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Thanks to iMedia for inviting me to blog with them. You can now check out our blog posts at:

http://www.imediaconnection.com/profiles/iMedia_PC_BlogList.aspx?ID=5424

See you there!

The CIA Just Lost

If you read the blog post I wrote not 20 minutes ago, I suggested the CIA may now have some competition with Google owning all its new tools and technology. Wow, I wasn't mistaken.

Am I the only one thinking this is just ridiculous now!?!?!?!?!

Daily Changes Now Needed For Used Car Pricing

Interesting that these two stories come out within a week of each other. Speculators are driving the oil market, and (I would say) because of that, the prices of fuel-sipping and fuel-hogging vehicles goes up and down as fast as oil.

Good for Black Books. A wise move and necessary in today's economy.

VHS Is Coming - No One Will Ever Go To The Theatres Again!

How many of these do we have to have before we stop overreacting? Apparently at least one more.

The Future Is Clear - And Broken Up All The Same

Ok, so Google owns the majority of the ad serving market with DCLK, so they know which ads almost any given user has seen and acted on. Now Google wants to own the browser market with Chrome, which would enable them to also know your entire surfing history.

Add that to facial recognition within Picasa, which could be married to their majority share of the video viewing market (GooTube), and now they know who everyone is, when they're being video'd, which ads they see and click on, and their surfing pattern. Competition should be good for the CIA - inject a little entrepreneurial spirit into the red-taped agency!

What is really likely to happen is, like the old AT&T, Google will be broken up. Not sure you'll see a PacGoo, SBGoo, NYgle, Goo-itech, and others, but this type of "mwaaahaaahaaa" behavior will not go unnoticed for long.

These Don't Seem To Go Together

GM's ad budgets are taking cuts.

But this is today's Y! home page.

How Political Polling Needs to Change

By no means is political polling becoming irrelevant, but perhaps it's a tad less accurate? Whatever the case, this is fascinating stuff.

Email Surprise

A lot of folks will look at this and notice that very few seniors are social networking or texting. Or that there is a big drop-off between the 25-34 grouping and the 35-44 grouping for major activities.

The real nugget here? Nearly everyone emails - except 15-17 year-olds! Sure, 94% is still high but most marketers would think that certainly all young folks email. The reality is that with IM (whether through a traditional or social networking-type client) and texting now make it such that teens don't have any reason to touch email.

Watch out corporate america! Training these folks will involve more than expected in the future.

Hispanics Online - Smaller Volume But More Influential

As an ad network operator you'd think the last thing I'd say is that there's value in $12 (or $50, for that matter) inventory. But let's be honest. For reaching the right audience with guaranteed placements in premium positions within specific sites, it's often worth paying the first-run prices from publishers to get the right inventory.

But take CBS Sports Interactive and Conde Nast have both recently announced that they're going to try and compete with the networks on their own, by offering remnant deals through their in-house rep.

So let me get this straight. Your rep comes in and starts talking about a package with guaranteed inventory that blends out around $12. You say, "you know, that's great, but let's focus on that $4 inventory you've announced in the press lately." How is that a good thing? The benefit of selling to networks for publishers is that the advertiser is not guaranteed to run on any specific site, and that performance by site generally isn't shared. But now the agency can get performance by site and can be guaranteed they'll run on those exact sites.

I truly don't believe this threatens the network model because one huge benefit of a network is the ability to run across hundreds or thousands of sites and get the optimization that is inherent with the network model. But if publishers are looking to devalue their inventory more quickly, this is certainly one way to do it.

There Is Value In First-Choice Inventory - So Why Are Publishers Killing It?

As an ad network operator you'd think the last thing I'd say is that there's value in $12 (or $50, for that matter) inventory. But let's be honest. For reaching the right audience with guaranteed placements in premium positions within specific sites, it's often worth paying the first-run prices from publishers to get the right inventory.

But take CBS Sports Interactive and Conde Nast have both recently announced that they're going to try and compete with the networks on their own, by offering remnant deals through their in-house rep.

So let me get this straight. Your rep comes in and starts talking about a package with guaranteed inventory that blends out around $12. You say, "you know, that's great, but let's focus on that $4 inventory you've announced in the press lately." How is that a good thing? The benefit of selling to networks for publishers is that the advertiser is not guaranteed to run on any specific site, and that performance by site generally isn't shared. But now the agency can get performance by site and can be guaranteed they'll run on those exact sites.

I truly don't believe this threatens the network model because one huge benefit of a network is the ability to run across hundreds or thousands of sites and get the optimization that is inherent with the network model. But if publishers are looking to devalue their inventory more quickly, this is certainly one way to do it.

A Game They Play

Tell a premium ad network you're willing to pay $4 a thousand and they'll most likely tell you that you'll be on most of their sites but not all. Why?, you ask.

Well, the sites that cost more than $4 in their site list would be left off. Hmm, makes sense. But think about it further. What about the sites that cost less than $4 - how are those averaged out? The truth is that they're not. You'll be on $3, $3.50, and $4 sites, but nothing higher. That isn't right.

Beep! has made a conscious decision to make sure the average of the sites you're on within our network is what you're paying, not the cap of what you're paying. Score one for the good guys :)

Privacy Issues Coming To A Head With NebuAd

The folks at NebuAd are good folks. The reality of their practices is that they don't impact users any more than traditional behavioral targeting. But the reality of their situation isn't good.

When BT was first introduced, the privacy groups moaned. When Google bought DCLK, I moaned (about privacy.) But when a company decided to put actual hardware on ISPs' nodes, intercepting everything every one of those users does online - someone more important than me moaned and got heard.

The limits of BT keep getting pushed because the "if you can, you should" mentality of marketers drives exploration. Now that it's come to a head, marketers will be told, rather than self-set, the boundaries within which they can know what users online are doing.

Beep! Launches - The Premier Automotive Ad Network

It's finally here! www.beepautomotive.com, Beep! has launched and is already getting great response. Give us a call or shoot us an email to learn more!

It's Definitely DoubleGoo's Fault

Ask any celebrity or athlete and the attention and trouble only starts once you get to be too big and well-known.

Sure, the talk of regulating BT has been around, but not until Double and Goo got together did it become pie-in-the-face obvious to regulators that this is HUGE business.

Thanks guys! (Grrrrr.)

Goodway 2.0 @ iMedia Driving Interactive

Should be a great event! We'll be speaking on Tuesday, April 29th, at 11:15am. Make sure to join us there.

