Marketing a Brand on the Web

eMarketer has released a new study, "Brand Marketing Online: Paid, Owned, Earned," about the use of online advertising to promote a brand (sometimes called branding): "At this phase in brand marketing’s shift to the digital space, it is difficult to judge one media’s value by dollars alone. That said, marketers tend to spend more for paid media than owned or earned. And the trend toward more online brand-focused ad spending is clear: Between 2010 and 2014 it will rise from a 35.7% share to nearly 42%. The heraldeded Old Spice Man campaign from Procter & Gamble for example, started off with TV commercials (paid), migrated to a brand microsite and Facebook fan page (owned), and is still boosted by consumer interaction and word-of-mouth on social sites and beyond (earned)—while continuing to be fed by more online advertising to drive traffic."

Digital Media Throws Down the Gaunlet to Traditional Media: Yahoo Vs. TV

AdWeek reports that "Yahoo's competition is television. That's what Yahoo CEO Carol Bartz said yesterday at the Goldman Sachs Communacopia Conference. 'The real competitor is TV,' she said, promising that online advertising will not only get more rich, interactive and accountable, but also simpler to purchase." She also discussed the future of online advertising.

Meanwhile another post in AdWeek shows a weakness in online advertising. Solbright Digital Media Index shows that the cost per thousand (CPM) page views (one of the ways Websites are paid by advertisers for display ads) "climbed 9 percent during the first six months of this year compared to the same period in 2009. [The second quarter] ...was particularly strong, as CPMs jumped 17 percent over last year. Even so, CPMs over time have consistently declined as the Web has become saturated with inventory, according to Solbright. Data presented to Mediaweek showed that while CPMs have spiked with regularity during each fourth quarter over the past four years, overall display CPMs have slipped from a $16 average in 2006 to a $10 average this year."

Politicians Not Politicking on Web

AdWeek reports that "Following the recent digital-savvy campaigns led by Obama and Massachusetts Sen. Scott Brown, many expected a slew of imitators to emerge during the 2010 midterms, leading to a surge in online spending. But political ad insiders say that with the exception of a handful of digital-focused campaigns, few candidates are dumping dollars onto the Web, outside of social media and search. And with six weeks or so to go before Election Day, not many watchers are expecting a sudden surge."

Top 50 Brands in the World

As mentioned in readings and during lectures, brand recognition is the core element of any good marketing campaign. A company called Interbrand ranks them. Here are the results as published by AdWeek: "Coca-Cola, IBM and Microsoft again scored win, place and show honors in this year’s Interbrand ranking of the 100 Best Global Brands. Among other highlights, BP fell off the list and Hewlett-Packard jumped into the top 10 for the first time." For the complete list, click here.

Display Ads Larger for AOL

Earlier this week I referred to the increased emphasis on display advertising (compared to search ads). This ClickZ story supports that notion.

AOL will launch a super-sized ad format across its properties next week. The company will design it to minimize ad clutter and maximize advertiser impact. Recently the Online Publishers Association (OPA), conducted tests with similar sizing with online publishers such as Hearst and the New York Times. The story added that "according to AOL, both the effectiveness of advertising and the accessibility of content on the Internet are being diminished by ad clutter. Its solution is to bundle the ad real estate on its pages into one large-scale ad unit, enabling brands to occupy a much larger portion of the page and limiting clutter from banners, brand logos, and text ads."

OPA recently released “A Sense of Place: Why Environments Matter.” The research ferreted out how 2910 adult Americans "perceive content in different online environments, an whether these perceptions impact advertising receptivity and consumer response." The study assessed perceptions and responses in the following online environments:  "1) media properties (e.g., ESPN.com, iVillage, NYTimes.com, Wall Street Journal Digital Network; 2) portal channels (e.g., AOL News, MSN Money, Yahoo Sports) and 3) social networks (Facebook, MySpace)."
 
Top findings include the following:

• Sites with relevant content correlate strongly with audiences being loyal to these sites (a correlation score of .445).
• Sites with trusted content correlates strongly with the sites’ advertisers being perceived as reputable (a correlation score of .388).
• Brands perceived as relevant are more likely to have a response to their online ads (a correlation score of .353).

Blogging Still Major Social Networking Factor

eMarketer reports that "social networks and microblogs have in recent years nudged blogging off the social media pedestal. For some consumers, who have more communication tools at their fingertips than they did a few years ago, Facebook and Twitter have supplanted blogging as life-streaming outlets. But blogs continue to be important. eMarketer estimates that this year more than half of internet users will read blogs at least monthly. By 2014, readership will rise to more than 150 million Americans, or 60% of the internet population in the US. One reason for the rise in readership is that blogs have become an accepted part of the online media landscape."

