. Generation V is more likely to interact with marketers
anonymously - through an online persona made up of all their online
behaviors, Sarner said.
"We have to start dealing with this idea of anonymous, multiple personas
interacting with our businesses and how to do that," Sarner said.
"[Businesses] are creating a world with processes to get them to purchase
things. Virtual environments will be a way to orchestrate customer
exploration, [but] underneath is the reality that they are providing goods
and services."
Over time, gathering details about the online personas of consumers will
become far more important than the mining of demographic data, he added. By
2015, Gartner asserts, more money will be spent marketing and selling to
multiple online personas than money spent marketing to off-line consumers.
For companies to prepare to market to Generation V, Gartner recommends:
* Organizing products and services around multiple online personas;
* Selling to the persona not the person;
* Creating virtual environments as a way to orchestrate customer
exploration toward purchases;
* Shifting investments from known customers to unknown ones; and
* Developing and retaining new employee skills to attract, connect,
contribute and gain insight from generation V and their virtual
environments.
Conversation: Generation V (apparently)
News
Forget Generations X and Y: Here comes Generation V
Companies must overhaul their marketing plans to target the latest group,
Gartner says
Heather Havenstein (Computerworld) 15 November, 2007 08:00:02
Much has been made of the stereotypical characteristics of the generations
that followed the Baby Boomer era. The same can be said of the latest
generation, but Gartner warns marketers to define them by their online
actions rather than their birth dates. In a report released this week,
Gartner said that traditional marketing methods won't work with this new
group of consumers.
The latest group, dubbed Generation Virtual, or V, is made up of people from
multiple demographic age groups who make social connections online - through
virtual worlds, in video games, as bloggers, in social networks or through
posting and reading user-generated content at e-commerce sites like
Amazon.com, said Adam Sarner, senior analyst at Gartner.
The V generation is made up of people who are drawn to the Internet's "flat
meritocracy" where people can gain status and acknowledgement through ways -
like providing advice or recommendations or excelling at a video game - not
generally available in the physical world. Basically, Generation V is made
up of people who replace physical experience with an online experience,
Sarner added.
The online distinction is important, he noted, because companies looking to
sell products and services to this generation of consumers can no longer
rely on traditional demographic data like name, age and address to tailor
marketing messages. Generation V is more likely to interact with marketers
anonymously - through an online persona made up of all their online
behaviors, Sarner said.
"We have to start dealing with this idea of anonymous, multiple personas
interacting with our businesses and how to do that," Sarner said.
"[Businesses] are creating a world with processes to get them to purchase
things. Virtual environments will be a way to orchestrate customer
exploration, [but] underneath is the reality that they are providing goods
and services."
Over time, gathering details about the online personas of consumers will
become far more important than the mining of demographic data, he added. By
2015, Gartner asserts, more money will be spent marketing and selling to
multiple online personas than money spent marketing to off-line consumers.
For companies to prepare to market to Generation V, Gartner recommends:
* Organizing products and services around multiple online personas;
* Selling to the persona not the person;
* Creating virtual environments as a way to orchestrate customer
exploration toward purchases;
* Shifting investments from known customers to unknown ones; and
* Developing and retaining new employee skills to attract, connect,
contribute and gain insight from generation V and their virtual
environments.
Friday, November 16, 2007
DWP targets silver surfers with social networking site
by Staff Brand Republic 29-Oct-07, 10:30
LONDON - The Department for Work and Pensions has unveiled a social networking website to encourage direct communication with the government and debate among older people about the issues that matter to them.
The pilot scheme at generationxperience.wordpress.com has been developed in conjunction with the Hansard Society as part of DWP's Generation Xperience campaign, which earlier this month staged the first UK Older People's Day.
Representatives from DWP will regularly update the website, start new discussions and contribute to existing ones as well as moderating the site. The site will also link to other well-known social networking sites including MySpace, Facebook, YouTube and Flickr.
The initiative follows recent research for DWP's Generation Xperience campaign, which revealed the popularity of the internet among older people. More than half of all over-50s have access to the internet, rising to three quarters (76%) of 50- to 64-year-olds.
