Growth of TV is Something to Watch!

Written by John Sintras for afr.com and published in afr.com 12.11.09

It’s certainly a dynamic time in TV land at the moment. Thirty three new TV channels will have launched by year end; time shifted viewing data will finally be incorporated into the OzTAM currency in late December; Seven, Ten and Foxtel have been busy spruiking their 2010 product line ups in launch events around the country; and the Multiview research panel will be introduced into subscription TV homes early next year.

That’s a lot of pro-activity for a medium that is supposedly dying. The reality is that consumer engagement in TV programs is as strong as ever. Our recent word of mouth study, Branded Conversations, confirmed that TV programs are the most talked about product category of all, with 79 per cent of all people talking about a TV program an average of 2.7 times each week. And contrary to popular belief, technology is actually helping to increase consumer engagement with TV content, with the DVR in particular helping people to view more programs more often on their own terms.

To validate this trend, and to give us an idea of what we can expect when time shifted viewing data is introduced in Australia, Starcom recently commissioned a major TV behaviour survey in conjunction with Network Ten. We spoke to 1600 respondents aged 16-54 years across Australia, using a combination of household surveys, viewing diaries and in-depth interviews during September and October.

Among the key findings:

•The majority of viewer interaction with TV sets across the week continues to be for viewing TV programs. Almost three quarters (72 per cent) of all interactions were watching live TV, 15 per cent were watching a recorded program, 7 per cent were recording a program and the remaining 6 per cent were watching DVDs, gaming or hooking up their PC.

•People have very quickly embraced the new FTA digital channels. Seventeen per cent of all respondents claimed to be regular watchers of both One HD and Go!, and the results were similar in both DVR and non -DVR households (we were in field too early to get a result for 7TWO). Also, 6 per cent of people nominated both channels as their favourite channel, already higher than the results for SBS or any of the existing subscription TV channels among total people 16-54 years old.

•A DVR presence in the household drives more daily viewing. More than three quarters (78 per cent) of respondents claimed to be watching more than 1.5 hours of TV on weekdays versus 71 per cent in non-DVR households, and it was 86 per cent versus 77 per cent on weekends. Engagement metrics in DVR households are also high: 54 per cent say they enjoy watching TV programs more since getting a DVR, 55 per cent say they watch a greater variety of programs, 40 per cent say they spend more time watching TV, and 70 per cent rarely miss an episode of their favourite programs since getting a DVR

•Time shifting varies dramatically by genre, and is consistent with the trends already seen overseas. News and current affairs is the genre with the highest ‘mostly live’ watching score in time shift enabled households at 76 per cent, followed by sport with 60 per cent, and light entertainment at 54 per cent. The genres with the lowest ‘mostly live’ viewing scores are mini-series, movies, documentaries and drama on 32 per cent, 34 per cent, 37 per cent and 38 per cent respectively.

•Most time shifting happens within a week. Seventy-one per cent of respondents claimed to watch back recorded programs within the week, validating OzTAM’s decision to limit the capture of playback viewing at seven days. Almost a quarter (23 per cent) of people claimed to watch recorded programs the same day, 21 per cent the next day, 15 per cent within two to three days, and 12 per cent within four to seven days.

•Ad skipping is prevalent in time shift playback, but so is ad avoidance in traditional viewing in non DVR homes. Interestingly only 9 per cent of DVR households nominated ad skipping as the main reason for recording programs. However, 74 per cent said they frequently or occasionally skipped through ads. On the surface, this represents a huge challenge for traditional TVC formats. Of some consolation is the fact that 42 per cent of people said they would stop skipping through an ad if they were interested in the product being advertised, 35 per cent if the content was interesting, and 30 per cent if the content was humorous.
Before we all get too depressed about these figures, we must remember that people have been skipping ads by other means since TV was invented. To try and qualify this, we also asked non DVR households what they did during the ad breaks: 40 per cent of people claim they never or rarely watch the ads, and the majority of people also claim to leave the room, channel flick, or multi-task during ad breaks anyway, so it’s difficult to make the claim that DVRs themselves are driving ad avoidance.

•Downloading TV programs is increasing. Twenty per cent of people claimed to have streamed or watched TV programs online, 15 per cent claimed to have downloaded and saved a TV program, and 11 per cent claimed to watch TV programs downloaded by others. These figures will undoubtedly continue to grow and the next challenge for the ratings currency will be how we start to measure this increasingly large viewing opportunity.

There has never been a more dynamic time in TV, and it’s going to be fascinating to watch the developments over the coming year. While there will be more content, increasing viewer engagement and interaction and more opportunities for advertisers, it’s not a given that viewers will also engage with traditional TVC formats. Now more than ever we need to understand how and why people are viewing to successfully connect our brands with their favourite TV content in meaningful ways.

Who Said The Banner is Dead

Great article about the growing similarities/convergence of TV and online advertising.

Who Said The Banner Is Dead?
by Cory Treffiletti, Source: Mediapost (Online Spin)


For years and years I've heard that the banner is dead, or that it was dying, or that it was morphing into larger, more impactful, richer media units. I believed what "they" said, but just this past week while watching the World Series on Fox, I realized that the banner hasn't died, it just went over to TV!

How many of you noticed the eerily familiar, 728x90-esque unit that was laid across the top of the screen and resolved into the scoreboard graphic at random times throughout the night? I did -- and the irony was not lost on me.