JH Funds Website Receives Award

John Hancock Funds received a prestigious award from the Web Marketing Association (WMA) in its 2010 WebAwards competition.  John Hancock Funds' financial professional web site was recognized as the "Best of Industry" in the Mutual Funds category for 2010. The award marks the fourth year in a row that John Hancock Funds has taken top honors in the Mutual Funds category.

Marketing Chart's Top Ten for August

"The top 10 picks for August, with links to view on YouTube:
1. Gillette – Amazing Roger Federer Trickshot, agency: N/A
2. Heal the Bay – The Majestic Plastic Bag, agency: DDB
3. SNCF – Bienvenue, Au Revoir, agency: Rhett & Link / Platinum Rye / PainePR
4. Carlton Draught – Slo Mo, agency: Clemenger BBDO
5. Cadbury – I Gotta Be Me, agency: Saatchi & Saatchi
6. Puma – After Hours Athlete, agency: Droga5
7. Google – Google New Baby, agency: Google Creative Lab
8. V Energy – Pomparkour Ladder Sport, agency: Colenso BBDO
9. Drench – Cubehead, agency: CHI & Partners
10. Orbit – The Dancer, agency: Electus / DumbDumb / Energy BBDO," according to MarketingCharts.

And here is its Top Ten Sports Sites for August:

Google Uses Display Ad to Market Itself

"Google, the online search ad giant that rarely advertises, has decided it needs to advertise the fact that it is in the online display advertising business," according to article poste on NYTimes.

"Screen grabs from a video explaining Google’s campaign about its display advertising. Through a new 35-foot-wide, 13-foot-tall billboard in Times Square, Google makes the case that it will improve a stagnant sector of the advertising business. And if that is not enough advertising about advertising, it has picked one of the most crowded advertising venues to get the message out — Times Square.

For all of Google’s success, its business has been built on search ads, the simple four-line text ads that appear with search results. Google does not get as much attention for its display ads, which include images, video and audio, even though those ads appear on YouTube and the million Web sites using Google’s display ad network."

Just When You Thought Everyone Was Upfront

Advertisers approach bloggers and individuals on social media sites, such as Facebook and Twitter, and ask for plug--frequently in exchange from something, according to MarketingCharts.

Most Americans Spend More Time in Front of Screens than Working/Sleeping

An Ipsos OTX study of 7,000 online consumers found that people spend half their waking days interacting with media on televisions, computer screens, or cellphones. In the past two years, American's "media consumption" has increased an hour per day, and Americans, between 13 and 74, have increased their media consumption an hour per day over the past two years.

Mobile Ads Effective--Maybe Not

Remember what I said about mobile ads replacing apps? Here's the next question: If apps are not effective marketing tools, why should ads on mobile devices be any more effective? Good question. Possible answer: "Following the launch of its iAd advertising network this summer, Apple promptly announced the availability of an ad format designed specifically for application developers. According to some developers, however, trials of the ads so far have been unsuccessful, and resulted in far less return on investment than solutions offered by some rival networks," says a post on ClickZ.

It's so confusing, but then again cutting edge developments have always left business people frazzled. 

Yahoo Flexs Its Billion Dollar Muscle

WhatIstheTrend reported that Yahoo unveiled a three-year plan "to boost its sales by overhauling it Internet marketing services, and to reclaim its supremacy over Google." Yahoo also will develop new apps, such as an app for Yahoo Mail that will tie the email service in better with social networking sites.

Meanwhile WebProNews noted that "it looks like Yahoo is on Google's tail in terms of instant search and might trip up its rival with a legal objection.  Shashi Seth, Senior Vice President of Yahoo Search Products, has indicated that Google Instant infringes on perhaps five patents Yahoo holds." Google announced its new instant search a short while ago. 

This news comes shortly after Neilsen Co. announced that while Google remained the number one search engine in the U.S., Bing (Microsoft's reinvention of its search engine) overtook Yahoo, putting Bing in second place, Yahoo third.

Common Writing Mistakes

During the past decade I have discovered that students make common errors when writing, so much so that I created a list of those common mistakes and provided a solution to them. Some will see these exact phrases on your email reports. I anticipate that you will eliminate these problems from your writing by the end of the semester. You will discover that I will offer fewer explanations of what is wrong as the semester wears on. I expect you to learn from your mistakes; I do not expect you to constantly repeat them.

Common Writing Errors

Ability (yellow/red): You wrote about ability but you are describing actuality.