Nearly one in six of those in the 50-64 age bracket have conquered instant messaging, social networking sites and internet chatrooms (15%), while emailing is becoming the norm (37%). More than half (56%) of respondents say they have set themselves the goal of ‘learning computer skills’ as they approach later life.
Mike O'Brien, Pensions Minister, said: "There are 20m people over the age of 50 in the UK who have helped build a prosperous economy, a strong society and a better country. It is crucial their views must be taken into consideration.
"With this pilot scheme, we’re using a method of communication that is becoming increasingly commonplace for this age group. As many of the popular social networking sites are oriented towards young internet users, this is an effective way of talking to and listening to older people in the UK and has great potential to reduce isolation and promote digital inclusion."
The Generation Xperience UK Older People's Day initiative is supported by the DWP and the Department of Health in conjunction with a range of other government departments and agencies.
Other partners include the Financial Services Authority, Help the Aged, Age Concern, LinkAge Plus Pilots, Better Government for Older People, The International Longevity Centre, B&Q, CSV RSVP and the Beth Johnson Foundation.
LONDON - The Department for Work and Pensions has unveiled a social networking website to encourage direct communication with the government and debate among older people about the issues that matter to them.
The pilot scheme at generationxperience.wordpress
Representatives from DWP will regularly update the website, start new discussions and contribute to existing ones as well as moderating the site. The site will also link to other well-known social networking sites including MySpace, Facebook, YouTube and Flickr.
The initiative follows recent research for DWP's Generation Xperience campaign, which revealed the popularity of the internet among older people. More than half of all over-50s have access to the internet, rising to three quarters (76%) of 50- to 64-year-olds.
Nearly one in six of those in the 50-64 age bracket have conquered instant messaging, social networking sites and internet chatrooms (15%), while emailing is becoming the norm (37%). More than half (56%) of respondents say they have set themselves the goal of ‘learning computer skills’ as they approach later life.
Mike O'Brien, Pensions Minister, said: "There are 20m people over the age of 50 in the UK who have helped build a prosperous economy, a strong society and a better country. It is crucial their views must be taken into consideration.
"With this pilot scheme, we’re using a method of communication that is becoming increasingly commonplace for this age group. As many of the popular social networking sites are oriented towards young internet users, this is an effective way of talking to and listening to older people in the UK and has great potential to reduce isolation and promote digital inclusion."
The Generation Xperience UK Older People's Day initiative is supported by the DWP and the Department of Health in conjunction with a range of other government departments and agencies.
Other partners include the Financial Services Authority, Help the Aged, Age Concern, LinkAge Plus Pilots, Better Government for Older People, The International Longevity Centre, B&Q, CSV RSVP and the Beth Johnson Foundation.
Mobile Insider: Sponsor The User
by Steve Smith, Tuesday, November 13, 2007
AT THE RISK OF REVEALING too much about my media-addicted ways and permanently embarrassing my family, I will say that I'm the kind of guy who reaches for the remote in movie theaters.
When that bridge in Spielberg's "War of the Worlds" blows to hell and death rays start vaporizing suburbanites, my reflex is to hit rewind, no matter where I am. "What are you doing?" my partner asks as I start to fidget. "Nothing," I answer, as the impulse fades into the cold realization that I am strapped into one of those old fashioned, lean-back entertainment experiences that satisfied generations of passive audiences that preceded me. I am spoiled, and I admit it, but I suspect so are the rest of you. Interactivity is more than a feature of modern life. I think it is bound to become a reflex. Ultimately we start to assume that all media are or should have some back channel.
This a reflex that is tailormade for mobile. I am struck again and again by the response rates marketers like HipCricket and Vibes Media report from their in-venue SMS/MMS programs at concerts and sporting events. For instance, at a KIIS Los Angeles concert last May 15,000 attendees produced 7,672 shout-outs and messages to the texting screens in the venue. And when presented with an offer to upgrade their seats, concert-goers sent 10,550 messages, according to HipCricket, which managed the mobile piece of the event. At another concert several weeks ago, a 10,000-member audience produced more than 13,000 messages and more than 8,000 upgrade requests.