How $2,500 Could Have Saved Yahoo!

Great article in iMedia (if I do say so myself :) )

As always, visit our site if we should talk!

Publishers Won't Be Paid More, They'll Just Be Paid

The idea, said Chief Marketing Officer Troy Young, is if one site has an interaction or engagement rate of 0.2% and another has a rate of 2%, the publisher delivering the higher rate should get rewarded for that by having the advertiser pay more for the ad.

He said the medium will move toward that kind of accountability system not only because it can be measured (as opposed to more-traditional media, where interaction isn't as hard to measure) but also because there's a ton of inventory. "Advertisers will ... push risk back onto publishers," he said. "There will be a measurable component."

I'd hate to have Troy Young negotiating my media buy! The fact is, if publishers aren't doing well, they'll be kicked off the buy in the first place. And for those doing well, just because they're doing VERY well for one client doesn't mean their inventory is worth more in the market. Until inventory is sold out on a site, it's all worth the same regardless of the advertiser. For now, this will mean that sites that perform will simply earn the privilege of staying on the buy.

Probably Overstated, But Eye-Opening Nonetheless

This article probably flew over the offices of large media agencies like a lead balloon!

6% of the population generates 50% of all clicks, and 16% generates 80%? That's quite a statement. Let's assume it's true, does it render 80% of online advertising worthless? Of course not.

How many clicks does a TV buy get? None, but it's certainly not worthless. An outdoor board doesn't generate any either, but they've been proven to be very effective. But what about CPC buys - aren't we focused on the wrong thing? Not really.

CPC buys are a great way to a) drive web site traffic (and actions/purchases on sites can't occur without traffic), b) procure highly efficient inventory, and c) minimize cost risk while determining what traffic sources drive ROI on your site.

Sure, CPM buys offer more flexibility in certain circumstances. However, hundreds of other companies, like us, have verifiable proof that clicks and CPC buys lead to measurable sales increases and positive ROI. If it didn't work for Starcom, we're always here to help :)

Taming The Wild West of BT

Hats off to Revenue Science for trying to herd the kittens and set some BT standards within the industry. And, shame on Tacoda for sitting out. Nothing like a dash of spite to move the industry along - jeez.

The bottom line for marketers is that right now we're all simply trusting publishers and networks that they're being truthful in applying the correct targeting to our campaigns. That kind of trust is ok when a couple thousand dollars are being spent, but hundreds of millions? Approaching a billion?

Rather than try to resist, we should all join the conversation and work together to solve this problem, which is one that could seriously catalyze our industry in the coming years.

Privacy Rumblings

With the recent privacy rumblings about cookieing online, the push is often likened to a "Do not call list" of the internet.

The big problem with this is that consumers didn't like telemarketing because someone was calling them when they otherwise wouldn't have had the phone ring. Some ad is going to serve in the ad space online regardless of whether it's targeted or not. Big difference.

The other massive difference is that telemarketers had personally identifiable information about you, whereas not only does the cookie placer not know who you are (other than a long string of characters which has nothing to do with you personally) but the marketer REALLY has no idea!

There are a lot of problems in the world. I just can't believe this is #1 on anyone's list.

Buying Advertising Will Never Be The Same?

Facebook declared today that its ads will change how ads are bought forever. Awesome.

Here are the other companies that declared the same.

The Best & Worst Money Ever Spent Is The Same Money

Late post on this amid all the coverage, but there is a different angle to Microsoft's 1.6%, $240MM purchase within Facebook.

This is certainly the best money ever spent if you credit every dollar toward keeping Google out of Facebook. Right now most of the money being spent is land-grab money, and in the long run that isn't a bad thing so long as the portals are spending money like VC's invest - you know one in ten will pan out. That one will pan out big, though.

However, because this values Facebook at $15B, more than 50% greater than Chrysler, this is the worst money ever spent at the same time. Chrysler, with all its problems, has physical assets, a history, patents, and all the other things you buy when you buy a business. Of course, web 2.0 folks will retort that Facebook has users and engagement. For now, that's correct. But just as any domestic auto manufacturer will tell you about the younger generation's loyalty...

If This Doesn't Prove It's Not All About CPA...

ROI-be-darned.

Oh, really?

Forgetting that consumers are not quite as coin-operated as advertisers, Google again seems to be exagerating its capabilities. Now matter how hard it may try, it's unlikely the entire online community will or even wants to move to model that is 100% CPA. The best publishers still get CPM even for their remnant inventory and there is still a benefit to being a part of a quality environment.

Quintopoly Part Deux

Apparently we're not the only ones to notice the challenge to Nielsen and ComScore. Know that these services are far from free when the desire is to get useful, actionable data.

How Will Nielsen Fare in a Quintopoly?

In TV land Nielsen has long been a monopoly. Handwritten diaries and small sample sizes have driven $65B in annual spending for years but that is not how it's going to play out online.

What's amazing is that it won't even be a lowly duopoly between Nielsen and comScore. These two appear to be content fighting it out with each other when the reality is that newcomers Hitwise, Compete, and Quantcast are developing some incredibly robust and impressive intelligence to provide advertisers with larger samples and click stream-driven intelligence. While the original players certainly will have their spin on why these new companies' data isn't up to par one thing is certain: click stream data beats panel data hands down all day long.

The ability to view upstream and downstream "other sites visited" is good, but I'm guessing that these companies will provide site by site data that measures the audience visitation disparity between an advertiser's products and its competitors. A web site scores high for your competitor's customers but not yours? Fertile ground and well worth the premium CPM.

Calling this a quintopoly might not even be fair. Industry-specific data providers like JD Power and primary research firms like Gartner are also creating data models which will be valuable to advertisers. The fact is, competition breeds innovation and excellence and getting great consumer data is one area that online has an insurmountable lead over its offline counterparts.

The Fear Of Not Spending Enough In Search

In which industry is 25.4% fraudulence acceptable? In search, that's where! This recent gem from MarketingVox notes that click fraud rose 15% in Q2 despite Yahoo and Google suggesting click fraud is much lower.

Can you imagine if your newspaper rep came in and told you their circulation counts were accurate to +/- 25.4%? What if DoubleClick or Atlas noted in their presentations that their impression counts were accurate to +/- 25.4%? It wouldn't fly, but search is different.