One of the most frustrating aspects of being a digital media strategist is that recurring dialogue (or debate, depending on the mood) about the impact of advertising in television vs. the impact of advertising online. TV-centric marketers speak of the sight, sound and motion of TV vs. the limited screen size of the Internet. Internet pundits claim the state of engagement (lean-forward vs. lean-back) and the interactive component of online as the rationale for increased spending. Both sides have a point, but I find it funny that TV advertising is starting to incorporate more and more of the online units into the fray, thereby undermining their very own argument.

For years Fox has been leading the way of integrating more graphical display units into the mix. The digital on-screen graphics (or "bugs," as some people call them) have mirrored much of what can be done online: banners, full-screen takeovers that resolve to a smaller unit, and even embedded images within the programming on sportscasts. This banner unit, which if memory serves me correctly was an ad for DirectTV, steals directly from online -- but without the interactive component that lends it so much strength online!

The banner unit from the World Series expands, shows an ad that is very much like any of the plethora of Flash ads you see online, and the resolves back into the scoreboard graphic. The strategy is simply one of exposure, with no opportunity for a response or any user-initiated action. If it were up to me, I would put a message in there about visiting a Web site or a special digital cable channel that would be set up with more information.

I would think creating unique channels for marketer follow-up within a digital cable environment would be a killer way to encourage interaction and measure consumer response (drive to channel 1436 to get more information). In this way, TV would be gaining ground on digital as a means of measuring response. The picture-in-picture feature, or even the "last" button on my remote, would allow me to parallel path an inquiry for more information while not losing my place on the program I'm watching (though this is all for naught, since I could just pause that program as well).

It's inevitable that TV is going to be more like digital and digital is going to become more like TV. Digital is already embracing video into the platform, which marks where the future is headed for integration. TV is taking more steps to promoting brands during programming because DVR usage and commercial skipping are on the rise. When will TV begin to offer these digital on-screen graphics as a type of standardized offering?

That last question is one that intrigues me the most. As more consumers avoid commercial interruptions, TV is going to have to find ways to monetize programming during the show, and the old ad banner seems to be a logical consideration. If more shows, beyond sports, start to integrate that kind of unit and create ways for consumers to click or respond for more information, then the lines will blur even more between online and digital. In fact, everything will go digital! It's only a matter of time before my third-party ad-serving partners will be rotating into a fixed TV banner that comes up once during every content pod, right? The limited real estate and the limited availability will create a low supply, high demand -- and therefore, high premium -- placement, won't it?

I look fondly toward the future when the banner receives the embrace from advertisers that it so richly deserves. A toast, if you will, to the ad unit that was years ahead of its time!

Don't you agree?

Couldn't have said this better myself Corey!

Cookie Spraying ?

Link here to recent blog post from 'Economics of Advertising'. I couldn't help but put my 2 cents in. Thoughts anyone?

Eonomics of New Media Formats

Australian click through rates indeed in line with US

In line with our last post, more evidence that Australians are echoing digital behavior witnessed in Nthn America. In fact when it comes to clicking, AUNZ (along with NA) are amongst the least inclined in the world.

Full study here:

download here

Natural Born Clickers latest release

Starcom in the US have once more collaborated with Comscore to better understand those who click (online that is!).

Whilst the study is US based, we can pretty safely assume that as a market Australian 'clicker's would exhibit similar behavior. This is evidenced by declining overall click through rates.



The good news is, we can and do offer digital measurement techniques & tools built to provide deeper performance analysis. An example of this is Starcoms Digital Pathways, which provides us the ability to understand the impact of all digital tactics and particularly their inter relationships (eg display, performance, search).

More holistically, Starcoms Intentrack was developed to measure "performance" across all communications touch points (also inclusive of their inter relationships). We have robust Intentrack category learning's available in Australia now and have client based performance projects in field.

As the media landscape continues to evolve at such a rapid pace, so does the way we measure it. At Starcom we are fortunate to have the Global scale and resource to make measurement evolution a reality. For more information, feel free to get in touch.

Talking about a brand revolution

Written by John Sintras for afr.com and published in afr.com 08.10.09

Digital and social media continue to change everything from consumer behaviour to marketing communications. For anyone still unsure of the impact of the social media tsunami, look no further than than Vegemite’s latest product launch, the curiously named iSnack 2.0.

Within days of announcing the name, the consumer backlash over the Internet in the form of blogs, video clips, Twitter and Facebook protest groups, was sufficient to convince Kraft to publicly admit that they got it wrong. Isn’t it ironic that a name selected to appeal to a younger, digital savvy generation has been condemned using digital media itself?

People do care about brands, and when marketers tamper with iconic brands that are loved by multiple generations, they must do so with extreme care and ideally with public consultation and buy-in.

What is particularly sobering about this example, is the speed of both the public outrage and the marketer’s reaction. The old days of waiting months for consumer feedback and sales data are behind us. Digital media is allowing consumers to have their say, with mass scale, at a frighteningly fast pace.

Interestingly, Kraft has already announced it will ask consumers to help select the new name, so it might end happily after all. Or perhaps it was all a deviously clever scheme to get people involved all along?

It’s worth noting, however, that social media, or more importantly, word of mouth, has always been the most powerful medium in the world, and digital media only represents part of this broader communications opportunity.

The digital revolution doesn’t live in a vacuum, it lives in a human context. Successful technologies have satisfied fundamental human needs and desires – to be informed and empowered, to communicate with people more easily, more often. Digital and social media are going gangbusters because people love to talk, to be heard, to validate and give meaning to their existence.

But people have always loved to talk. Digital measurement, and social media specifically, is allowing us to be more aware of what people are talking about, and more specifically what they are saying about brands and advertising. But the reality is that most conversations about brands are not digital, but traditional. We know now that digital is just the tip of the word of mouth iceberg.

