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.
Friday, November 9, 2007
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?
Google Coming To A Gas Station Near You
November 7 2007
By Duncan Riley
Google’s quest to be everywhere continues to grow with news that the Mountain View search giant will today announce a new deal that will see motorists in the United States hooking up to Google at the gas station.
Pumps made by Gilbarco Veeder-Root Inc will include an Internet connection and will display Google Maps on a small color screen. Motorists will be able to obtain directions to hotels, restaurants, hospitals, or other local landmarks as specified by the gas station owner and get a print out from the pump to take with them.
Google will not be displaying ads against the content, however there may be opportunities for coupons and similar revenue streams at a local level directly with each gas station owner. The initial roll out will be 3,500 gas stations with future expansion dependent on demand.
AP quotes Google’s Karen Roter Davis saying that the move is part of Google’s drive to make its services available whenever and wherever people need them; “This will be sort of a Googley, more stealthy way of getting directions,” she said. Googley indeed
By Duncan Riley
Google’s quest to be everywhere continues to grow with news that the Mountain View search giant will today announce a new deal that will see motorists in the United States hooking up to Google at the gas station.
Pumps made by Gilbarco Veeder-Root Inc will include an Internet connection and will display Google Maps on a small color screen. Motorists will be able to obtain directions to hotels, restaurants, hospitals, or other local landmarks as specified by the gas station owner and get a print out from the pump to take with them.
Google will not be displaying ads against the content, however there may be opportunities for coupons and similar revenue streams at a local level directly with each gas station owner. The initial roll out will be 3,500 gas stations with future expansion dependent on demand.
AP quotes Google’s Karen Roter Davis saying that the move is part of Google’s drive to make its services available whenever and wherever people need them; “This will be sort of a Googley, more stealthy way of getting directions,” she said. Googley indeed
Facebook Ad Backlash Begins
November 7 2007
Erick Schonfeld
Erick Schonfeld
Within hours of Facebook¹s 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 don¹t want to be targeted,
don¹t share information on Facebook. Perhaps the more important question,
though, is around the relevance of the ads themselves.
Already, there¹s been some insightful critiques on this front. Nick Carr
started things off with his tart summary: ³The medium is the message from
our sponsor.² He goes on to point out that becoming a fan of a animated
Sprite can is not exactly a revolution in advertising: sprite-sips.png
It¹s 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 people¹s feeds (aka Beacons). Excerpt:
Yes, we all know referrals are powerful. But real referrals aren¹t what
Facebook¹s offering. Real referrals aren¹t 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 Facebook¹s hype) don¹t.
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 won¹t 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. ³Have you seen any good movies lately?² ³Oh yeah, just
last week we rented . . .² 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 don¹t mind identifying myself as a
fan of the New York Times.
Wednesday, November 7, 2007
OnlineSpin: Do The Laws Of Branding Not Apply Online? -
Do The Laws Of Branding Not Apply Online?
By Joe Marchese
Don't get me wrong, I love what Microsoft is doing. The concept of proper "click attribution," or giving credit to all of the impression prior to a click that may have contributed to the end result, is an important step in the evolution of online advertising ("Microsoft Regarding Google: If you Can't Beat'Em..." <http://blogs.mediapost.com/spin/?p=1138> ). And Microsoft, as well as many others, is well motivated to solve this important equation to get its share of current online marketing budgets since the odds of breaking into search, where Google currently reaps all the benefit, are long at best.
The problem with looking to click attribution as the solution to branding online is that the practice still only values impressions that happen to precede or alter online behavior. That means an impression must be part of an online "click value chain" to have any value. What should be worrisome about this to the Web community (web publisher and would-be Google challengers alike) is that by taking this approach, we are saying that the sum value of all impressions on the Internet can only be equal in value to the sum total of all ROI on fully optimized direct response campaigns. In short, if the click or acquisition is all that matters, then there is still no accounting for branding.
What is missing from click attribution methodology is any accounting of online marketing changing offline behavior and people's brand perceptions (which may not alter their online behavior). This is the key to unlocking brand dollars online. And much of the squeeze in online branding is being inflicted by the brands themselves. I have actually had agencies tell me that clients only want online campaigns that have measurable ROI, because they spend plenty of money in "other media" for branding purposes that they can't track.