Jeff Hasen, HipCricket's chief marketing officer, says it is all about the offer and the venue. "In live arenas so much of the phone is personalization and people get into throwing a photo up. It makes it more enjoyable." And simply by sponsoring the screen on which the exchanges take place, a brand is doing what the user wants, facilitating one-to-one communication rather than interrupting it. The neatest trick of mobile media is going to be finding ways for marketing to be present at the site of peer-to-peer communication without getting in the way. Facilitating conversations is the best promotional opportunity of all.
This is just the simple rule of marketing -- adding value rather than detracting from an experience. The offer of a seat upgrade in a venue speaks directly to an immediate desire on the part of the user to enhance her experience.
Not every marketer has the allure of a seat upgrade to offer users, but there is an important lesson in this. Perhaps we should be thinking less about sponsoring events or content, and more about sponsoring users. How can a brand enhance and extend an experience that a user is already enjoying? That may be the real question that a personalized interactivity tool like the phone demands. Because mobile phones are totally portable, perhaps marketers have to stop thinking about media placement -- how and where to wrap their messages around content -- and start thinking situationally. Where is my user at a given point in time, and how can my brand enhance the value of that moment? How can I sponsor the user in his or her world? How can I help them activate the interactive reflex at any given moment? In-venue mobile marketing is a wonderful example of the power of mobile, but I think we should be extrapolating its lessons elsewhere.
There is a real opportunity for mobile to change the game of marketing, to move from interruptive promotion to real partnership with customers. If the rest of you are anything like me (God help you), then at any given moment in the day you may find yourself reaching for the remote trying to exercise that newfound interactive reflex. Brands should be there to help me activate that moment.
If users are "in charge," as we like to say, then shouldn't we be sponsoring them?
AT THE RISK OF REVEALING too much about my media-addicted ways and permanently embarrassing my family, I will say that I'm the kind of guy who reaches for the remote in movie theaters.
When that bridge in Spielberg's "War of the Worlds" blows to hell and death rays start vaporizing suburbanites, my reflex is to hit rewind, no matter where I am. "What are you doing?" my partner asks as I start to fidget. "Nothing," I answer, as the impulse fades into the cold realization that I am strapped into one of those old fashioned, lean-back entertainment experiences that satisfied generations of passive audiences that preceded me. I am spoiled, and I admit it, but I suspect so are the rest of you. Interactivity is more than a feature of modern life. I think it is bound to become a reflex. Ultimately we start to assume that all media are or should have some back channel.
This a reflex that is tailormade for mobile. I am struck again and again by the response rates marketers like HipCricket and Vibes Media report from their in-venue SMS/MMS programs at concerts and sporting events. For instance, at a KIIS Los Angeles concert last May 15,000 attendees produced 7,672 shout-outs and messages to the texting screens in the venue. And when presented with an offer to upgrade their seats, concert-goers sent 10,550 messages, according to HipCricket, which managed the mobile piece of the event. At another concert several weeks ago, a 10,000-member audience produced more than 13,000 messages and more than 8,000 upgrade requests.
Jeff Hasen, HipCricket's chief marketing officer, says it is all about the offer and the venue. "In live arenas so much of the phone is personalization and people get into throwing a photo up. It makes it more enjoyable." And simply by sponsoring the screen on which the exchanges take place, a brand is doing what the user wants, facilitating one-to-one communication rather than interrupting it. The neatest trick of mobile media is going to be finding ways for marketing to be present at the site of peer-to-peer communication without getting in the way. Facilitating conversations is the best promotional opportunity of all.
This is just the simple rule of marketing -- adding value rather than detracting from an experience. The offer of a seat upgrade in a venue speaks directly to an immediate desire on the part of the user to enhance her experience.
Not every marketer has the allure of a seat upgrade to offer users, but there is an important lesson in this. Perhaps we should be thinking less about sponsoring events or content, and more about sponsoring users. How can a brand enhance and extend an experience that a user is already enjoying? That may be the real question that a personalized interactivity tool like the phone demands. Because mobile phones are totally portable, perhaps marketers have to stop thinking about media placement -- how and where to wrap their messages around content -- and start thinking situationally. Where is my user at a given point in time, and how can my brand enhance the value of that moment? How can I sponsor the user in his or her world? How can I help them activate the interactive reflex at any given moment? In-venue mobile marketing is a wonderful example of the power of mobile, but I think we should be extrapolating its lessons elsewhere.