The reason for this is that when consumers are actively searching to find your product online you have no choice but to advertise there. One way of looking at this is simply to say, "OK, rather than think of 25.4% being fraud, we'll assume that our real clicks are just costing us 34% more." (The inverse of 25.4%.) The problem is that search click costs are already sky high! Anyone out there paying $3, $5, or even $10 per click? Most all of you are, and the reason is that it's scary not to be there.

But what if instead of spending $5/click, you could spend $1.67/click, getting 3 clicks for your $5 rather than one? And what if you could do this by catching consumers before they even knew they wanted to search for your product? The good news is that this is totally possible. CPC banner campaigns have their weaknesses, but when it comes to doing business on the web, banners can often perform significantly better than a search campaign ever will. Overcoming 3:1 odds is not easy.

In the end, advertisers need to establish goals and set their criteria for what will make their campaign successful. The likely outcome will be a blend of both SEM and display. So long as the advertiser realizes that a successful SEM campaign doesn't require being the top listing in every instance of every keyword on its list, and simultaneously that home page takeovers on major portals isn't the only way to do online display, both can co-exist and be profitable to the advertiser.

Vastly Different Reactions To Political Online

With advertisers jumping online faster than ever, publishers, portals, and ad networks are taking two distinct paths in how they're treating political campaigns. With the 2008 Presidential race heating up, D.C. is getting online more than in any other election in history. Publishers have figured this out. Some are playing straight and fair and others are trying to earn the highest margins possible - even if it hurts them long term.

Upon receiving the RFP for a Presidential candidate, some publishers change their tune quickly. The publishers' "political specialists" get involved, "rate integrity" and "dynamic pricing" (code for keeping prices high) becomes a priority, and inventory availability suddenly shrinks. The publishers contend that inventory for these campaigns is limited and all candidates must be treated equally. Unlike TV, that's not the case online.

Every online impression is different. Not just based on the page on which it appears or its location on the page, but its place within a user session and the behavior of the user to which it's served make every impression different. So, two impressions on a publisher's main news page are not equal. The fact that publishers haven't figured out how to monetize each impression differently causes logic to go out the window and makes elevated, fixed pricing the "equalizer."

Online in 2008 has the potential to be what 1956 was for TV. Unfortunately some publishers and even some ad networks are worried more about how much higher their margins can be rather than how they can help each campaign achieve its goals. The great news is that there are some exceptions.

Some portals, publishers and ad networks have jumped at the chance to be involved with 2008 campaigns and granted the same rates we pay for our commercial and private sector clients to political and advocacy campaigns. As Washington learns more about online and discovers the many different ways in which it can be bought it will quickly learn who was fair with them early on and who was not. So, congratulations to those who are doing it right. You will win out in the long run, and you might just elevate the entire industry at the same time.

When Research Conflicts With Behavior

A recent study by Forrester (source) showed that 79% of consumers find ads on their mobile phones irritating unless it's relevant. "Duh" number two of the day. I would submit that 95%+ of all consumers find 95%+ of all advertising irritating. Is this really news?

Add to this that our mobile ad campaigns are outperforming traditional online campaigns 7x-20x, and now I'm really confused.

Keeping Pace With Change

Consumers don't submit their intended media consumption schedule to advertisers for pre-approval to make sure it lines up with what the advertiser wants. Duh. Because of this, marketers need to be on pace with consumers and follow their media habits to be successful, not what worked in the past, or what the friend of a client says he or she watches.

Recently I found this which explains how Fox is working to find a way to update ad content within programs that have been tivo'd and due to the time sensitivity of the copy (movie opens this Friday isn't relevant if you're watching the show six days later.) This is a nice idea, although I don't think it'll be ground breaking because 60% of DVR users ffwd through ad content anwyay. Nonetheless I was still a little shocked to know that marketers are still wishing all this new media would go away. Here is a quote from the article:

"Ideally, we'd like it so that nobody fast-forwarded through any commercial," said Shari Cohen, co-executive director, national broadcast, MindShare. "I don't even know if it's possible to create a greater relevancy to watching it live rather than on a home basis. The spots are still going to be fast-forwarded through."

She got the last part right.

The Quality (In)equation

One of the most common selling points used by online and emerging media is content/property quality. If you think about it, this is a pretty slick sales technique. Who wants to say they don't care about quality? Because of the frequency in which I hear this, I want to take a look at quality, define it, and determine how that definition impacts the value of properties that are most typically seen as being high quality.

In many people's minds quality is interchangeable with recognizable. Ask 100 folks in advertising which online vehicle is of higher quality - Yahoo or alllyrics.com. Even if you offer "not enough information" as an option (and it's correct answer, at that), I suspect significantly more people will answer Yahoo than alllyrics.com. Why? For starters, the participant in this survey has probably been to Yahoo and not alllyrics.com. The Lake Woebegone syndrome leads people to define themselves as above average and creates the desire to associate themselves with "quality." This theoretical scenario would likely play out similarly using online, mobile, or video game ad networks and their site lists as well.

Traditionally brands with large budgets historically targeted "quality" consumers, which translated to those with enough disposable income to purchase their product. Reaching these consumers mostly meant prime time on TV and drive time on radio. This original idea of quality, I submit, somehow morphed to be defined more as "large audience" and "recognizable" than reaching a consumer likely to be considering or intending to buy your product. After all, how many people in advertising would qualify Judge Judy as higher quality programming than Grey's Anatomy? A personal injury attorney's media buyer - that's who!

And therein lies the crux of the problem. Reaching the largest number of consumers within the target audience with the least amount of waste is real quality. Ultimately, quality equals efficiency. In automotive, no more than 1% of the population will be in market to buy any given new vehicle in the next six months. Six months! 1%! Yet look at the deluge of auto advertising in prime time TV reaching 80%+ of a (very broad) demo. I'm not here to pick on broadcast or any one category. This is just an example of how the definition of quality has perhaps gotten away from us.

Defining quality as efficiency means that no matter what product you're marketing, you're audience is likely to be found on a mix of large (recognizable) and small (obscure) properties. And, because every product has a slightly different target buyer profile, one publisher or network of web sites, mobile web sites, or even video games simply can't be the highest quality for everyone. Will Dollar General, Ferrari and REI all find their best prospects on one network, portal, or publisher site? Not only is it unlikely, but this is all the more reason to look hard at how you define quality and more importantly, the metrics you're measuring with your campaign. The truth is that you can likely find your prospects efficiently across multiple properties and networks. With thorough cost/result projections it’s possible that properties and networks traditionally pegged as "high quality" do not actually give you the best return.