Contractions (red): You could have run spell/grammar check. Do not use contractions.

Defining (yellow): You are telling the reader what to think is true. You must explain to the reader why it is true.

Due to: Use “due to” only when you have a to-be verb. Use “because of.”

Double spaced: Because of the length long reports are double spaced.

1st/2^nd Person (blue): Do not use first or second person unless the reader recognizes you as an expert. And you would have discovered this if you used Word's spelling/grammar as suggested.

Font: Always use Times New Roman, 12 points unless otherwise instructed.

Future tense: Do not use “going to” for future tense. Use will.

Internet (orange) is a proper noun: Internet.

Introduction: Not reason to introduce the report/article in this fashion, especially when you have a citation.

Logic: One idea does not lead to another. You need a transition.

MLA Style: You are not following it. Go to this site and learn: <http://owl.english.purdue.edu/owl/section/2/11/>.

 

Now: Nowadays is vernacular. Use today or now.

Passive Voice: (Yellow and Gray): Ask who/what is doing the action. Then rewrite with that as the subject..

Punctuation and Quotation Marks: Punctuation always appears inside quotation marks.

Quotations: Quotation marks within quotation marks become single quotation marks (').

Run-on Sentence/Comma Splice: Run on sentence. Create two sentences. Grammar check would have caught this.

Singular (Company): When you mention a company, it is a singular noun, requiring singular pronouns such as it, its (and not they, their, and theirs).

Singular When Referring to an Individual: When you mention an individual, do not use the pronoun “their.” Use he/she if you do not know the gender of the individual. After the first reference, use the masculine form if you are male; use the feminine form if you are female.

Stacking Quotations: Do not stack quotations. You need a transition from one idea to the next.

Titles: Upper and Lower Case for Titles

List of Words You MUST Avoid

To be verbs/yellow (when used without verbs end in "ing" or verbs that appear to be in past tense): 

is, am, are, was, were, be, being, been.

First/second person/blue: I, me, my, mine, we, us, our, ours, you, your, yours.

Dumb words/Do not use again/red: important, interest, really, very, lot, able, going, contractions (such as don't, doesn't, won't, he's, she's, it's, he'll, she'll, it'll). 

Internet/orange: A proper noun spelled with an upper case (capital) I as in Internet.

Apps Make Not Work

"New figures from the Pew Internet Project provide some insight as to why app-based ads might not deliver the returns companies expect: a sizable number of users download apps but never get around to using them," according to a post by MediaBuyerPlanner. See full story here.

Shifting Turf of the Search Engine Market

MediaBuyerPlanner reports, "Search engines from Bing to Google to AOL to now Yahoo have been debuting redesigned search pages. The changes have ranged from cosmetic, to, in the case of Google Instant, a fundamental shift in how search is delivered. No matter where on the spectrum the changes are, though, marketers can find both opportunities and possible challenges."

As you read the article, ask how this information balances with what you have learned. If different, why and how? How does it affect your thinking about the search engines' impact on Internet marketing?

Video and Twitter--Appearing Soon on Your Nearest Screen

"With comScore reporting that 84.9 percent of the total internet population watches online video, businesses have been increasingly incorporating the platform in their digital marketing campaigns. Now, marketers are looking to target Twitter users, as the social network's recent redesign enables them to show videos without forcing users to navigate away from the site." That's the beginning of a story on RICG.

Could this open opportunities for marketing? Yes. Could this intensify competition among webpages as more publishers (website owners) post video? Could Google dominance of the advertising market be threatened as video grabs a larger share of the Internet advertising market? Contentment with yes/no answers will not serve you well. Details.

A "New" Bing--In the Hopes of Drawing More Visitors

"Bing has unveiled a preview of a beta for its new Internet Explorer 9 search page that has been enhanced with HTML5 functionality. These features include video as background on the homepage, search that is dynamically displayed and hardware acceleration support," according to a story from MarketingVox.

Advertisers Name Their Own Price

AdAge reports that "Brand.net is releasing a new buying platform...that would allow advertisers to purchase page views at specific prices ahead of time, a specialized form of hedging. The tool forecasts what prices for online ads will be at a future date within a particular category, such as entertainment or automobiles." 

FYI: Advertisers usually buy advertising space on webpages based on a demographic or product category, such as entertainment. They could purchase space for their ad on webpages based on demographics, such as women between the ages of 18 and 25. In the past, they made these purchases based on the posted price by the webpage, which could fluctuate (think of purchasing airline tickets). This program allows them the less expensive price. This is the result of competition among websites.