Starcom recently conducted Australia’s most comprehensive study into word of mouth (WOM) marketing, called Branded Conversations.. It utilised both qualitative and quantitative techniques to scope and understand what people are talking about and why, how they are talking, and what impact it is having on their intentions and actions across various marketing categories. The results reinforced the critical importance of ‘branded word of mouth’.

On average, 50 per cent of people are having two ‘branded conversations’ each week in each major marketing category. The results vary markedly by category – 79 per cent of people talked about TV programs, 62 per cent about movies, 56 per cent about supermarkets, 48 per cent about cars, and 35 per cent about skin care.

Digital (online and mobile) contacts represented only 10 per cent of these conversations, the majority (80 per cent) are happening face to face, with the remaining 10 per cent happening over a phone conversation.

Most of these conversations happen within people’s inner circle: family (33 per cent), close friends (32 per cent), spouse/partner (19 per cent) and co-workers (16 per cent).

Most of these branded conversations are positive, with 62 per cent of people saying they were likely to pass on positive word of mouth.

Surprisingly, most branded conversations are triggered by marketing and advertising activities, and the subsequent impact is significant, although it varies considerably by category.

Successful brands of the future must realise that word of mouth is not an un-plannable by-product of marketing activity, but something that needs to be at the core of marketing and media strategy – the dynamics for each category need to understood, and communications need to be designed to generate positive WOM. People talk about brands they love, and people love brands people talk about – they feed each other.

Marketers and agencies must realise that people are a media channel in their own right, and that we need to start taking advocacy far more seriously. Let people in, help them to help you create something. Start to think of people as a media channel and you end up doings things very differently.

People talk every day, so this means a far more nimble and flexible approach to communication – the old days of annual planning are becoming archaic and ineffective – we need to move to real time planning, activation and optimisation.

Those marketers who understand human relationships, and seize the word of mouth opportunity, will be the most successful brands in a complex future. Listen, influence and evolve is the new media mantra for successful brand and media communication.

Vegemite and cheese anyone?

Digital spends outstrip TV in the UK

We are still along way from this in the Australia, however, I read with interest this morning that the UK has become the first major market where advertisers spend more on internet advertising than on TV.

UK Digital $ link

In the Australian market, last year internet investment over took both radio and magazine $ for the first time, however, $ are still a distant 3rd to press and TV.

Australian marketers are definitely changing gears in this direction and despite economic barriers, growth continues in the digital space. The question is, will we ever see internet over taking TV $ in this market? And if so, when?

Tracking "word of mouse"

It’s been proven time and time again, that the most influential marketing tactic in a brands tool kit is positive word of mouth. Whilst marketers are aware of this fact, the challenge until recently has been driving word of mouth at scale.

Social media has shifted the communication landscape on this front. Of course people still have many one to one conversations; however, they also now have the ability to wax lyrical about a brand/product to virtually hundreds of their ‘friends’. And this ‘word of mouse’ is proving, (like off line WOM), to be very influential.

From a brand perspective, this represents a huge opportunity. If you were a brand wouldn’t you want to listen to what your consumers were saying about you? And, as a consumer; wouldn’t you welcome that brands response to your feedback? Enter social media tracking!

Today, even without a social media strategy in place, all ‘brands’ can harness the opportunity to listen to what consumers are saying about them online. And if a brand REALLY listens to what consumers have to say (and respond honestly to their feedback) there’s a strong chance ‘it’ can expect a deeper level of loyalty (or if loyalty is not the goal, potentially even, sales, awareness, or more word of mouth).

So, it’s clear that tracking/listening to social media (ie online conversations) can offer brands the power to capitalise on, or at least learn from digital conversation.

To really take advantage of the digital social space, however, brands are required to start a conversation with their target market. Or in other words employ a social media strategy.

A social media strategy is designed to open the dialogue between the brand and consumers and in doing so to deepen the relationship. That’s right, not talking to/at, but real two way dialogue.

Once a social strategy is in market, tracking consumer response is critical for success, as it provides the brand fast access to where and what is being said, important tools for continuing this dialogue.

So how do you track social media?

Technology providers and research companies have rapidly responded to the markets desire to listen/track online conversation.

As a result, there are many tools available to facilitate this need, ranging from the simple (shallow dive) to the complex (deep dive).

From a shallow perspective, all brands can (and should) embrace free tools that are readily available on the internet. For example, manual and regular searching of social sites for fan pages, daily brand twitter searches, and ongoing Google trend analysis. This is social tracking in its most basic form.

To more fully take advantage of the social media space, however, a robust (deep dive) tracking solution is recommended. This typically requires a monthly investment from the client to engage a social tracking specialist. These specialist solutions use technologically sophisticated programmes to trawl and report on activity across the www and report back in real time.

Further, the right solution will do more than simply track conversation it will also analyse that conversation providing enabling us to answer questions such as:

- Is anything being said?

- How much is being said?

- Are there geographical conversation skews?

- How does the brand compare ie ‘share’ of mentions to the competitor set?

- How are mentions trending over time?

- What is the split between a brands positive/neutral/negative sentiment – how does this trend over time?

- How can we understand what the conversation means in relation to the brand?

- What are the implications for how the brand communicates?

- What conversation warrants a response from the brand?

- Are there negative comments? Should & how can the brand respond?

- How can we take positive dialogue and share with more potential customers?

- From a consumer perspective, what is the brands position in the market?

In selecting the ‘right’ social tracking company/solution, its important to have a clear understanding of the relevant market dynamics ensuring the solution can deliver the subsequent required depth of response/analysis.