To be fair, there are other factors that go into a property's or network's quality. What type of targeting is offered? Behavioral? Contextual? What type of environment do you want your brand to be seen in? Targeting capabilities are more easily measured within the campaign itself, where as environment quality either has to have a direct impact on the campaign’s performance, or will need to be measured through other consumer research. Are there mechanisms in place to measure the impact of factors not directly contributing to this campaign’s success? If not, “quality” is hard to measure.

The purchase funnel is a byproduct of human behavior, which none of us is going to change here and now. It’s just as important to apply metrics to upper and mid-funnel campaigns as it is those targeting lower funnel consumers (presumably through leads.) Once a campaign is identified as fitting in a particular point in the funnel, the metrics are easily derived and a successful campaign measured.

Do Yahoo, MSN, and AOL Have Something Google Doesn't?

As online and other emerging media become less about sites and more about user data, individual sites, ad networks, and even Google face an uphill challenge keeping up if the big three portals get the next step right.

A couple months ago I was in the market to buy a car. Having visited the major auto sites like Edmunds, cars.com, Yahoo autos and others, I wasn't surprised to see that nearly every ad I was served over those two months was auto-related. A fine example of behavioral targeting. However, in that same time frame I used the mobile web on my cell phone a number of times and never once saw an automotive ad. What a lost opportunity!

This is where the big three portals have a tremendous advantage of they can move quickly. Because they have subscriber or user data - and tons of it - and their users inevitably access their content from both mobile and online, the ability to target users from one medium to another seamlessly for an advertiser should be no problem at all.

Not to say that networks can't do this at all - it'll just be harder. An online network, mobile web network, and video game network could form an alliance to share and use data between media but how do you identify the person as they move from one medium to another? With Yahoo it's easy. They log on to check their email online, and then do the same on their phone. Not much guesswork there. However, online cookies don't transfer to other media. It would require behavioral partnerships with properties that do have access to consumers that log in across multiple media platforms and the ability to share and compile that data.

And what of Google? Well, if the DC acquisition does indeed go through, they'll have access to pretty much any and every piece of online data they could want. With mobile being a 2007 priority for DC, it brings us right back to the suggestion that one or all of the portals not just implement these capabilities, but that they do so very quickly.

Media Alignment

Let me start with the obvious. When using more than one medium in a campaign it's important to determine before launching that campaign whether these different media will each seek to achieve the same objective (create awareness for a new product), each touch on different parts of the purchase funnel (i.e. broadcast drives awareness while direct mail drives sales) or a combination of both where media may overlap in some areas. While obvious, this point is important because right now we're often seeing each medium's purpose being designated by the degree of measurability they offer.

Since TV isn't measurable, TV should drive awareness. Since online is measurable it will serve as a direct response medium and will be measured 100% against sales. Time out. This just doesn't make sense!

TV absolutely can be measured. Infomercials develop their creative and buy their media using highly scientific formulas to drive success. But it's not just TV. Think of any infomercial-esque product you've seen advertised lately - any medium - and it's likely they were very successful using direct response marketing. Using this line of thinking, Why then shouldn't 100% of our media be fully measurable? Why ever run a brand ad?

Because of the purchase funnel, that's why! See our previous blog post about the man who goes to buy the engagement ring. If everyone skipped all steps of the dating process except the proposal, very few people would ever get married. The same applies to marketing a product, service or brand. This seems so darn obvious but because most marketing isn't measured, it's natural to desire nothing but the end result when measurement is possible.

We talk to clients all the time who pour hundreds of millions of dollars into creative and media and have no intention of measuring one dime of it. And I'm not just referring to measuring it against sales. It's not even held up against metrics from an A&A study to at least ensure they're moving in the right direction! Inevitably when we're called in, the program must be 100% measurable.

It may be surprising but we love this. The more measurable the better. What should be understood, though, is that promotions which are 100% measurable can't use the same tactics as top or mid-funnel brand advertising does. For instance, in our last post we talked about program, content and site quality. In top funnel campaigns, placing advertising within recognizable content (i.e. Prime Time TV) might make sense. It's doubtful that awareness will skyrocket upward after a schedule centered around spots running solely from midnight to 6a.

However, the lower in the funnel a brand targets, the more efficient the promotion and associated media must become. In this case, those late night/early morning rotators might be the most efficient plan to drive positive ROI. Tactics like this, whether in traditional media, experiential, or online and emerging media, all have tremendous benefits and stand a better chance to drive a positive ROI because the marketing elements being used are less expensive to begin with.

The real question then is whether or not a company has the stomach to take this traditionally unpopular route of disregarding how recognizable its programming, venue or site list is in favor of a better chance of increased ROI. The answer to that question will correlate proportionately with how measurable that portion of the marketing plan can be.

A Totally Different Upfront

With plans barely laid for 2007, the 2008 upfront is just around the corner, with some folks already having begun. But "that" upfront relates strictly to media planning and buying and leaves the content that will fill those buys out of the discussion. While this isn't the chicken and egg discussion between media and creative, the explosive growth of online video placements have outpaced agencies' ability to develop content that is relevant and specific to the media in which this video will run.

The following eMarketer charts show just how significant online video is, and is expected to become.

Not surprisingly, ClickZ reports on DoubleClick's data that banners containing video drive much higher click rates. The data here isn't perfect and doesn't account for multiple clicks/user and other issues, but the article does point out that in a medium where users vote with their time, delivering content related to the site environment that is both interesting in the first few seconds yet short enough to deliver the entire message is crucial. Theoretically this makes all the sense in the world. If an ad is going to appear on a golf site, the video should be golf related. From a practical standpoint, this is a video production, banner production, and online ad trafficking nightmare which will eat up agency resources and drive retainer fees through the roof.

This is where media, creative and account need to work more closely together than ever. Think about how it looks when you shuffle a deck of cards. Done right, one card from each hand folds in as the card from the other hand follows, and so on. Imagine four or five hands trying to do this into one deck all at once - an image no harder to conceptualize than creative, media, account, production, and the client all working 100% in sync with each other as plans move forward. Just like the potato sack race, no one is going to get anywhere by trying to run off on their own.