The problem here is that marketers want to play both sides of the coin. They want their ROI and their branding too; they just don't admit it. Here's a perfect example for the definitive ROI based marketing services, a search engine marketing firm (source and industry to remain anonymous, also paraphrased for effect):
Client: I will hold you accountable to ROI metrics.
SEM: OK, here are the key words and text ads we are going to run.
Client: You can't use the work 'cheap' in our ads!
SEM: But the click rate will go up, and therefore you will pay less and get a better ROI.
Client: We can't have the word 'cheap' in ads for our product/services.
SEM: OK, we will use something else.
Client: Great. And we will continue to hold you accountable for ROI.
The difference in branding online vs. acquisition online is this: Is your marketing aimed at acquiring a transaction or a customer? I think the example above proves that even the most ROI-driven exercises are still looking to build particular perceptions so as to acquire customers, because acquiring transactions would have been easier with the word "cheap" in the ad.
Finally, we have our infamous funnel. Sitting at the top (wide mouth of the funnel) is all the people who have awareness of your brand; as you proceed down the funnel, you then have all those people with favorable brand perception; then action, then purchase. If online can be proven out as a medium that can significantly increase the top of the funnel (awareness and perception) for a brand and actually create a brand, then we can begin to see the tipping point we discussed last week in "A Tipping Point For Social Media Advertising." <http://blogs.mediapost.com/spin/?p=1161> The problem with click attribution is that while it looks to back out the value of impressions at the top of the funnel (display) based on actions that occur at the bottom of the funnel (transactions), because online transactions only make up a percentage of overall transactions (where offline still dominates), then online impressions can only receive credit for a percentage of their potential value.
By Joe Marchese
Don't get me wrong, I love what Microsoft is doing. The concept of proper "click attribution," or giving credit to all of the impression prior to a click that may have contributed to the end result, is an important step in the evolution of online advertising ("Microsoft Regarding Google: If you Can't Beat'Em..." <http://blogs.mediapost.com/spin/?p=1138> ). And Microsoft, as well as many others, is well motivated to solve this important equation to get its share of current online marketing budgets since the odds of breaking into search, where Google currently reaps all the benefit, are long at best.
The problem with looking to click attribution as the solution to branding online is that the practice still only values impressions that happen to precede or alter online behavior. That means an impression must be part of an online "click value chain" to have any value. What should be worrisome about this to the Web community (web publisher and would-be Google challengers alike) is that by taking this approach, we are saying that the sum value of all impressions on the Internet can only be equal in value to the sum total of all ROI on fully optimized direct response campaigns. In short, if the click or acquisition is all that matters, then there is still no accounting for branding.
What is missing from click attribution methodology is any accounting of online marketing changing offline behavior and people's brand perceptions (which may not alter their online behavior). This is the key to unlocking brand dollars online. And much of the squeeze in online branding is being inflicted by the brands themselves. I have actually had agencies tell me that clients only want online campaigns that have measurable ROI, because they spend plenty of money in "other media" for branding purposes that they can't track.
The problem here is that marketers want to play both sides of the coin. They want their ROI and their branding too; they just don't admit it. Here's a perfect example for the definitive ROI based marketing services, a search engine marketing firm (source and industry to remain anonymous, also paraphrased for effect):
Client: I will hold you accountable to ROI metrics.
SEM: OK, here are the key words and text ads we are going to run.
Client: You can't use the work 'cheap' in our ads!
SEM: But the click rate will go up, and therefore you will pay less and get a better ROI.
Client: We can't have the word 'cheap' in ads for our product/services.
SEM: OK, we will use something else.
Client: Great. And we will continue to hold you accountable for ROI.
The difference in branding online vs. acquisition online is this: Is your marketing aimed at acquiring a transaction or a customer? I think the example above proves that even the most ROI-driven exercises are still looking to build particular perceptions so as to acquire customers, because acquiring transactions would have been easier with the word "cheap" in the ad.