Of course, ultimately, a brand/s digital social activity should be designed to integrate with overall messaging and advertising initiatives. It should therefore also play a role in delivering to the brands over arching objectives (eg sales). Hence, tracking and levering social media or ‘buzz’ in isolation is only part of the picture. To complete the picture requires a much deeper understanding of how that online conversation then influences overall performance. But I believe, that’s a subject for another time.

(written by Yvette Mayer for the MFA education newsletter)

IT STILL PAYS TO BE GREEN

Have you been too stressed lately to worry about putting out the recycling bin? Has ‘global warming’ been replaced by ‘cooler spending’ as your favourite topic of dinner party repartee?

The Australian Association of National Advertisers (AANA) is busy working on a new Environmental Claims Advertising and Marketing Code for release later this year. The new Code will help ensure that advertisers and marketers develop and maintain rigorous standards when making environmental claims in advertising and marketing communications.

With the hullabaloo about the global financial crisis over the last year, it feels like there hasn’t been the same amount of coverage or interest in ‘greenwashing’ or environmental issues, even with the emissions trading scheme debate. Has the general public been so absorbed in its own economic concerns that they have put environmental concerns on the top shelf for now? And if so, do we still need a new ‘Green Code’?

Starcom’s weekly social tracker, PeoplePulse provides a good indication of peoples’ thoughts on this issue. PeoplePulse launched earlier this year as an ongoing research methodology to trend the way people are feeling about a wide range of social issues, lifestyle trends and financial decision making.

It turns out most Australians do not believe being green is just a fad, with only 12.5 per cent agreeing with this statement in the month of July. Only a quarter of us believe there is too much talk about green these days.

The majority of us are still concerned about the environment despite the GFC and, interestingly, regional Aussies are more concerned than their metro city cousins, with 54.3 per cent claiming they were concerned about the environment, compared with 47.7per cent in the metropolitan cities.

This concern is translating into action with 53.9per cent of metro Aussies claiming to make a conscious effort to be environmentally friendly, and 57.6per cent making an effort in regional Australia.

Importantly for marketers with ‘green credentials’, a good deal of Australians prefer to buy environmentally sustainable brands, 41.7per cent and 43.5per cent in metro versus regional respectively. Even more importantly, more than a third of Australians would like to learn more about environmental issues, and over a third say they would pay more for products that are genuinely environmentally friendly. This is particularly compelling given this same survey identified the cost of living as the highest ranking social issue at the moment. Clearly many consumers are willing to trade off other luxuries to support a sustainable future.

These significant numbers provide ample justification of the need for the Environmental Claims Advertising and Marketing Code being developed by my colleagues at the AANA, which I’m sure is a relief given the amount of work that’s already gone into its development.

More generally PeoplePulse is gradually picking up increased positive sentiment, with 60per cent of Australians selecting positive versus negative mood statements in the last two weeks of July. This compares with levels of 51 to 55per cent for most of the weeks from March through to June this year. There is, however, some evidence of continued concern.

As referenced earlier, the cost of living continues to be the largest issue, and after trending down in early June it has started to creep up again in late June and July, co-relating with concern about rising interest rates which is now the third largest issue having been as low as sixth earlier this year.

Irrespective of overall sentiment, it appears that concern for the well-being of our planet remains an important issue for most Australians, and that’s both a comforting thought and a marketing opportunity for products with genuine green credentials.

John Sintras is CEO of Starcom Mediavest and a Board Director of the Australian Association of National Advertisers.

Written by John Sintras and published in afr.com 04.09.09

Australian internet usage grows 16% over night!

Now that I've got your attention, I must say that the headline is somewhat misleading. Having said that the news is still rather exciting.

Nielsen today announced a revamped version of NetView, incorporating a new meter, new methodology, hardware and processing improvements and most importantly an increased / (ie more accurate) sample panel.

Up until this point, the market have made do with digital media planning data that did not accurately reflect the true extent of online usage, due to a panel that was strongly weighted towards at home usage. As a result, we all suspected that reported figures were likely to be under cooked (given enormous office based use).

Well, we were right, Nielsen data released from July 2009 shows a 16% jump in 'unique audience online'. By Publisher/site there are some significant variances, however, all (we think) have grown.

Of the top 5, the biggest gains were achieved by Fairfax @ +49% and Yahoo7 / Sensis both @ +41%. I'm sure all will be out beating their drums in the coming week.

Despite their numbers increasing, however, we don't expect this news to drive major change in share by Publisher. Perhaps some more competition regarding home page take overs, but little beyond that. If we are paying on CPM/CPC/CPA, we are still buying impressions or actions, not "total" audience.

The bigger story for us is in the TOTAL numbers and beyond total unique audience, there is more news. And that is, that reported average time spent online figures have actually doubled. This is huge news for the industry, illustrating more accurately just how much time individuals are engaging with the medium.

To end, it's all good. The quality of our planning data is becoming much more accurate. And there's more good news. The next step for Nielsen will see a Hybrid of their MI cookie based system and the improved NetView panel data re calibrated. Once the Hybrid system is released we can expect mobile and 'other' (library, Uni, cafe etc) data to also be covered. Again reported numbers will grow.

Note - Planners be warned, historical monthly trend data will not be relevant and will show a jump between June and July 2009. If presenting this data, a separation needs to be identified and an explanation of the changing measureument system foot noted.

TIME SHIFT IS JUST THE BEGINNING

As published on afr.com.au today, John Sintras, Starcom Australia's CEO comments on 'Time Shift is Just the Beginning':

December 2009 will see the most significant change in TV measurement since the introduction of PeopleMeters in 1991: the inclusion of ‘time shifted viewing’ into the TV ratings currency.

