Tag Archives: Online advertising

March 19, 2014 · 9:48 am

Data, Data Everywhere (Part 1)

Today’s rant is one of those about a couple of discordant pieces of information that found me this morning.  Maybe I read too many things and I get confused – it happens.  On the other hand, the two articles I’m going to cite are fairly typical of some thinking that’s floating around in digital media and marketing.  I’ll deal with the first one today and the second one tomorrow since I’m not big on 1,000 word posts . Let’s see what you think.

Both these pieces came from MediaPost – one from a marketing newsletter and one from an agency newsletter.  Let’s start with the latter.  In an article entitled “Digital Is The Least Accountable Of Media,” the head of the ANA  is reported as having claimed that

Digital media, once thought to be the most accountable media turned out to be the least accountable, with viewability levels, according to some studies, hovering around just 50%. That’s got to change or advertisers will pull dollars off the table…the industry has to improve media measurement significantly. Marketers obviously need and want to buy digital media, but the return on investment has been hugely disappointing.

There is that nasty term – “viewability”- again.  It means that some ads on web pages are on parts of the page that aren’t seen (scrolled down to) and yet since they are served when the page is served they’re counted as having been displayed.  I’ve added a couple of articles on the topic below.  I have issues with digital being singled out for that since no one takes people leaving the room to go to the bathroom into their TV commercial ratings nor people turning down the volume for radio measurement.  Frankly, given that digital is the only medium of which I’m aware that doesn’t use sampling when gauging audiences I’m not sure why it’s held to a different standard.  Sure, digital has other issues (traffic fraud being the worst) but data isn’t one of them.

Which leads to the second article about that data and a new study about how it affects the top people in marketing which I’ll cover tomorrow.  Let’s just say there doesn’t seem to be a demand to get more data from digital.  Stay tuned.

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July 8, 2013 · 11:04 am

Something For Nothing

Let’s start the week with a little bit of common sense backed up by some research.

Mobile-phone-advertising

(Photo credit: Wikipedia)

You might categorize the recent study released by Millward Brown, in partnership with SessionM, in the “duh” bin and you wouldn’t be far off but it serves as a good reminder of some basic marketing thoughts.  The study is called Exploring the Role of Value in Mobile Advertising and it talks about how to break through low favorability of mobile advertising by offering more tangible value in brands’ marketing content.  You can read the study here (pdf) if you want but mobile ads are close to the bottom of consumer‘s likes. Only 9% of people have a favorable attitude toward them (opt-in email tops the rankings at 28%, showing that mobile advertising in general has a problem).

Here is the “duh” part that carried over to just about anything you’re doing in marketing:

  • Consumers presently reward brands that deliver on that value in exchange for their loyalty
  • Reward-based mobile advertising succeeds when  the advertising execution is timely, chosen &  relevant and the reward is predictable, tangible & chosen.
  • Advertisers need to be mindful of the value exchange they offer through their mobile marketing efforts and make certain it is commensurate with their audience’s expectations.

In other words, answer the “why do I care” question and make sure your answer is coming from the consumer’s point of view.  Make sure that any time the consumer is spending on you is paid back many times over.  Look to surprise them and in a way that’s meaningful to them.  Be visible but unintrusive – show ads at natural break points (we all hate pop-ups that stop us from reading or video ads – TV or steaming – that interrupt our experience).  You have to give them something for their attention and engagement – you can’t get something (their loyalty) for nothing.

Where we fail as marketers is the place where our branding needs climb over those of our consumers or potential consumers.  We need to avoid that place like the plague, whether it’s on mobile devices or anyplace else.  This research shows it yet again but one would hope that common sense – and the ability to approach marketing as a consumer and not a brand maven – has us there already.  Does it?

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December 12, 2012 · 11:25 am

Click Here

We’ve discussed the disconnect between marketers and consumers here on the screed more than once and I had set aside a research study a couple of weeks ago to do so again.  It’s a document from the Adobe folks called “Click Here: The State Of Online Advertising” and it makes for a brief, interesting read.  As one might expect, consumers don’t exactly rave about their love for advertising.  That said, they do seem to recognize the need for advertising and prefer professionally created ads over user-generated marketing:

Consumers and marketing professionals agree that marketing is valued, strategic to business and paramount to driving sales.  Professional advertising is the most effective form of advertising, but 27% of marketers believe that user-generated content is the most popular form of online advertising.

Of course, 53% agree that most marketing is a bunch of B.S. (the study’s term, not mine).  The key to me is, as eMarketer reported:

Marketers and the consumers they are trying to reach disagreed on the effectiveness of a wide variety of ad types, according to the survey. Though both groups thought the best ads were those created by professional marketers, nearly half of marketers said this, compared with just 36% of internet users. There was large disagreement about the effectiveness of paid search ads (touted by marketers, played down by web users) and outdoor advertising (the reverse). Internet users were also much more likely to say there were no good or effective ads—positions which marketers were extremely unlikely to hold, for obvious reasons.

Why are the senders so out of sync with the receivers?  As the study shows, people prefer to get information from people they trust.  The issue, then, is how does a brand penetrate that circle?  Does anyone believe it’s through fake “likes” on Facebook where we see friends (even dead ones!) shilling for stuff they wouldn’t ever use?  Maybe we need to be less lazy – tell better stories, do better creative – since 68% of consumers find online ads “annoying” and “distracting” and 54% say banner ads don’t work. I suspect this dichotomy has ever been so to a certain extent.  For people in the market for various products, marketing messages are important and welcome.  For everyone else, they’re an annoying fact of life.

Here’s the thing – EVERYONE is in the market for something nearly all the time.  Food and entertainment, for example, are daily “purchases”.  As the research shows, until we on the marketing side do a better job of connecting, our ability to influence those decisions will always be less than it could be.   You agree?

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