There is a real opportunity for mobile to change the game of marketing, to move from interruptive promotion to real partnership with customers. If the rest of you are anything like me (God help you), then at any given moment in the day you may find yourself reaching for the remote trying to exercise that newfound interactive reflex. Brands should be there to help me activate that moment.
If users are "in charge," as we like to say, then shouldn't we be sponsoring them?
Contributing writer Steve Smith is a longtime new-media consultant and columnist, and current editor of Digital Media Report for MinOnline.com and Mobile Media Report for TelecomWeb.com Contact him at popeyesmith@comcast.net.
Monday, November 12, 2007
Social-Network Traffic Surpasses Web-based Email’s in UK
October traffic to the top 25 social networks, such as Facebook, Bebo and MySpace, accounted for 5.17% of all UK internet visits, compared with 4.98% for the “Computers and Internet - Email Services” category, such as Hotmail, Yahoo Mail and Gmail, according to Hitwise (via ResearchRecap).
That marks the first time that UK internet visits to social networks outnumber visits to web-based email services, Hitwise UK Research Director Robin Goad writes.
“A growing proportion of the UK online population is choosing to communicate with friends via social networks rather than email,” he adds.
Moreover, social networks now send as much traffic to retail websites as do web email sites, according to Hitwise data:
Younger internet users - those age 18 to 34 - tend to visit social-network sites more than they do web email sites, whereas the reverse is true for those 35+, Goad writes.
Friday, November 9, 2007
Why Gen Y are the most money-hungry generation
news.com.au, 9/11/2007
GEN Y workers are more career-focused and ambitious than any other
generation, but they are also the most money-hungry, according to a job
survey.
But HECS debts, a lack of affordable housing and the rising cost of living
because of the drought and high petrol prices are the driving force behind
their desire for cash, the report by employment website SEEK found.
Of the 5000 Australian employees polled in the website's annual satisfaction
and motivation survey, 30 per cent were identified as Gen Y - aged 18 to 26.
Gen Y are more motivated by money than previous generation and mostly work
to pay for their lifestyles, the study found.
Almost one-third said money was their main motivator, compared with 15 per
cent of Gen X respondents and 9 per cent of Baby Boomers.
As a result, many said they would readily leave their employer for better
money or career possibilities.
Generation Y have the itchiest feet out of all the generations, with 73 per
cent of respondents saying they intended to leave their current employer in
less than a year.
Almost four out of five Gen Y-ers surveyed said more money would keep them
in their current job.
But the younger generation could be justified in their money lust, with the
results showing money may buy happiness.
The most unsatisfied were those in the $30,000 to $49,000 salary bracket,
where most entry level or graduate professional salaries start, with half
saying they were unhappy in their jobs.
The happiest were those being paid more than $150,000 a year.
The study also found Australia's happiest employees work in HR and
recruitment, in government or defence jobs and in the community and sport
sector.
Employees in the real estate, insurance and superannuation sectors were the
country's unhappiest.
But Gen Y employees shouldn't be criticised for their money lust because
they are trying to develop their financial independence against tough odds,
SEEK spokesman Joe Powell said.
"Many believe that Generation Y is likely to be the first generation in
history to be financially worse off than their parents and for many in this
group that's got to be a scary prospect," he said.
GEN Y workers are more career-focused and ambitious than any other
generation, but they are also the most money-hungry, according to a job
survey.
But HECS debts, a lack of affordable housing and the rising cost of living
because of the drought and high petrol prices are the driving force behind
their desire for cash, the report by employment website SEEK found.
Of the 5000 Australian employees polled in the website's annual satisfaction
and motivation survey, 30 per cent were identified as Gen Y - aged 18 to 26.
Gen Y are more motivated by money than previous generation and mostly work
to pay for their lifestyles, the study found.
Almost one-third said money was their main motivator, compared with 15 per
cent of Gen X respondents and 9 per cent of Baby Boomers.
As a result, many said they would readily leave their employer for better
money or career possibilities.
Generation Y have the itchiest feet out of all the generations, with 73 per
cent of respondents saying they intended to leave their current employer in
less than a year.
Almost four out of five Gen Y-ers surveyed said more money would keep them
in their current job.