Finally, we have our infamous funnel. Sitting at the top (wide mouth of the funnel) is all the people who have awareness of your brand; as you proceed down the funnel, you then have all those people with favorable brand perception; then action, then purchase. If online can be proven out as a medium that can significantly increase the top of the funnel (awareness and perception) for a brand and actually create a brand, then we can begin to see the tipping point we discussed last week in "A Tipping Point For Social Media Advertising." <http://blogs.mediapost.com/spin/?p=1161> The problem with click attribution is that while it looks to back out the value of impressions at the top of the funnel (display) based on actions that occur at the bottom of the funnel (transactions), because online transactions only make up a percentage of overall transactions (where offline still dominates), then online impressions can only receive credit for a percentage of their potential value.
Tuesday, November 6, 2007
Beckoning Boomers to the Web
Eons and TeeBeeDee both court the over-50 crowd, but their diverging paths illustrate the differences between Web 1.0 and Web 2.0
by Sarah Lacy
In the summer of 2006 my inbox was flooded with pitches from new Web companies hoping to bring some of the MySpace (NWS) magic to the largest and most neglected demographic on the Web: baby boomers. Makes perfect sense. Boomers represent a huge market, and more than 65% of Americans between the ages of 50 and 70 use the Internet. Many would feel out of place on MySpace or Facebook, though they'd still like to connect online. And advertisers who use the online medium would certainly like to reach them.
A year later, many boomer-focused sites are discovering it's a lot harder than they thought to build a MySpace for adults. There are plenty of contenders, including Gather and BoomJ. But the duo that most interests me is last year's glitziest entrant, Eons.com, and a scrappy newcomer, TeeBeeDee, standing for both "the boomer demographic" and "to be determined," a reference to the options open to people in the postkids and retirement stage of life.
Eons and TeeBeeDee are a study in the contrasts between Webs 1.0 and 2.0 and how each generation of companies views—and tries to conquer—its respective corner of the world.
A Portal for All Things Boomer
Reminiscent of an earlier Web era, Eons has pedigree, cash, and eyeballs: Founder Jeff Taylor previously founded Monster Worldwide (MNST); Eons has raised $32 million from Sequoia Capital and General Catalyst Partners; and it gets about 600,000 unique visitors a month, according to comScore (SCOR).
Headquartered in Boston, Eons launched with fanfare, issuing press releases about its cash, early advertisers, and how Taylor—a few years shy of 50—left a cushy job to start this new venture. Reporters ate it up (BusinessWeek.com, 10/16/07). And since free press only gets you so far, Eons began spending hundreds of thousands of dollars a month on marketing.
Taylor also did copious market research and found that virtually none of his focus group participants wanted anything to do with social networking. So Eons began as more of a portal for all things boomer, with a staff writing articles about life-changing topics boomers face. Taylor soon discovered his focus was wrong. An article on how to quit smoking would get a paltry 30 page views, while a posting from a user who hadn't smoked in 51 hours but said he was tempted to have a cigarette would get 300 comments. "It was clear people wanted to talk to each other, not get talked to," Taylor says.
Indeed, much of the early Eons approach was out of step. Credentials, lavish spending, even large audiences—all of it was paramount in the 1990s, when entrepreneurs dreamed more of huge brands than useful sites, and getting to market first was more important than getting to market right. Spending millions of dollars—including on TV commercials—to buy traffic, as Eons did, is now anathema to many who lived through the excesses of 1999 and 2000 and paid dearly when it all crashed. Better to invest in engineers who can build a product so indispensable it spreads on its own.
Authenticity Over Market Research
Compare all of this to TeeBeeDee, begun by Parenting magazine and CNET Networks (CNET) veteran Robin Wolaner. The company has put out a grand total of two press releases and spent a few thousand dollars on marketing. It has raised a modest $7.5 million from Shasta Ventures, Monitor Ventures, and several angel investors including Ron Conway. Wolaner has hired just 19 people. TBD did some modest market research but ignored most of it. Wolaner says she learned to distrust research after working in Penthouse magazine's promotion department, where she used market research to "prove" to advertisers that people bought the magazine for the articles, not the pictures.
Instead, her team mostly built what they would like to see online and figured they'd iterate from there. That's much the way some of the most successful Web 2.0 startups, including Yelp, Digg, and Facebook, were born. TBD is a lot like those companies in other key ways: It's housed in a dingy, anonymous building in San Francisco's South of Market district. Desks are scattered around a wide open space, there's a buzz of activity, and everyone is dressed casually, many in TeeBeeDee T-shirts. The only difference: Almost everyone working there is over 40.