The benefits coming from an agency who can pull this off will be huge. Imagine an upfront video shoot tied to each different category within the media buy. Sports footage for sports sites, newscaster-like footage for news sites, product on a beach for travel sites, and so on. This footage would be used to creative multiple ad formats and creative executions which drive higher response through higher relevancy within the site environment.

The question will be whether most, if any, agencies can accomplish this in reality. It is hard - really hard. It takes a significant amount of organization, planning, and discipline. Most importantly, no one gets paid any more to do it this way than the old way. It's just the price of entry into a more complex, customizable media landscape.

Yankee Google Dandy

The breaking story today that Google is buying DoubleClick is concerning for the short-term with the potential for a told-you-so in the long-term.

Google is the search powerhouse, taking the majority of spending in paid search, the category that is already the largest online spending category. But until now, online display has not been dominated by any one player. DoubleClick may be the biggest when compared to others, but DoubleClick alone cannot control the market on its own like Google could with search. Changing that would be a bad thing.

The reason is that as I've mentioned before, Google's complete lack of transparency in its AdWords product is deceitful. They'll contend that so long as companies can generate a positive return on their investment, it's not important to see the how and why of what's going on behind the calculations. That may be so, but price gouging has never been the foundation of enduring success. Bringing this opaqueness to what is currently a wonderfully transparent category will only frustrate advertisers and stunt the tremendous growth online is currently experiencing.

I personally believe ad networks are a great model for online display, but the biggest complaint against them is the lack of transparency, even if the network offers a fully disclosed site list. For instance, Which sites did your campaign actually run on? What percent of the campaign ran on each site? How did (at least) certain categories perform compared to others? These questions often keep advertisers away not just from networks but online altogether. Despite these concerns online has grown by leaps and bounds in recent years and that growth has been projected to continue. Those projections would change if online display became more opaque rather than more transparent, leaving less questions answered than more.

But why the reference to the Yankees? Well, aside from the short-term monopolistic and transparency concerns, Google CEO Eric Schmidt sure seems to be behaving like the New York Yankee owner George Steinbrenner as of late. You may remember that in the late 1990s and early 2000s George Steinbrenner signed almost every top free agent available with the goal of building the unbeatable team. Of course, for the fans of almost any other team it was just depressing. Who had a shot?

It turned out a lot of teams had a shot. From 1996 to 2000, the Yanks won four of five series. However, despite the highest payroll in MLB, the Yankees haven't won any championships since then. Individually, they have many of the best players at each position. Collectively, they couldn't get the job done.

Google was fantastic at search and built the best search team out there. With YouTube and now DoubleClick, the executive team's focus keeps getting divided. While it seems like Google is building an empire, this might just be the beginning of their end.

Branding & Dating - Both Important

Imagine this metaphorical scenario. A man walks into a jewelry store and the following conversation ensues:

Jeweler: Hi, how can I help you?
Man: My friend told me this amazing statistic. He tells me that when men buy engagement rings and propose, women agree to marry those men more than 50% of the time. Is this true?
Jeweler: I believe you're correct. Using an engagement ring in the proposal process significantly enhances your chance of receiving a "yes" from the proposed.
Man: This is exactly what I need. I think I'm ready to buy a ring, then.
Jeweler: Wonderful, we have a wonderful selection that will surely please your bride-to-be. So, tell me, what is your girlfriend's name?
Man: Oh, I don't have a girlfriend. Actually I don't even have anyone in mind. But I do want to get married. My friend told me about the high success rate of proposing to a woman with an engagement ring!
Jeweler: So, you're going to approach someone you've never met and you think they'll agree to marry you just because you're presenting an engagement ring?
Man: Well, if women say "yes" more than 50% of the time, I've got a pretty good shot!

Unfortunately, this scenario is all too common with advertisers when approaching their ad plans. Ask most all but the highest level marketers what their marketing goals are and they'll reply with "Sales. Gotta sell product."

Ok, that's a great end goal, but that's where the man in the story was misguided. He believed that simply by buying the ring he would enjoy the same chances of becoming engaged as other men who've spent significant periods of time dating and building up to the proposal. All too often, advertisers want to skip the dating process and go straight for the sale. It's just not that easy.

With online and other emerging media being more measurable than any traditional medium ever has been, advertisers are tempted to take metrics and ROI goals to the extreme. If it doesn't end up in a sale, it didn't work. To be clear, I fully agree that advertising's only purpose is to sell a product. It's just that there is more than one level of "dating" that must occur between the product and the prospect. As a result, the goal of various phases of a marketing campaign is, at its core, to move each consumer one level further down the purchase funnel until a purchase finally occurs.

Taking the basic Awareness/Consideration/Intent/Purchase funnel, there are four nudges each consumer requires before the sale is made. So, 75% of the time that the marketing is its most effective, no sale occurs. But without metrics for ALL levels of the funnel, your ROI can appear to be much less than it really is.

The moral of the man and the jeweler story? The next time someone tempts you with a CPA model over CPM, or you are about to outline the goals for your next campaign, remember to date!

Free Research: Part Deux

One of my first posts discussed Google Trends and the terrific data it provides - for free! More and more products are popping up online that provide truly outstanding research at no charge (for now) that can help you make better marketing decisions in your business. Check out:

• Alexa. While the methodology driving their data collection procedures might not hold up to perfect scrutiny, it is a fantastic starting point for viewing a site's rough statistics and how it is trending.
• Compete. Again, perfect? No, but more in-depth than Alexa. And, with stats like "average stay", what a great way to get some initial guidance and help compare one site to another.
• Quantcast. Wow, Paul Sutter and the folks at Quantcast have the tiger by the tail. By engineering this information in reverse, a whole suite of products, like Dart For Advertisers, comScore, and Nielsen, will be in catch-up mode for years.

Web 2.0 is a fun time. While I certainly would love for the sites above to remain free, my hope is that they'll be able to monetize themselves and charge appropriately for various audience sizes so this information continues to be available to dedicated marketers.

Deliberate Confusion

Have you heard of this Dr. Oz guy? Supposedly he's the newest diet guru and can help you live longer, healthier, and so on. One of his tips is that there are five key ingredients to avoid in your diet. Let me paint a rather silly but scary picture for you. Imagine for a second that he introduces his own line of foods but doesn't list any of the ingredients on the label. Actually, let's take all the nutritional information off the label too. Now, let's also throw in there that literally 50% of the items stocked in the grocery store are those created by Dr. Oz and have absolutely no information to help consumers make informed decisions. One would think a consumer revolt would be brewing.