This is a positive and necessary step forward for the industry. Time shifted viewing is not new, people have been doing it for years with VCRs, but unlike other markets, that viewing has never been captured in the ratings data in Australia. The advent of digital video recorders, however, has made it easier to record far more content, making it increasingly important to measure this viewing as penetration of these devices continues to increase.

So what can we expect as this data becomes available on December 28?

Everything to do with how TV is planned, negotiated, bought, measured and covered editorially will be affected, and a huge amount of education will be required across the industry in a relatively short period of time.
- Overall ratings will increase, as ‘time shifted viewing’ has never been measured before. The TV networks will try and monetise this increase, while clients and their agencies will argue they have already been paying for these eyeballs but just couldn’t measure them until now
- The size of the ratings increase will not be consistent across genres and programs. We know from overseas experience that the amount of time shifted viewing can vary dramatically – we can expect less time shifted viewing for live sport and water cooler programs such as Masterchef
- We will now have the choice of three sets of ratings, Live (viewed within the minute), As Live (viewed with that day) and Time Shifted (viewed within a period to be agreed, but likely to be seven days)
- Everyone will need to decide which set of ratings is the most relevant for them, and to ensure that this consistent definition is used all the way through the process of briefing, strategy, negotiation, buying and measurement
- Different clients will be interested in different definitions depending on how time sensitive their advertising is, why pay for eyeballs seven days later if your sale ended mid-week?
- Different negotiation and buying strategies will emerge depending on which ratings are most valuable to each client
- Journalists and the TV networks will need to consider which ratings they publicise, and to disclose which definition they are reporting. Day after ratings reports might be timely but won’t reflect the final ratings after time shifting. Will anyone be patient enough to wait a week to report full results?
- Historical benchmarking and direct response models will be affected, as direct year-on-year comparisons won’t be possible for ‘As Live’ and ‘Time Shifted’ viewing
- Competitive analysis and Independent third party auditing will also be affected. Which definition will be used for competitive comparisons and cost benchmarking? Will comparisons be appropriate if clients are buying three different sets of ratings?
- All industry TV systems will need to be re-configured to cope with the additional data

There is a lot of work and potential confusion ahead as the industry adjusts to this expansion of the TV currency. Agencies and clients not already thinking through these issues will be caught out.

But it doesn’t stop there. How is the industry going to measure Catchup TV, IPTV (downloads/streaming) and mobile viewing as these forms of TV viewing become more common? The OzTAM currency will capture time shifting of the exact broadcast itself, not alternative versions available in other digital formats.

Ideally, we should work towards a holistic measurement system that can capture viewing in all its forms. Will OzTAM work towards incorporating this viewing into the main currency over time, or will we need a supplementary service to provide this?

The subscription TV (STV) industry has already announced a supplementary service in the form of Multiview Analytics, and it will be fascinating to see what additional data becomes available for viewing and purchase dynamics in STV homes. But what about the majority of homes that still don’t have STV?

This is huge challenge facing the industry and it will need to be addressed soon. Time shifted ratings are just the beginning, and time is running out to meet the challenges of a future already upon us.

John Sintras.

Behavioural Targeting & Retargeting are becoming another tool for clients to drive lead generation, but what about premium pricing?

The obvious trend during a recession is to become even more targeted with media spend and as we know the trend within online display is even more amplified in this way.

BT and Retargeting, otherwise known as "lower funnel media" are key tools for clients to target in-market consumers. As the technology in this area becomes even more sophisticated, the AU online industry will soon see this level of targeting become the norm.

The challenge for Publishers who offer BT/Retargeting as we see it currently is the pricing model, as media agencies planning for direct response clients will always want to crunch on CPM price to drive lowest cost per conversion, yet the technology is proprietary to the Publisher in most cases and doesn't come without significant investment & infrastructure/back-end support.

It will be interesting to see if Publishers can maintain charging a premium for BT/Retargeting CPM's in a market that has been flooded with 'low cost & untargeted' CPM package deals of late and for technology that will soon become 'the norm', as more advanced technologies are developed. Watch this space!

Twitter Feed

Starcom Australia is now twittering, follow Starcomoz for our news and views.

WFA publish behavioral targeting principles

Behavioral advertising & privacy concerns have been a topic of healthy debate lately. Now the WFA have published 'principles' which the IAB locally support.

The issue at hand is regarding the use of cookies to more effectively target 'in market' consumers. Data is captured by following IP address activity across sites, advertising and content. The use of this as a method of targeting has grown exponentially over the past 18 months in Australia.

There are two schools of thought:
1/ Consumers are largely unaware of how this data is used and therefore it's an invasion of privacy
OR
2/ By tapping into behavioral data, we are actually providing a better experience by serving more relevant advertising messages

Personally, unsurprisingly I'm in the second camp. Having said that I do believe it's important to be as transparent and authentic as possible in this space (actually in all marketing). Therefore, I encourage you to embrace the 'Seven Principles' below.