Which underscores another key Web 2.0 hallmark: authenticity. Every great social networking site was built by someone the community can trust and relate to. Early on, college kids and recent graduates could identify with Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg. And what early MySpace hipsters didn't have a little affinity for the ubiquitous, automatic first "friend," MySpace co-founder Tom Anderson, even if he was lying about his age? Building a site by listening to hundreds of thousands of vocal members is hard work, but the more a site is built for you and your peers, the easier it is to understand what they have to say.
What to Do Next
Since Taylor, 47, can't even join his own site, which bars anyone under 50, Eons is breaking the cardinal rule of the Web 2.0 handbook from the get-go. Wolaner's site, on the other hand, has no such restrictions, because it's focused less on that pivotal birthday and more on the stage of life when you start to see more wrinkles, your career may be less important, your kids are out of the house, and you're figuring out what comes next. It's her stage of life. Wolaner, 53, knows well the feeling of getting that first AARP mailing at 50. It's not "Oh, great, I get a discount!" she says. Instead, it's "Ew, am I really old enough for this?"
To its credit, Eons has adapted well to at least one Web 2.0 way of doing business: iteration. The site has learned from early mistakes and reacted swiftly, recasting itself as a social network. Eons has slashed marketing and hopes to take off through word-of-mouth instead. The feisty Taylor is coming around to the benefits of a small but loyal community, over a mass torrent of clickers who don't stick around. "Everything about me is saying we need to get this business to grow, but I am learning to do things differently this time," he says.
Capital Can't Buy Community
As a result, the distinctions between the sites now are diminished. Both recognize that boomers want a site that will help them meet new people and organize around common interests. Both understand they have to be simple and intuitive so they lure more than just early adopters. And, Eon's early missteps aside, both realize listening to users will get them there.
So who will win? Part of that answer depends on what each company counts as success. Expanding to 600,000 users in a year clearly wasn't enough to support Eons' original business model, prompting layoffs of 35% of its staff. But TBD, with its lean staff and expenses, would be thrilled to hit those numbers sometime in the next year. Because, at its core, TBD gets something Eons still may not: To build a huge Web 2.0 company, it's not about getting big fast, it's about getting it right first and then growing. A community needs to love your site, and no amount of venture capital or advertising can buy that.
Lacy has been a business reporter for 10 years, most recently covering technology for BusinessWeek. Her book on the new generation of Internet moguls and the rise of Web 2.0 will be published by Penguin Publishing in 2008.
by Sarah Lacy
In the summer of 2006 my inbox was flooded with pitches from new Web companies hoping to bring some of the MySpace (NWS) magic to the largest and most neglected demographic on the Web: baby boomers. Makes perfect sense. Boomers represent a huge market, and more than 65% of Americans between the ages of 50 and 70 use the Internet. Many would feel out of place on MySpace or Facebook, though they'd still like to connect online. And advertisers who use the online medium would certainly like to reach them.
A year later, many boomer-focused sites are discovering it's a lot harder than they thought to build a MySpace for adults. There are plenty of contenders, including Gather and BoomJ. But the duo that most interests me is last year's glitziest entrant, Eons.com, and a scrappy newcomer, TeeBeeDee, standing for both "the boomer demographic" and "to be determined," a reference to the options open to people in the postkids and retirement stage of life.
Eons and TeeBeeDee are a study in the contrasts between Webs 1.0 and 2.0 and how each generation of companies views—and tries to conquer—its respective corner of the world.
A Portal for All Things Boomer
Reminiscent of an earlier Web era, Eons has pedigree, cash, and eyeballs: Founder Jeff Taylor previously founded Monster Worldwide (MNST); Eons has raised $32 million from Sequoia Capital and General Catalyst Partners; and it gets about 600,000 unique visitors a month, according to comScore (SCOR).
Headquartered in Boston, Eons launched with fanfare, issuing press releases about its cash, early advertisers, and how Taylor—a few years shy of 50—left a cushy job to start this new venture. Reporters ate it up (BusinessWeek.com, 10/16/07). And since free press only gets you so far, Eons began spending hundreds of thousands of dollars a month on marketing.
