Putting the brakes on?

At yesterday's IAB Automotive Forum, presenters from Microsoft, Yahoo! and Google were united in acknowledging that the automotive buying cycle has changed with the growing ubiquity of the internet in the research process. They also acknowledged that this has given rise to the emergence of a "new consumer", one who is web savvy and would prefer to spend his time researching cars on the internet than on the forecourt.

But just how green is this new consumer?

Microsoft research revealed that increasingly, it’s practicalities rather than environmental issues that buyers want to explore. When asked what factors they take into consideration when deciding the type, make and model of car, consumers chose purchase price first, followed by old favourites like reliability, fuel economy and driver comfort. Impact on the environment came in a lowly 13th place - behind ability to accommodate my family and just ahead of resale value.

The latest Yahoo! research backed up these findings. Asked what is the main criteria the consider when buying a car, 31% of consumers chose cost. Reliability came second with 21% of the vote, followed by safety with 11%. In eighth place with a paltry 2% was green credentials. Ian Webber, category director, automotive at Yahoo!, suggested that these results may have come about because consumers expect cars to be greener now. But nonetheless they will not make happy reading for the green car lobby.

Next up, Google unvieled recent research showing search volumes for the term "Hybrid". The figures peaked in June 2008 just before the credit crunch started to bite. Sure enough, by August they were in freefall and by January this year they had reached their lowest rate of recent years. 

We all know that products like Fray Bentos are selling well as the credit crunch bites and consumers are being forced to re-think their buying decisions as money becomes tighter. So it should be no great surprise that this is now crossing over into the automotive sector.

But what does this mean for advertisers working in the automotive industry? Over the last year we’ve seen some outstanding online work in the automotive sector. Most notable among these was AKQA’s eco:Drive campaign for Fiat which scooped the top prize in October’s Creative Showcase awards.

Will we see more of this sort of work - or is it time to get back to the gas guzzling basics?

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Marketers fail to seize internet’s branding mother load

However, with the exception of some major brands, TV and digital marketers are completely missing the biggest branding opportunity the internet is giving them because they aren’t taking the time to understand it. Something we hope to rectify with the launch of our new Online Video Marketing Guide (www.iabuk.net/video).

Ride the popular content bandwagon

Viral videos like T-Mobile’s dancing in Liverpool Street are great. However, it’s not just about creating a viral ad, but riding on the success of viral content. Would I have liked to advertise around Susan Boyles clip on YouTube? You bet I would. Yet I looked on in marketing horror as little to no advertising appeared in or around the video clip on the 150 million + views she’s created. People love her, the emotional association is huge. What a waste!

Imagine if no one advertised around the Olympic opening ceremony, or ahead of the upcoming Star Trek movie. Susan is just the tip of the iceberg and thankfully, behind the scenes, the cogs are turning to stop this from happening again (see Guardian and BrandRepublic articles).

Audience engagement

No matter the length of video content, if someone has chosen to watch that clip they are engrossed. As long as an advert is tailored to suit that particular type and length of video content, it won’t be intrusive and it will deliver branding and association that marketers crave. This level and type of engagement can’t be achieved via any other channel. With on-demand, you are guaranteed that the entire audience is interested in that type of content.

I’m not just talking about pre/mid/post-roll advertising either, there are some fantastic online video ad formats available to suit any form of content like adverts around the player rather than in it. These can be ideal for short content, the bulk of online video.

Pre-roll has had a rough time online because it hasn’t been used properly. Marketers are too quick to plonk a repurposed pre-roll online. This is fine on long content viewed full screen, but inappropriate for shorter content or smaller players. Online pre-roll takes over the entire user experience, engages consumers when done well and offers the same branding as a TV ad, but it needs to be filmed or edited with online in mind.

Barriers are a poor excuse

Over the last six months I listened intently to the vast majority of the video industry explain to me the various barriers to adoption for advertisers, primarily:

1. Education
2. Format guidelines
3. Case studies / examples
4. Research
5. Measurement
6. Perception of cost
7. Technology

Education, research, format guidelines and examples we obviously hope to tackle with our new guide, and will continue to do so as we add to it. Technology is already good and improving quickly. Perception of high CPMs is something the industry has to address itself by explaining the added ROI it offers, but measurement is a real bugbear of mine.

Online video advertising is still young, as such there is more to be done in this area, but measurement of online video is still leagues ahead of TV. Perhaps it will be necessary for more 3^rd party tracking and further industry initiatives to offer an advanced planning currency to get over this hurdle. But is that really a reason to miss out on a great opportunity in the meantime when it already offers so much? Personally I think it would be a terrible oversight.

• Learn what online video advertising can offer your company by going to www.iabuk.net/video
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3D ooooooooooo

Sam Mendes was recently asked whether he would be using 3D anytime soon.  He replied by saying, “I’ve been doing it for years – it’s called theatre.” Aside from loving the quote and hating him for being married to Kate Winslet it appears that 3D is the way forward. 