WFA proposed Principles for self-regulation in online behavioural advertising

1. The Education Principle
–Calls for organisations to educate the public about online behavioral
advertising
•Individuals
•Businesses
–Industry-based Web sites
•How online behavioral advertising works
•Consumer choices

2.The Transparency Principle
–Deploy multiple mechanisms for disclosing and informing public:
•Data collection
•Use of practices associated with online behavioral advertising
–Companies collecting and using data
•New links and disclosures on Web page / ads

3. The Consumer Control Principle
–Users of Web sites for which behavioral advertising data is collected can
choose whether the data can be used for such purposes
•Choice provided by companies collecting data
•Choice mechanism at Web site or industry developed site
–Service Providers
•Enhanced notice

4. The Data Security Principle
–Requires organizations to provide reasonable security for data collected and
used
–Limited retention

5. The Material Changes Principle
–Directs organizations to obtain consent before data is used for a materially
different purpose than originally agreed to by consumers

6. The Children’s Principle
–Children’s data collected for online behavioral advertising
•Merits heightened protection
•Applies to activities set forth in the Children’s Online Privacy
Protection Act

7. The Accountability Principle
–For organizations representing the online behavioral advertising ecosystem
•Support industry self– regulatory development
•Continue to strengthen accountability

BING

Wondering how well BING is doing locally so far? Well the HITWISE stats are in, and so far, it's certainly having some impact. At least compared to everyone but Google!

BING

Let's hope we see more growth over time, competition can only be a good thing for the market.

Now, how about a BING version of Google analytics (delivered locally) for us advertisers?

"Vanity URLs"

At exactly 12:01am EST Saturday, 13/06/09, Facebook offered users a chance to personalise their Facebook page with their own, customized URL, based on a first come first served basis.

Prior to this, only a select few were able to obtain personalized URLs (such as President Barack Obama, Britney Spears and General Electric). The user rules prohibited trademark infringement and other, obvious and offensive terms were blacklisted.

So how many people “stood in line” to grab their customised vanity URL? Users registered 200,000 custom usernames in their first 3 minutes of availability. By later Saturday morning, 3 million usernames had been registered. Through Sunday (14/06/09), 5.75 million usernames had been taken across the site. One user blogged: “I was nervous leading up to the final minute before the usernames were released, but I got the name I was looking for!”.

The nearly 6 million usernames registered so far represent only about 3% of the site’s 200+ million users, however as others see their friends have a vanity URL and less frequent facebook users sign on and begin to pick up on this, it is likely it will only be a matter of time before a majority of users follow this trend.

Facebook is joining the competition:
MySpace, Twitter and other social networking sites already let users personalize their home pages. So why has Facebook finally decided to join in? A Facebook designer discussed how this addition will make it easier for friends and family to connect with Facebook users and as he stated “they will have an ‘easy-to-remember’ way to find you.”

What is the significance of this? How does this impact who we are and where we are and our identities?

Quoted from one blogger. “I was not able to get my first choice of vanity URL on Facebook but I’m certainly not surprised. Nevertheless, I now look forward to updating my personal Twitter background so that my Facebook contact information reflects a more inviting vanity URL rather than a cold, prison-like ID code.” - Joe

Once your username goes mainstream, it makes your “home” on the Web easier to remember. And having your “home” on Facebook (which more people are likely to visit than say, a separate website), is priceless. For example, on an advertisement for Vitamin Water, the address www.facebook.com/vitaminwater flashes across the bottom of the screen. Beyond something like Twitter where you can just follow someone, companies/brands are able to do so much more with a Facebook Fan Page as they can code it however they want.

The URL that a person, company or brand chooses reflects something about one’s online or offline identity. Whatever the choice may be, it is a way of saying ‘Here *I* am!'.

What does this cultural shift say about our future?

Our online identities could move from being just a “silly alias” online to an official identification – a single authentic label for how we identify ourselves from EVERY CORNER of the Web. And people could begin referring to you offline…in your online alias.

Take for example, 25 year old digital media artist and photographer, An Xiao. Recently when having a night out on the town at cocktail parties and gallery openings, Ms. Xiao was referred to throughout the night by her friend as her online name “thatwaszen.” As she states, “Thatwaszen – it has become my name. It’s just like when you hear your name at a cocktail party, you turn your head.”

Web life could start trickling into real life...
As a Dr. John Suler (a professor who studies cyberpsychology) stated: “I think it’s the exception rather than the rule that offline and online identities are ‘disassociated’ with each other. For many people, there is push, consciously or unconsciously, to integrate online and offline identities…to make them synergistic to each other.”

Seema Patel.

Sources reference: mashable.com 26/06/09; abcnews.go.com 12/06/09; observer.com 15/06/09; techcrunch.com 31/05/09

Wave, Bing and Punch - The week the web took a serious step forward...

Anyone remotely associated with the digital space would have no doubt heard about the recent announcements by Google, MS and News Ltd. Here's my take on the events of the past week...

First of all, the boffins at Google unveiled their latest innovation: Google Wave. If you haven't yet seen the developer conference keynote (or even the first 10 minutes of it), check it out here:



After sitting through 80 minutes of the most awkward tech nerdery ever to be presented live on stage, one thing is clear: This is the largest step forward for online communication since the commercial penetration of email.

My only concern is that it could be too advanced. Try explaining how a wave works to a 50+ silver surfer who just setup their first Hotmail account? There is no doubt that the big G has a long way to go with this product, in both education and development, but give it 5 years and basic email will be as dead as the dusty old fax machine in the corner of your office.

The second big announcement was the launch of Bing. Microsoft's overhauled version of Live Search. Without waxing lyrical about it, there are a few points worth mentioning:

• Any competition is good for the search industry. This is the first product I've seen in a long time that comes close to Google. They've had it too good for too long.
  
• Search is a habit. No one ever decides to search, then pick their provider. It's going to take a big attitude shift, and a good 2-3 years before Bing becomes a serious player in this market. Writing it off now would be shortsighted on anyone's behalf.
  
• Bing is actually quite well built (all MS jokes aside...). The image search, video search, and contextual info along side search listings rocks. As Mumbrella pointed out, there are still a few bugs, but they'll sort that out over time...