Taylor also did copious market research and found that virtually none of his focus group participants wanted anything to do with social networking. So Eons began as more of a portal for all things boomer, with a staff writing articles about life-changing topics boomers face. Taylor soon discovered his focus was wrong. An article on how to quit smoking would get a paltry 30 page views, while a posting from a user who hadn't smoked in 51 hours but said he was tempted to have a cigarette would get 300 comments. "It was clear people wanted to talk to each other, not get talked to," Taylor says.
Indeed, much of the early Eons approach was out of step. Credentials, lavish spending, even large audiences—all of it was paramount in the 1990s, when entrepreneurs dreamed more of huge brands than useful sites, and getting to market first was more important than getting to market right. Spending millions of dollars—including on TV commercials—to buy traffic, as Eons did, is now anathema to many who lived through the excesses of 1999 and 2000 and paid dearly when it all crashed. Better to invest in engineers who can build a product so indispensable it spreads on its own.
Authenticity Over Market Research
Compare all of this to TeeBeeDee, begun by Parenting magazine and CNET Networks (CNET) veteran Robin Wolaner. The company has put out a grand total of two press releases and spent a few thousand dollars on marketing. It has raised a modest $7.5 million from Shasta Ventures, Monitor Ventures, and several angel investors including Ron Conway. Wolaner has hired just 19 people. TBD did some modest market research but ignored most of it. Wolaner says she learned to distrust research after working in Penthouse magazine's promotion department, where she used market research to "prove" to advertisers that people bought the magazine for the articles, not the pictures.
Instead, her team mostly built what they would like to see online and figured they'd iterate from there. That's much the way some of the most successful Web 2.0 startups, including Yelp, Digg, and Facebook, were born. TBD is a lot like those companies in other key ways: It's housed in a dingy, anonymous building in San Francisco's South of Market district. Desks are scattered around a wide open space, there's a buzz of activity, and everyone is dressed casually, many in TeeBeeDee T-shirts. The only difference: Almost everyone working there is over 40.
Which underscores another key Web 2.0 hallmark: authenticity. Every great social networking site was built by someone the community can trust and relate to. Early on, college kids and recent graduates could identify with Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg. And what early MySpace hipsters didn't have a little affinity for the ubiquitous, automatic first "friend," MySpace co-founder Tom Anderson, even if he was lying about his age? Building a site by listening to hundreds of thousands of vocal members is hard work, but the more a site is built for you and your peers, the easier it is to understand what they have to say.
What to Do Next
Since Taylor, 47, can't even join his own site, which bars anyone under 50, Eons is breaking the cardinal rule of the Web 2.0 handbook from the get-go. Wolaner's site, on the other hand, has no such restrictions, because it's focused less on that pivotal birthday and more on the stage of life when you start to see more wrinkles, your career may be less important, your kids are out of the house, and you're figuring out what comes next. It's her stage of life. Wolaner, 53, knows well the feeling of getting that first AARP mailing at 50. It's not "Oh, great, I get a discount!" she says. Instead, it's "Ew, am I really old enough for this?"
To its credit, Eons has adapted well to at least one Web 2.0 way of doing business: iteration. The site has learned from early mistakes and reacted swiftly, recasting itself as a social network. Eons has slashed marketing and hopes to take off through word-of-mouth instead. The feisty Taylor is coming around to the benefits of a small but loyal community, over a mass torrent of clickers who don't stick around. "Everything about me is saying we need to get this business to grow, but I am learning to do things differently this time," he says.
Capital Can't Buy Community
As a result, the distinctions between the sites now are diminished. Both recognize that boomers want a site that will help them meet new people and organize around common interests. Both understand they have to be simple and intuitive so they lure more than just early adopters. And, Eon's early missteps aside, both realize listening to users will get them there.
So who will win? Part of that answer depends on what each company counts as success. Expanding to 600,000 users in a year clearly wasn't enough to support Eons' original business model, prompting layoffs of 35% of its staff. But TBD, with its lean staff and expenses, would be thrilled to hit those numbers sometime in the next year. Because, at its core, TBD gets something Eons still may not: To build a huge Web 2.0 company, it's not about getting big fast, it's about getting it right first and then growing. A community needs to love your site, and no amount of venture capital or advertising can buy that.
Lacy has been a business reporter for 10 years, most recently covering technology for BusinessWeek. Her book on the new generation of Internet moguls and the rise of Web 2.0 will be published by Penguin Publishing in 2008.
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