But the younger generation could be justified in their money lust, with the
results showing money may buy happiness.
The most unsatisfied were those in the $30,000 to $49,000 salary bracket,
where most entry level or graduate professional salaries start, with half
saying they were unhappy in their jobs.
The happiest were those being paid more than $150,000 a year.
The study also found Australia's happiest employees work in HR and
recruitment, in government or defence jobs and in the community and sport
sector.
Employees in the real estate, insurance and superannuation sectors were the
country's unhappiest.
But Gen Y employees shouldn't be criticised for their money lust because
they are trying to develop their financial independence against tough odds,
SEEK spokesman Joe Powell said.
"Many believe that Generation Y is likely to be the first generation in
history to be financially worse off than their parents and for many in this
group that's got to be a scary prospect," he said.
facebook & advertising
Some more, vital reading on the recent developments on facebook and how we might apply them
This, a great post from Techcrunch on the new developments:
Within hours of Facebook’s announcement of its social advertising plans, the backlash began. What about privacy? What about relevance? (I know everyone is sick of hearing about Facebook, but there are some important business issues at stake here, so bear with me). As far as privacy goes, there is none on Facebook, in that any information you share is fair game for targeting by advertisers. So get used to it. You don’t want to be targeted, don’t share information on Facebook. Perhaps the more important question, though, is around the relevance of the ads themselves.
Already, there’s been some insightful critiques on this front. Nick Carr started things off with his tart summary: “The medium is the message from our sponsor.” He goes on to point out that becoming a fan of a animated Sprite can is not exactly a revolution in advertising:
It’s a nifty system: First you get your users to entrust their personal data to you, and then you not only sell that data to advertisers but you get the users to be the vector for the ads. And what do the users get in return? An animated Sprite Sips character to interact with.
Henry Blodget asks, not unreasonably: Will advertisers pay people to recommend their products to friends? (That would be a bad idea, but you never know what Madison Avenue will try to do next).
And Umair Haque warns of adverse selection with Facebook ads that are presented as updates to people’s feeds (aka Beacons). Excerpt:
Yes, we all know referrals are powerful. But real referrals aren’t what Facebook’s offering. Real referrals aren’t broadcasting preferences; they are matching preferences. See the difference?
Beacon is essentially a biased market mechanism. That is, advertisers have control - but connected consumers (despite Facebook’s hype) don’t.
The synthetic relevance Facebook is pushing is a drug for the strung-out advertisers of the world: they desperately need a hit of something to make them believe they matter again.
As advertisers buy into Facebook - no one will be better off - except Facebook.
Marketers and firms won’t gain true connection with consumers.
And, crucially, consumers will be trapped into not just receiving crappy ads - but sending them as well.
These are all valid points. The best referrals come from people who know you have a particular need or are looking for something. They usually come out of a conversation. “Have you seen any good movies lately?” “Oh yeah, just last week we rented . . .” I only want referrals when I need them. If all my friends and casual acquaintances start bombarding me with referrals that are not matched to what I need, that could very quickly just become another source of noise I need to filter out.
And yet, it is just too soon to tell where all this will go. Granted, many of the advertising partners that have jumped on board this bandwagon are faceless consumer products companies. I am not sure I want to be a fan of Sprite or Chase or Verizon (and I am a customer of all of these brands). But some of the partnerships do make sense. I don’t mind identifying myself as a fan of the New York Times.
The social ads that will work will tend to be niche or high-end brands that people really like to show off because it says something about who they are. They will also work for other media sites where people already interact in a social way.
For instance, Epicurious now knows if you are a Facebook member and broadcasts any recipe you rate or save on the site to all your friends on Facebook (via their feeds). You can opt out if you don’t want to share this information, but it seems to me to be very similar to what people are already seeing in their feeds. “I like this recipe, check it out.” The New York Times will be doing something similar for travel ratings, movie ratings and reviews, and articles you save or e-mail (except, in that case, you will have to opt in to share the information and it won’t say who you are emailing it to). That too seems to me to be in keeping with the spirit of the Mini feed. “Here’s an article you should read.”