Overall a solid effort by the big end of town, and one to watch over the coming months and years...

The third big launch this week had more of a local flavour. News Ltd pushed the Go button on their latest effort in opinion-based journalism, ThePunch.com.au. Described as an Oz version of The Huffington Post, it's purpose is to generate conversation, and a quick snap of the current homepage shows that it seems to be doing that pretty well (considering it's 2 days old).

The site looks great and seems to have pretty regular updates from it's main journos. One thing that The Daily Beast and others do well is get regular pieces from celebrity contributors. 80% of the Daily Beast articles I get pointed to are written by Michael Moore. For The Punch to get ahead, they'll need to start swinging their left hooks a little more often. They have the roster, it's time to call on them.

A big week in the progression of online technology and media, and certainly one that we should all be excited about.

2 Reasons why the PR bogan may appear in Zoo Weekly

It appears the hoax was uncovered over the weekend but not before the self propagating nature of the internet has turned this into a monster viral. I can't help but wonder if she came clean the day after and had not employed a PR agent we would we have seen the same coverage.

Those of you have suggested conspiracy theories are on your own I am just trying to predict the next steps in this publicity machine. And I am sure "The Projects" Adam Adams will not be hurt by a little more publicity on the back of the Fake NSW twitter account uncovered last week.

2 Good Reasons why the PR bogan Clare Warbeloff may appear in Zoo Weekly:

- Former ACP creative solutions Simon Philby & Adam Adams (Clare's PR) run The Projects Link to B&T press release

- Simon Philby's role at ACP (former emap) may have been on Zoo Weekly
Link to google search

Given that Zoo Weekly is an ACP title that falls under PBL its a more likely proposition than Ralph or FHM.

So hold on the ride has only just begun and we look forward to seeing Clare Werbeloff's bikini clad body on another ninemsn property.

Validation?!

Boom

Is Clare a fabricated bogan?

By now you have seen Clare's articulate account of the shooting in Kings Cross but I am a little cynical.



5 reasons why Clare may not be a bogan:

1) She has employed UNO PR -Adam Abrams Link

2) UNO PR falls under the umbrella and at the same address as The Projects

3) The Projects is a specialist agency targeting young adults Link

4) The Projects is located 6min from the shooting in Paddington (same as PR firm)

5) Is that Clare below on the Project site Link
















6) Why does 6 beers feature so prominently in the clips on different camera angles

I do suspect a call to ninemsn to determine the source of the video and a call to the Projects would establish help establish some truth.


Please feel free to comment.

facebook is becoming less friendly but easier to navigate

We have all heard a discussion around friend politics and who to add to your varying social networks but I want to discuss the new friend page in facebook.

In summary:
- now more easily create separate groups for feeds
- Friends (feeds) can be easily grouped (see below)
- Friends can be linked to multiple groups













Below is my current groups with an explanation:

- Family: pretty obvious

- (IRL) In Real Life: friends before facebook & we catch up

- Cafe: secret group of male friends (no further info sorry)

- Current work: We work together at Starcom

- Meredith Music: Feed for music festival people I work with

- Reps: They try and sell me stuff

- Digital Cadet: People I studied digital in Sydney with

- FOXTEL: yep I worked there for 8years

- High School: stalking, babies, etc

- (FOF) Friends of Friends: added out of loyalty to another friend

So their is no need to have a debate about your feeds (friends) that you add just filter them into a group. Will these changes see people extend their friendship networks.

Next step apply those privacy settings.

I hope this has helped you be more productive in fb so that you can minimize your touchpoints with social networks at work.

Getting started on B to B collaboration via yammer

Having been on yammer for 2 weeks I wanted to
share some tips on this b to b enterprise software.


1) yammer beginners should watch CEO presentation at TechCrunch 08
http://www.ustream.tv/recorded/698282


2) Tools are your real friends: yammerfox, iphone, blackberry, desktop.
https://www.yammer.com/company/applications

3) Click members (see right) & invite by field of interest or sort by messages or followers. Remember its a filter for information you deem useful.

4) Join country groups or client groups to narrow down messages (yams) of interest

5) Explore More\files or links to see content already posted

6) View tags or indexes of content by keywords





7) Filter your inbox. Create a quick rule which pushes all your daily yam updates into a folder. Lotus users see screen shot.

In the next session I will cover posting tips, time management and yammer as a feed burner.

Link to our esteemed Digital Planner James Drewe's first interview!

James Drewe

Twitter...a Marketing tool?

Last week at the Sydney AdTech conference I attended the Twitter session (actually as did many of my peers, it was without question the most crowded session I attended). So yes it seems Twitter has finally gained some traction in Australia.

I've been on Twitter since late 2007. Up until early this year, I will admit to being a bit slack on the tweet front. I'd perhaps tweeted about 20 times. As with much of what I do on the internet, I adopt this behavior to learn from just as much as to participate (no really!). But enough about my personal twitter use now.

I have to say, as much as I felt like a laggard, I did get a lot out of the session. My initial thoughts were...not really a Marketing tool. After the session my opinion changed. Why? Firstly, there were some convincing case studies (even Telstra BigPond is on board, who knew). Secondly, post the session I have easily been able to apply the how and the why to many other brands - in my mind rather than in practice I must admit.

Let's take James's problem with advertising locally. Let's meet his brief with a Twitter response.