Of course the real life example of this is Google's AdWords, the PPC product which allows advertisers to list their web site in a sponsored listing area with the hopes of being noticed more frequently than if their site was solely listed in the organic search listing area. Google has approximately 50% of the search market share and gives little to no information about how to get the best results for your business as an AdWords customer. Have a question for Google? They don't want you calling 866-2-GOOGLE since they don't publish it on their site. Want to know who you're speaking with once you do call the number? You'll get a first name and last initial. At least they don't use symbols like the artist formerly known as Prince.

Ever since my first day at my first job out of college I've been in some sort of customer service role, whether it be serving internal or external clients. I've learned that the best way to create repeat customers is to make it easy for your customers to spend money with you. It's not only hard to spend as much money as possible with Google, spending that money supports a company who appears as if they don't want your money in the first place.

Compounding the problem is that this model is spreading, not shrinking. Right Media has built a phenomenal product that allows for 100% self-managed online advertising campaigns to run on thousands of sites at wonderfully reasonable prices. The problem is that "it" is incredibly intelligent, but "it" never passes any of "its" knowledge onto you. "It" is Yield Manager, the Right Media serving platform that has supposedly great capabilities but you'd never know since you have no idea what those great capabilities actually are. "It's proprietary" is their response. So is Coke's recipe, but they still list the ingredients and it's never hurt them a bit.

This doesn't mean that you should avoid these businesses or their platforms. This commentary simply offers a perspective from a buying customer's point of view. My clients expect transparency and that expectation is passed on from my customers to my vendors. However, whether or not we agree with a vendor's business model, all of our decisions are indeed purely business and are made to ensure the greatest success for our clients. For now, time will be the only judge. It'll be interesting to see how this one plays out.

We'll Watch From the Sidelines

Amidst the hype surrounding brands taking up residence in Second Life, a recent story detailed actress Mia Farrow's photo exhibit exposing the horrors in Darfur and surrounding areas - within Second Life. Celebrities attract attention in the news, and for Ms. Farrow to use her clout to draw attention to human injustice is admirable, regardless of your political views.

Within this admirable act, though, is a minor tragedy. Recent SL participant numbers come in just over 1MM. While Ms. Farrow is indeed garnering press attention about this exhibit, the ability to expose the material is ultimately very limited. Even if SL membership has doubled since the last statistics I saw, 2MM viewers is significantly less than could be affected on Flickr or Photobucket, each of which have dozens of millions of subscribers.

Herein lies the marketing dilemma. If there was a Google Trends for agency/client discussions, I believe "ROI" would top the charts as the most discussed terms. However, the opportunity to on the cutting edge of marketing tactics causes situational amnesia toward this most important topic and metric.

There is no way the brands in Second Life are seeing a positive ROI on their efforts. "But it only costs a car brand a couple grand per month for their spot in Second Life. Certainly they are selling a few cars off of it?!" What about agency fees, programming, client meetings, and PR fees for distributing the releases? A recent statistic puts the total cost of setting up an SL marketing effort between $1MM and $5MM. They're not selling that many cars, and it's unlikely the awareness, consideration or intent created justifies the expense either.

We've only had a few clients ask us about SL and Whyville, but our response has been that we're watching from the sidelines. What's going on out there is definitely cool, it's just not yet profitable.

Exclusive Deals Hurt Mobile Entertainment Growth

Three articles in the last three days discuss exclusive mobile entertainment dealers. Comedy Central signs an exclusive to serve up a series on Amp'd, Yahoo! signs with Nokia to offer mobile messaging and mobile mail, and just after signing an exclusive with YouTube, Verizon signs an exclusive with a YouTube competitor Revvr.

Mobile entertainment is extremely nascent and the U.S. is far behind other nations in adopting SMS, MMS, mobile TV and its other forms, per emarketer:

Now, in this fledgling industry, less than 30% of consumers is able to partake in any one of these given partnerships based on individual carrier market share. So much for sharing that cool YouTube video on your Verizon phone with your friend who's on Cingular's network.

Additionally, exclusives don't just hurt consumers, they hurt the content partners as well. MSN recently signed an agreement which allows Sprint to be the exclusive platform on which its mobile ads will be delivered. If you're MSN, very much in third place behind Yahoo! and Google in search marketing, and third among the major portals, why would you relegate yourself to the carrier which is third in market share?

Mobile marketing is growing faster than almost any other channel - despite attempts by myopic marketers to stunt it.

Can't Find Seniors Online? They're Coming Again in 2008

Many advertisers still believe that the internet is a 12-17 year old media phenomenon. While this isn't true and there is plenty of data to prove it, this recent data shows that a great place to find seniors online in recent months was on politically-oriented web sites. The highest indexing age group in the chart above is the 65+ crowd - would you have guessed this?

Oh, The American Work Ethic

Another great post from Technorati. First, to be clear, the graphs above do not indicate from which country the data originates. However, it's not a stretch to think that English blog posts originate in English-dominant countries, Spanish blogs in Spanish-dominant countries, etc.

Notice how the non-English language posts follow very nice curves/patterns that would appear to indicate that folks speaking other languages blog during leisure time and slow down during work time. What about English-speaking bloggers? Even throughout the day - very interesting.

For All The Hype, Blogs Still Trail

Blogs are one of the most hyped emerging media, but a look at the numbers shows they still trail significantly behind traditional news sources. Recent data from Technorati is above. You'll notice only three of the top 50 blogs are true blogs as they are commonly referred to. Others are traditional news sources. Looks like, while blogs are widely viewed and read, they are still a truly emerging medium.

Video Games Effectively Target Women and the 50+ Crowd?

I wasn't necessarily shocked having read about much of this before, but to see it all in just a few charts and graphs hammered the point home.

The most popular gaming category played online is "casual games." And within this category, 76% are female and the leading 10-year age demographic is 50-59. Wow.

Standard thinking suggests Newspaper, the Nightly News and other traditional means of reaching these highly coveted demos. It's certainly interesting that even this demo can so effectively reached with one of the less expected emerging media channels.

Common Sense Is Your Best Asset for Tackling Emerging Media

Remember when you learned that GRP = Reach x Frequency? Or, how to rerate the CPP within a spot from demo to demo? After years of practice and application, this not only became second nature, but achieving the right results from these equations became the focus.