But those are not product endorsements. They are more akin to other Facebook applications, except that they are surfacing activity from a different site. Which is why I think that for this to work advertisers need to think more like developers. Help people do something useful, informative, or fun, and they will gladly broadcast that experience to the world. If people see these as ads, they will revolt. If they see them as indistinguishable from the stream of Facebook chatter already in their feeds (which is often inane, but addictive nonetheless), the messages will have a better chance of getting through.
This, some resources and further inspiration on apps and what some companies are already doing out there
Best of facebook - a site where people vote on applications
Facebook ads - facebook's page with all you need to know about the new ad developments and how to use them
Oktoberfest Lives On – seems quite popular app that ties beer to an event!!!
Verizon Wireless – group page, more a content webspace within facebook, rather than an app
Coke – very basic ‘product’ profile page. They don’t even own their own url!
Sprite – quite extensive product profile page and interaction app
The New York times: – company profile page
The New York times: – company profile page
epicurious - quite extensive product profile page
This, a great post from Techcrunch on the new developments:
Within hours of Facebook’s announcement of its social advertising plans, the backlash began. What about privacy? What about relevance? (I know everyone is sick of hearing about Facebook, but there are some important business issues at stake here, so bear with me). As far as privacy goes, there is none on Facebook, in that any information you share is fair game for targeting by advertisers. So get used to it. You don’t want to be targeted, don’t share information on Facebook. Perhaps the more important question, though, is around the relevance of the ads themselves.
Already, there’s been some insightful critiques on this front. Nick Carr started things off with his tart summary: “The medium is the message from our sponsor.” He goes on to point out that becoming a fan of a animated Sprite can is not exactly a revolution in advertising:
It’s a nifty system: First you get your users to entrust their personal data to you, and then you not only sell that data to advertisers but you get the users to be the vector for the ads. And what do the users get in return? An animated Sprite Sips character to interact with.
Henry Blodget asks, not unreasonably: Will advertisers pay people to recommend their products to friends? (That would be a bad idea, but you never know what Madison Avenue will try to do next).
And Umair Haque warns of adverse selection with Facebook ads that are presented as updates to people’s feeds (aka Beacons). Excerpt:
Yes, we all know referrals are powerful. But real referrals aren’t what Facebook’s offering. Real referrals aren’t broadcasting preferences; they are matching preferences. See the difference?
Beacon is essentially a biased market mechanism. That is, advertisers have control - but connected consumers (despite Facebook’s hype) don’t.
The synthetic relevance Facebook is pushing is a drug for the strung-out advertisers of the world: they desperately need a hit of something to make them believe they matter again.
As advertisers buy into Facebook - no one will be better off - except Facebook.
Marketers and firms won’t gain true connection with consumers.
And, crucially, consumers will be trapped into not just receiving crappy ads - but sending them as well.
These are all valid points. The best referrals come from people who know you have a particular need or are looking for something. They usually come out of a conversation. “Have you seen any good movies lately?” “Oh yeah, just last week we rented . . .” I only want referrals when I need them. If all my friends and casual acquaintances start bombarding me with referrals that are not matched to what I need, that could very quickly just become another source of noise I need to filter out.
And yet, it is just too soon to tell where all this will go. Granted, many of the advertising partners that have jumped on board this bandwagon are faceless consumer products companies. I am not sure I want to be a fan of Sprite or Chase or Verizon (and I am a customer of all of these brands). But some of the partnerships do make sense. I don’t mind identifying myself as a fan of the New York Times.
The social ads that will work will tend to be niche or high-end brands that people really like to show off because it says something about who they are. They will also work for other media sites where people already interact in a social way.
For instance, Epicurious now knows if you are a Facebook member and broadcasts any recipe you rate or save on the site to all your friends on Facebook (via their feeds). You can opt out if you don’t want to share this information, but it seems to me to be very similar to what people are already seeing in their feeds. “I like this recipe, check it out.” The New York Times will be doing something similar for travel ratings, movie ratings and reviews, and articles you save or e-mail (except, in that case, you will have to opt in to share the information and it won’t say who you are emailing it to). That too seems to me to be in keeping with the spirit of the Mini feed. “Here’s an article you should read.”