Bolt, Monsters vs Aliens and soon to be released Avatar the eagerly awaited return to film of Lord Cameron’s 3D versions is going through a renaissance.

Having seen Jaws 3D first time around I’m not surprised it’s taken so long to come back, but it appears that brands are leaping on the bandwagon.  Quickly following 3D ads shown during Superbowl is Crest’s “Kiss Me in 3D” which executionally is a massive let down, and very ambitious considering you have to have the glasses to view it online. 

More cooler is the new campaign from Dare for BMW Z4 which although isn’t 3D viewing per se (like Bolt) it does allow you to use your webcam to drive the car in 3D.

Similar technology is being used in the launch of Ford Ka that uses your mobile to view a 3D model of the vehicle from a hidden symbol.

So is 3D hype or is it here to stay?

Beyond impressions

“Too often we measure everything and understand nothing”, said Adam Freeman, commercial director at Guardian News and Media, at yesterday’s ABCe’s Interaction 2009 event. Freeman was quoting Jack Welch, former chairman and chief executive of General Electric, before going on to argue that the constantly evolving nature of online media has resulted in the need for measurement structures to be prepared to change at a similar pace.

Against a difficult backdrop – as Alistair Darling delivered his Budget announcement – Freeman argued that media fragmentation is a major factor in this change. As a result of increasingly fragmented audiences the traditional editorial model has been forced to change “from a monologue to a dialogue,” argued Freeman. The Guardian, for example, has 30 millions users, with over 10 million based in the US. “You have to think about your audience in completely different ways,” argued Freeman. “This has led us to recast the value of our editorial output”. 

Outlining one response that The Guardian has made to this change, Freeman discussed a model known as ‘the circle of love’, a curiously named in-house metric which seeks to show how consumers interact with Guardian content in its many different guises.

Freeman went on to discuss the recent launch of the Guardian’s Open Platform which he admitted journalists were initially uncertain about, but which has brought Guardian content to new audiences in innovative, non-traditional forms. Such initiatives, argued Freeman, meant that the Guardian has been forced “to rethink measurement” and to seek to add value for their advertisers by focussing on quality of engagement as well as the sheer volume of consumers.

“The traditional measures may not exist in three years time”, argued Freeman, suggesting that metrics such as “mood and mindset”, “active versus passive” and “word of mouth value” will replace traditional measures such as “click-throughs” and “page impressions” in the years to come. This process is already under way at the Guardian argued Freeman. “Internally, we’re starting to stop using page impressions as a guide to success,” he explained. “As a tool for measurement it doesn’t work for us anymore”.

So should we give up on the page impression? Are click-through figures irrelevant? It’s an interesting argument – but can we really imagine a future where advertisers would feel happy if media owners presented their results in terms of engagement and word of mouth value?

This will become an increasingly important discussion for the entire internet marketing industry to have over the coming years. Impact, engagement and reaction show the true effect of content and advertising. Much like TV or print, advertisers like to know how many people they reached, but more important are the other factors such as how many people their campaign influenced.

New forms of content delivery like video make this all the more important and it is something we have addressed in our new online video advertising guide, launched next week.

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Is the digital industry welcoming newcomers with open arms or are we a closed shop?

I recently had the pleasure of talking to a mature sales professional who had worked in traditional publishing for over 35 years. As a victim of the recession and in particular one of the many employees cut loose from their traditional publisher, he was looking to move into the digital industry.

While I was advising him on what and how much he would need to learn, it occurred to me that we aren’t making it easy for these consummate professionals to diversify into digital. We have created a vast array of acronyms that we then change every 6 months – SEO to NSO being my favourite de jour! We invent a complicated mix of revenue streams – far beyond the DPS, half page or at best, barn door of the traditional sales arena.

We are passionate about our industry and for those of us who have worked in it over the boom, crash, boom short history of digital, expect that those that didn’t jump on board at the start shouldn’t be allowed to walk in easily.

Well, perhaps we should evaluate. We should welcome new and old blood with open arms. That in itself would be the kind of attitude that we all so proudly aspire to have.
When traditional publishers are forced to let good people go, let us be the industry that embraces that talent.

I for one, welcome the mature, seasoned and consummate professional. For one reason, sales, design, marketing or editorial are skills that are acquired over time. Digital for all its complications, can and should be taught to all - irrespective of age or previous career path. Otherwise, surely we are letting good talent go to waste?

Amy, your rankings have been changed.

Yesterday afternoon I received a lovely email from one of those Facebook application things, telling me that my ‘compare people’ ratings had changed, and that whilst I was still number 1 amongst my friends in terms of best sense of humour (of course!) and I’d gained a few places and now was the 3^rd cutest (HELL yeah!) some of my ‘rankings’ had dropped and I was now only the 8^th most outgoing, and I’d lost 2 places to become only the 3^rd most powerful, disappointing…  So many thanks to the ‘compare people’ application for making me doubt my ability to socialise and the perceived power I hold over my social networking pals! 