- James's client (I am making this up), is an independently owned fruit store in Brisbanes New Farm
- This is a small business run by a man with a big personality
- Said man has loyal customer base but they are not visiting frequently enough, choosing to pick up much of their fruit and Veg at the Supermarket
- Using twitter, he decides to set himself up as ContheFruiterer
- Con begins to tweet about all the delicisous, in season produce arriving to his NewFarm store daily
- He uses his big personality to his advantage and is clearly authentic in his tweets
- In the shop he begins to banter with his customers about Twitter and encourages them to join and follow him
- In turn (in time), his customers begin to become aware of what's new/fresh/in season and when and also what he has on sale for limited time periods - even special deals for those following his tweets
- After building up his 'followers' Con realises it's time to take it to the masses
- Next step sees Con using geographical targeting tools to eDM local families and businesses about his great Twitter adventure
- Cons loyal base begins to enjoy 'being in the know' and even coming in more frequently

What's your Twitter strategy?

Local Advertising and Online

After reading a recent article on Business Week, (here) I got to thinking about the campaigns I've worked on for local clients and the difficulties I've faced in a) getting online across the board and b) actually finding where these clients can advertise.

We all love working on big national clients with big national budgets, however many agencies also have a number of local-based clients they also work on. There are many hurdles involved in getting these local advertisers into the online space, the least of which is the client's knowledge of the mystical being they see as 'digital' and 'online'.

Personally, I find it quite refreshing to go along the journey with a small local client and get them online and share a successful campaign - it breaks up what can sometimes feel like a 'rinse-and-repeat' process with some larger clients. Those small clients who do show an interest and eagerness to learn about online get much more excited about the process than big-business and - I have found - much easier to work with, despite more work being involved on my end in getting the digital education up to the necessary level.

However, many local clients aren't too eager to dip their toes in the online field, and after doing a number of campaigns for these sorts of clients, I'm beginning to see it from their point of view. The internet just isn't a local medium. From day dot, the internet has always been about connecting people, networks. Many people look to the social aspect of the internet in recent years and think, there's got to be a way to use that on a local level. The problem is, no matter how you dice the audience, that network (be it social or otherwise) can be global.

Most social networking - and I'm not just talking about Facebook and Myspace, but forums and blogs and so on - uses common interest as the glue that hold the group together. There's communities devoted to knitting, oil-painting, cars, toenail clippings and god-knows what else, but there seems to be very little in the way of 'local' community interaction. Why would I want to talk to Joe Bloe from down the street when I can interact with Steve McCool from Beunos aires and Jane Trendy from the Lower East Side? There internet just doesn't seem to be so efficient when it comes to local level marketing.

But this isn't just the fault of the internet. Local daily (or weekly) newspapers are in decline, you see the figures almost weekly at the moment. Despite this, local newspapers have much more of a community feel to them then any forum or group on the internet. Compounding this problem is the fact that many newspapers still struggle with their online properties. Local papers are used to only publishing stories once (maybe twice) per week, so trying to get their head around this whole 'instant' thing seems to be a very large hurdle. So some sites will agregate their content with feeds from state/national or even international sources, reducing the whole localness of the brand.

So we are left with local community newspaper websites with already small audiences, but now most of their content comes from a larger, usually more authoritative website and a lot of users seem to be using the large sites aleady anyway.

So what do we do for local advertisers?

At the moment, there aren't many viable options open. You could use an eDM and send out advertising in newsletter targeted to postcodes, but most people hate spam and traditional DM can still do a very good job; Local newspaper websites can work, but they work best when your client has good geographic reach or multiple locations to make the most of the audiences available; finally there is IP targeting. Many publishers still can't do postcode or region targeting in Australia which is increasingly frustrating for both clients and us at agencies.

It's a bit of a catch-22 at the moment for local clients and online: they're tightening their belts looking for better efficiency, and the one channel which can deliver very well on this can't provide the level of localness they need. It will be interesting to see how this year pans out for advertisers, especially smaller, local based clients.

Man in the Jacket

I was contacted by the media last week to comment on the impact social media & viral campaigns are having on advertising models. In particular, they wanted to discuss Nakeds "Man in the Jacket" campaign. As a result I have been closely following this story.

To get your self up to speed on this matter, watch the farce here in its full glory:

Man in the Jacket

The press thereafter has been varied, but pretty consistent (outside of when Nakeds PR agency have written it). For example:

Cinderella?

Somebody please save me. Has nobody explained to those phsycho babble supremesists at Naked some advertising basics.

- Our job is to stell stuff to consumers
- Consumers are a cynical bunch who enjoy picking advertising to pieces
- Any attempt to con them will result in resentfulness....not exactly what a brand is looking for at launch
- Simple, honest communication works best (throw in some emotion and you're on your way)

You know, this campaign is so bad, I've actually quite enjoyed following subsequent media rant. Thankfully I'm not their target audience or I'd feel like a traitor.

Seems I'm not alone:

Mumbrella

Fanta Uses Mobile Augmented Reality To Play Virtual Tennis

It’s not perfect, but Fanta’s Virtual Tennis is one of the first real examples of a company using augmented reality in a new and unique way to advertise their products.

Augmented reality is done by overlaying graphics onto a "real world theme" via the view-finder in your camera. Therefore, turning your handset into a virtual reality system whereby you can play games by yourself or with friends.

Take a look at the video here - http://thefutureofads.com/2009/01/28/fanta-uses-mobile-augmented-reality-to-play-virtual-tennis/

Speak to your Sensis Mobile rep about this if interested. This can be done in Australian but am told at a minimum cost of $100k, very cool stuff though....

Sign of the times, Obama is well and truly on board

There has been much in the press in recent weeks regarding digital / technology embracement. Whilst Martin Sorrel ponders this matter in Athens WPP conference , more intereestingly Obama is already living and breathing it Obama.