But those are not product endorsements. They are more akin to other Facebook applications, except that they are surfacing activity from a different site. Which is why I think that for this to work advertisers need to think more like developers. Help people do something useful, informative, or fun, and they will gladly broadcast that experience to the world. If people see these as ads, they will revolt. If they see them as indistinguishable from the stream of Facebook chatter already in their feeds (which is often inane, but addictive nonetheless), the messages will have a better chance of getting through.
This, some resources and further inspiration on apps and what some companies are already doing out there
Best of facebook - a site where people vote on applications
Facebook ads - facebook's page with all you need to know about the new ad developments and how to use them
Oktoberfest Lives On – seems quite popular app that ties beer to an event!!!
Verizon Wireless – group page, more a content webspace within facebook, rather than an app
Coke – very basic ‘product’ profile page. They don’t even own their own url!
Sprite – quite extensive product profile page and interaction app
The New York times: – company profile page
The New York times: – company profile page
epicurious - quite extensive product profile page
Thursday, November 8, 2007
My (Early) Predictions For 2008
Wednesday, November 7, 2007
By Cory Treffiletti
Can you believe it's already November? Where'd all the time go? It seems like just yesterday I was getting settled back in San Francisco, sitting around counting the days till the iPhone was released, and planning the way I'd ask my fiancé to marry me! Ahhh... how time flies.
Of course, now that it's November, there's no better time than the present to lay out my predictions for 2008! I know, I know... some of you might think it's a little early, but I like to be first, so that none of my predictions are too heavily influenced by what everyone else is thinking. So with that brief explanation for jumping the gun, here are some of my bold and not-so-bold predictions for 2008:
1. P2P will become an important, ad-supported vehicle for reaching consumers. The P2P market is fast trying to push forward with ad-supported models and they are being very aggressive in trying new ideas. Patience is no longer a virtue in the music business, as more people are recognizing that digital has effectively increased the opportunity for interaction directly between the artists and the consumers. This is especially important as it's not all about music in this environment now - it's about video as well. This market will mature quickly simply because there is a lot of volume, and it provides an untapped resource with detailed behavioral information. The dirty word of "P2P" will likely go away and advertisers will begin to be more enticed by this environment.
2. The maturation of mobile as an ad-supported medium is still 1-2 years away, but mobile search will increase dramatically and usher in the beginning of this stage of growth. Mobile has been promised for many years, but hasn't yet met expectations. This year saw the iPhone launch, and the game here effectively changed because of the interface and the integration of such application as Google Maps, etc. With the platform now open for developers and with Google becoming aggressive in this market, the opportunity to reach consumers here will increase. Video is still too far away to be a viable ad-supported mobile medium, but search is the killer app on phones, and advertising in this portion of the platform will dramatically increase attention toward mobile in much the same way it did on the Internet. Dollars will flow to mobile search quickly, ushering in mobile platforms as ad-supported vehicles. Which brings us to the next prediction...
3. The Google phone and version 2.0 of the iPhone (increased memory, more applications) will dominate the sales of smart phones. With the Google phone getting coverage in The New York Times, it is close to becoming a reality. Other players will launch new phones, but none will come as close to the cool factor as these two companies. 'Nuff said.
4. Standards for online video advertising will be announced... by NBC, CBS and ABC. The fact that standards will be announced is not the surprising part. The surprise is that this movement will be led by the major television networks, notoriously slow to lead the packaging of online video. Still, the networks are also the leading source of quality video content that is accessible and of interest to the mass audience! As eyeballs come from TV to the Web to see this content, and as tools emerge for the management of the syndication of video content and the associated advertising, the networks will be in a power position to manage these standards and lead the industry forward. For better or for worse, that's what I see happening.
5. Social media will develop the "killer app": an aggregate buying tool for groups. I have always said that social media is the digital extension of multi-level marketing (Amway, Mary Kay, etc.). The common element between these two models is commerce and the aggregation of consumers to purchase products (though in different ways).
I think that social media will become a VERY useful tool when social networks are used to benefit the individual user along with the group (as in business networking, etc.). I see the killer app as an aggregate commerce engine where you can gather together 10 of your friends looking to buy a flat-screen TV and buy them all in bulk at a discounted price, shipped to each separate location. It's Costco embedded in your social network, and it puts the "social graph" to a practical purpose. The logistics of this may be difficult, but I think it will be inevitable.