As we talk to Clients about newer media such as the web, mobile/cell phone, and experiential-based lead generation we always first ask the most obvious and revealing questions - What is your objective and what is a lead or sale worth to you? Because these are 50,000 foot questions and different from the aforementioned daily tasks, you'd be amazed at how stumping these questions can be. In fact, there are very few people who don't at least look refreshed at being asked to think in common sense terms about these crucial questions.

With advertising focused on cost per X for so long, stopping to think about why we want the consumer to click on the banner, or what we want the consumer to do once they get to the web site or retailer has been lost from the process. The responsibility to know the answer to these questions lies with everyone who touches the business.

Advertising is quickly becoming less about points and impressions and more about leads and sales. If you and your client haven't yet taken the time to define the value of an in-market lead or of a sale that can be sourced to advertising, now is the time! Once defined, it is the agency's responsibility to collaborate with their client to define these metrics, track their performance and provide recommendations to improve the next campaign.

Change in Marketing Part II - Pain & Progress vs. Comfort & Failure

In my last post I asked why agencies and clients are asking about the risks of new media rather than asking what the risks of NOT being in these media are? The answer is simple - old media isn't measurable and new media is. In automotive, 200 TRPs or a full page can be bought and other than anecdotal accounts, no one will know if it ever worked. The real "problem" with new media, from the web to mobile phone marketing is that it is measurable. Agencies will tell you they welcome measurability with open arms - so why the constant recommendation of non-measurable media?

Imagine you've lived alone in a cave all your life and according to you, you're a world-class painter. All of a sudden, an earthquake happens, your cave breaks open and you're surrounded by hundreds of other artists who have been competing against each other all their lives. Are you scared you're not as good as you always thought you were? Heck yes! You're petrified. After all, what are the chances that you actually are world-class when you've never seen anyone else's art?

Well, the earthquake has happened and it's the empowered consumer who can edit advertising out of their content, create and rate their own content and blog about your product. So, now you're exposed. You will be measured and compared. The question isn't whether or not you should take risks - you have to. The question is with whom you will take the risks. Size up your partner and your team wisely, for those who have measured before and welcome it will likely be the ones to produce the best work in the future.

Change in Marketing Part I

Between reading Thomas L. Friedman's The World Is Flat - Release 2.0 and seeing Over The Hedge with the kiddos today, the general topic of "change" has been flickering in front of me like and old black and white movie.

While Friedman's book certainly backs his own political views and agenda, the facts he presents are undeniable. The world is flattening, jobs are being in and outsourced more rapidly than ever, and it's up to you (the individual reading this) to keep up or even stay ahead. Whether you are Vern the turtle in Over The Hedge or the IT worker whose job was transitioned to India, you can beat change or it will beat you.

Friedman's analogy of the optical fiber that connects the world today is no different than the railroads that joined together small towns across American 150 years ago. Imagine the local tradespeople who now realized their products all of a sudden had to compete in quality and price with those from 12 other towns. If the local seamstress or blacksmith had always provided top quality at unbeatable prices, he'd welcome the competition with open arms because his or her wares could now compete in all 13 towns. If the tradespeople had simply been comfortable, they were probably right in fearing the competition. This is not a new lesson, though, and OTH and TWIF are certainly not the first to teach this lesson. Yet after this message has manifested itself thousands upon thousands of time throughout history, most people still fear a larger market and more competition. What they really fear is that they may not be up to par with in their field.

The same goes for marketing. Consumers are changing how they consumer media whether or not we, as marketers, change how we dialogue with them. The question all clients and agencies seem to be asking right now is What are the risks associates with advertising in new media? How about what the risks are if we DON'T advertise there? There's an easy answer for that.

"Automotive" Eludes The Top 32 Spots

The automotive category is by far the biggest ad spending category - often accounting for more than 30% of all ad dollars spent. Add to this that the most recent JD Power data suggests that 67% of consumers research their vehicle purchase online before going to the dealership and one would think the auto category would be eating up the web and it's inexpensive CPMs. Nope.

This recent report found on Clickz shows the web's top 50 spenders, with Nissan leading all automotive and placing 32nd. No other manufacturers cracked the top 50.

With all the focus on measuring every penny of advertising, where are is automotive over-indexing in its spending? See previous posts :)

Emerging & Alternative Media For All

Thanks for www.emarketer.com for posting this shocking piece of data. I would have never thought that the largest portion of YouTube users were 35-64. To be fair, that's a 30 year age span whereas 12-17 is only a six year span, and usage by year is greater in the latter. Nonetheless, for advertisers who think YouTube, MySpace and other social networking sites are really just for kids, think again.

Pharmaceutical Scientists Could Teach Us A Thing Or Two About Marketing

The invention of penicillin has be one of the top 10 medical breakthroughs of all time. But no matter how significant of a breakthrough it may have been, antibiotics have had to be constantly changed and updated because bacteria continuously mutate to the point where they're no longer neutralized by an old antibiotic concoction. So, pharmacists are constantly researching the latest mutations and even building algorithms to forecast what could happen next - just to stay one step ahead and keep patient's healthy.

Imagine if throughout history, though, that as the bacteria mutated to become stronger and more resistant to antibiotics, doctors and drug companies saw this and thought like today's advertisers - "I'm not sure we want to try something new. We've never done it before and we don't know if it will work." Meanwhile, patients would be getting more and more sick.

It's the doctors' and pharmacists' jobs to stay one step ahead in this race because it's their business to protect human life. It's the advertiser's job to keep pace with consumer's changing media habits and respond to these changes with the newest media "medicine" required to drive their business. Pharma does this because their business - patients - could die. Without change, won't your business die?

New media adoption by consumers and their subsequently altered lifestyle should be on the docket at every agency/client meeting during this fast-paced time of change. By and large, it's not. Just like the bacteria in the analogy, consumers are changing their media habits every day without any regard to whether or not advertisers are keeping up with them. What if advertisers thought, "forget about my comfort zone, let's go get the consumers wherever they are"? Then, finding consumers who are ready to buy might be much easier than trying to find a bacterium 1/1000 the size of the period at the end of this sentence.

At $138,888 per point it's a bargain!

I've been doing some math and the findings are a little shocking:

The most recent statistics show that right under 59,500,000 vehicles are sold each year.

There are 198,988,000 licensed drivers in the U.S. which means that on average, 29.9% of all drivers buy a car each year

But, only 17 million of the 59.5MM cars sold are new cars – 28.6% of total car buyers

Since most automotive advertisers view the advertising they place each month as directed toward that month's sales, of the 29.9% of folks who will buy a car this year, 2.49% of them will buy this month.