That leaves me to a couple of predictions related to Facebook:
· Facebook will not be bought in 2008, nor will it go public.
· The OpenSocial initiative will not hurt Facebook, but it might decrease its valuation slightly.
For my final prediction: The role of the media planner will become even more difficult, as these emerging formats become more widely used by consumers and a more viable opportunity for interaction with brands. There are lots of implications for these trends, but I'll have to hold off on that explanation for another day.
What do you think?
By Cory Treffiletti
Can you believe it's already November? Where'd all the time go? It seems like just yesterday I was getting settled back in San Francisco, sitting around counting the days till the iPhone was released, and planning the way I'd ask my fiancé to marry me! Ahhh... how time flies.
Of course, now that it's November, there's no better time than the present to lay out my predictions for 2008! I know, I know... some of you might think it's a little early, but I like to be first, so that none of my predictions are too heavily influenced by what everyone else is thinking. So with that brief explanation for jumping the gun, here are some of my bold and not-so-bold predictions for 2008:
1. P2P will become an important, ad-supported vehicle for reaching consumers. The P2P market is fast trying to push forward with ad-supported models and they are being very aggressive in trying new ideas. Patience is no longer a virtue in the music business, as more people are recognizing that digital has effectively increased the opportunity for interaction directly between the artists and the consumers. This is especially important as it's not all about music in this environment now - it's about video as well. This market will mature quickly simply because there is a lot of volume, and it provides an untapped resource with detailed behavioral information. The dirty word of "P2P" will likely go away and advertisers will begin to be more enticed by this environment.
2. The maturation of mobile as an ad-supported medium is still 1-2 years away, but mobile search will increase dramatically and usher in the beginning of this stage of growth. Mobile has been promised for many years, but hasn't yet met expectations. This year saw the iPhone launch, and the game here effectively changed because of the interface and the integration of such application as Google Maps, etc. With the platform now open for developers and with Google becoming aggressive in this market, the opportunity to reach consumers here will increase. Video is still too far away to be a viable ad-supported mobile medium, but search is the killer app on phones, and advertising in this portion of the platform will dramatically increase attention toward mobile in much the same way it did on the Internet. Dollars will flow to mobile search quickly, ushering in mobile platforms as ad-supported vehicles. Which brings us to the next prediction...
3. The Google phone and version 2.0 of the iPhone (increased memory, more applications) will dominate the sales of smart phones. With the Google phone getting coverage in The New York Times, it is close to becoming a reality. Other players will launch new phones, but none will come as close to the cool factor as these two companies. 'Nuff said.
4. Standards for online video advertising will be announced... by NBC, CBS and ABC. The fact that standards will be announced is not the surprising part. The surprise is that this movement will be led by the major television networks, notoriously slow to lead the packaging of online video. Still, the networks are also the leading source of quality video content that is accessible and of interest to the mass audience! As eyeballs come from TV to the Web to see this content, and as tools emerge for the management of the syndication of video content and the associated advertising, the networks will be in a power position to manage these standards and lead the industry forward. For better or for worse, that's what I see happening.
5. Social media will develop the "killer app": an aggregate buying tool for groups. I have always said that social media is the digital extension of multi-level marketing (Amway, Mary Kay, etc.). The common element between these two models is commerce and the aggregation of consumers to purchase products (though in different ways).
I think that social media will become a VERY useful tool when social networks are used to benefit the individual user along with the group (as in business networking, etc.). I see the killer app as an aggregate commerce engine where you can gather together 10 of your friends looking to buy a flat-screen TV and buy them all in bulk at a discounted price, shipped to each separate location. It's Costco embedded in your social network, and it puts the "social graph" to a practical purpose. The logistics of this may be difficult, but I think it will be inevitable.
That leaves me to a couple of predictions related to Facebook:
· Facebook will not be bought in 2008, nor will it go public.
· The OpenSocial initiative will not hurt Facebook, but it might decrease its valuation slightly.
For my final prediction: The role of the media planner will become even more difficult, as these emerging formats become more widely used by consumers and a more viable opportunity for interaction with brands. There are lots of implications for these trends, but I'll have to hold off on that explanation for another day.
What do you think?
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