But only 28.6% of that 2.49% will buy a new car. That's just 0.71% of the population

The fact that there are 45 different car makes isn’t important, since every manufacturer is trying to conquest an entire vehicle segment

There are 20 vehicle segments as measured by R.L. Polk. Let’s be generous and say that consumers would consider every single model within five different segments (compact SUV, compact Premium SUV, mid-size SUV, mid-size Premium SUV and Minivan, for instance) – meaning the in-market intenders that would remotely consider your product this month amounts to 0.18% of the U.S. population!

Yowza. But what does that mean for automotive marketing and advertising? Here's what we've been doing for the last 50 years.

Let's say we're buying 200 points of TV this week at a 50 reach and four frequency. The best you can hope for is that every single person within that .18% that will consider your product will see your ads. Let's say they do. Now let's say you're paying $500 a point to make it easy math. At 200 points it's a $100,000 schedule. But remember that of the 50% of the population you reached, 49.82% was a waste. In reaching that .18% four times each, you've got 0.72 worth of TRPs. That's $138,888 per point!!! And clients complain about a buck a mailer :)

The question this begs is whether or not a plan based around GRPs/TRPs is even relevant anymore. Your thoughts?

Isn't It Amazing That Almost Every Car Buyer Kayaks and Mountain Bikes?

iMedia Connection: Reaching Consumers Around the Clock

Fawn Fitter writes this article and it is well done. However, the strategy employed by Saatchi (along with most other agencies) is one that has always left me a bit perplexed. In the article, Saatchi believes that Yaris buyers don't just watch "Lost", but they blog about it and text friends while they watch. As a result, the core of the Yaris marketing plan is digital.

Oddly enough, I was in a Toyota dealer last week and asked who was buying the Yaris. They told me that it was about 70% folks in their late 40s through their early 60s who wanted something economical with Toyota quality. The rest were younger folks that fit the expected demo. Of course, statistics show this is the same result Honda had with the Element and Scion has had with its brand. So where are all the 20-somethings if they're not buying the cars that are marketed to them? The truth is, they're buying Kias, Subarus, Mazdas, and more than all new cars combined, used cars.

On one hand, I understand that advertising a vehicle as being targeted at the 50+ crowd isn't going to get any 20-somethings in the dealership. On the other hand, to center the entire campaign around the digital world seems overzealous. A dealer in San Antonio I truly respect has commented on this issue to me many times. He contends that so many manufacturer marketing and advertising plans don't meet expectations because they fail to accurately target the real demographic that will be buying the vehicle. Actually, he and I have joked that if as many car buyers were into kayaking and mountain biking as the advertising suggests, we would be in the kayaking and mountain biking business.

iMedia Connection: The Price Clients Pay for Interactive

iMedia Connection: The Price Clients Pay for Interactive

Gerry McGoldrick writes in this article that interactive agencies have to (or should) charge by the hour as opposed to traditional agencies who charge a commission. I don't know Gerry, but with all due respect, neither are correct.

Gerry is frustrated by clients who want to compare one fee structure to the other, but it appears he refutes the argument by continuing the comparison. One can't win a debate about incomparable ideologies by then comparing them.

If you've ever hired someone by the hour you know the first concern that comes to mind. Will they complete the job as quickly as possible or stretch it out a little to bill the hours? If invoices make a client tense, the client will find someone else to invoice them. And commission, how irrelevant! It doesn't take double the effort, knowledge or resources to buy $2mm worth of TV that buying $1mm worth of TV does. Haven't clients figured this out?

Years ago I asked a small agency to give me a full estimate (including their fee) to produce a 20,000 piece direct mail. I then plugged in estimated response rates, buy rates and came out with an (unfavorable) ROI. I told them I couldn't justify their fee because the ROI wasn't working out. Their response? "We didn't know our fee was part of the ROI equation." Why wouldn't it be? That money doesn't come from a separate non-measured source!

In the end, ROI is the only thing that matters to a client. At Goodway 2.0 (and the great folks at Goodway Group) we price to ROI - period. Sure we figure our time, resources and hard costs in there. The trick is, if all of that is added up and we can't make the ROI work, we don't take the project. Additionally, this tactic takes all the focus away from our fees and puts it on the value of the ideas, execution, and overall campaign. When one side wins, we all win. After all, that's when it's the most fun.

We've Blown Up The Media Department

In our last post we talked about Yahoo! and OMD's findings of their recent consumer purchase pattern and behavior study.  In it, Mike Hess mentioned a term that made me stop and think: Channel Planning.

I thought about this and thought Isn't this just a new buzz term for Media Planning?  The only reason we re-name things is because the current term has developed a negative connotation.  Does media planning have a negative connotation?  Maybe it's because it's become formulaic and outdated to the point that it needs to be rethought.

On that same train of thought, I just started reading a recent Tom Peters book called Re-Imagine.  A great guy from my former Y&R days recommended it, but I had put it aside until now.  One of the main themes in Re-Imagine is "destroy and rebuild."  As Peters notes:

• It was easier to build Wal*Mart from scratch than to destroy and rebuild Sears


• It was easier for two geeky guys to build Microsoft from scratch than for IBM to re-invent itself


• Additionally, while Microsoft is less than 25 years old, it might be already easier for Google to build itself from nothing than for Microsoft to re-invent itself and be an agile competitor.

Is this the case with the media agency giants?  We've talked in past posts about the inability of the TV networks and newspapers to re-invent themselves, but the thought that the media agencies might be in the same boat is different and frankly scary. Lucky for you, if you're a client working with one of these large firms, you can quickly determine how up-to-date your agency has kept you and the rest of its clients in "channel planning."  Simply look at how your agency spends its clients' money by medium, and compare that against your demographic's media usage.  If it's in line, they're doing a fantastic job for you.  If they're planning TV at 80% of your budget and your consumer only spends 30% of its media consumption hours with TV, email me - jay at goodwaygroup dot com - and we'll talk.

Regardless of the industry you're in, regardless of your budget, make sure you're destroying and rebuilding strategic plans as often as new competitors surface.  That's what we do with marketing plans at Goodway 2.0 every day and it's a blast.  To some, not having boundaries and re-inventing the wheel with each plan may sound horrifying or tiring.  Just make sure the folks who feel that way aren't the ones hammering out your plan.

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