There’s a huge number of examples from brands who have done this to great effect, from mobile operators to soft drinks and retail outlets to travel companies, a huge number of film and music releases have been boosted by social networking activity, and I’m still a massive fan of the meerkat… But brands need to greet their audiences with content or applications that reflect the interests of the group they’re targeting, ensure it has a utility value but is entertaining or fun enough for users to talk about. You need to work hard for consumers to welcome you into their inbox, wherever that may be.

Digital marketers capitalise on Susan Boyle phenomenon

In less than a week Britain’s Got Talent contestant Susan Boyle has become an international hit, racking up YouTube views now well over 50 million. Thanks to the immediacy of digital advertising, some clever marketers are already advertising around Susan’s success. It’s an excellent example of the speed of online advertising, matching brands to relevant content and the inventiveness of search marketers. Below is a results page from Google with sponsored listings around the search term “susan boyle” and a similar YouTube results page. Click on each image to view it full size.

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Plumbing, poetry, pirates and…people?

Last Friday’s Digital Britain Summit at The British Library was themed as an event to discuss the ‘plumbing’ (ie broadband infrastructure) and ‘poetry’ (ie the content) – this is Lord (Stephen) Carter’s very own analogy.  Its importance to the Government was on show for all to witness: four senior government ministers, including the Prime Minister, Gordon Brown.  He, Culture Secretary Andy Burnham and Business Secretary Lord (Peter) Mandelson all made key note speeches and the author of the Digital Britain project himself, Lord Carter, was a panelist.

The Prime Minister and his Secretaries of State all prophesised that ‘Digital Britain’ will help the UK out of recession and is vital to our global competitiveness (there was even a hint about state help in areas where the market might not reach).  So there was a lot of ‘political’ talk about the roll out of super-fast broadband where the Government has some influence, but little about where government has less influence: the content.  And – as Emily Bell rightly outlines in MediaGuardian today – this is where the Government faces a dichotomy: promoting the very innovation that is killing some of the traditional media landscape.

There was a dedicated panel session on the ‘poetry’ led by Anthony Lilley of Magic Lanterns.  The ‘twittosphere’ unanimously claimed Lilley’s speech to be the best of the day.  He talked of Digital Britain failing to consider the interests of people and participation, the very heart of web 2.0.  The panel session – including Johannes Larcher from ad-funded US video streaming services, Hulu, and Lucienne Grainge from Universal Music – thereafter discussed the problems of 'piracy' and its impact upon online content.  Its timing was perfect: only minutes earlier Pirate Bay – the aggregator file-sharing site – had been been found guilty in Sweden.  There was a lukewarm response to the Government’s idea to tackle this issue (a Digital Rights Agency) and a strong acknowledgement that such an approach must not throttle innovative new approaches – such as Hulu or Spotify – in making music and film legally available online for consumers for little or no cost.

We’re yet to know the full implications of the Pirate Bay decision.  Tackling this issue is clearly important to the future of funding content online but it would be a shame if this verdict gave weight and merit to high-handed approaches.  It may not achieve what it sets out to do and may deny businesses the opportunities to beat the 'pirates' at their own game.  As Anthony Lilley rightly said, it’s important not to forget the people who matter: internet users.  They are the drivers of the technology and the services.  We may have their interests at heart in rolling out broadband for all, but we also need their interests at heart in populating the ‘plumbing’ with the ‘poetry’.  There may even be a business opportunity…

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Digital Britain…kindly brought to you by advertising (part 2)

Over the last few months I’ve written a number of blogs about the Digital Britain project, the Government’s blueprint for the UK’s digital economy.  This kicked off last November with a blog arguing that the internet will help the UK economy out of its current recession, followed in late January with the first in the series of ‘Digital Britain…kindly brought to you by advertising’ blogs (this is the second!) which highlighted the Government’s underplaying of the role and value of advertising to the digital economy in its interim report.  In late February, I talked of the ‘green shoots of opportunity’ and the Government’s failure - in its interim report - to recognise the UK as one of the best places in the world to do ‘digital business’.

The Internet Advertising Bureau (IAB) recently submitted its response to the interim Digital Britain report calling on the Government to:

·         Recognise the importance of fostering the advertising market in order to continue attracting investment from pan-European businesses in the UK.

·         Acknowledge the importance of new advertising techniques (such as behavioural advertising) in building strong revenue streams for digital media.

·         Support a market structure allowing new entrants to easily develop ad-supported business models rather than create high barriers to new entry.

·         Clarify the significant body of self-regulation and good practice already in existence and commit to intervene only when it will deliver enhanced outcomes for consumers.

·         Acknowledge the value of novel self-regulatory schemes, such as the recently published IAB Good Practice Principles for behavioural advertising, and offer support for these schemes to encourage other players to make similar commitments.

The final Digital Britain report is expected in the summer (although speculation has mounted that it might come earlier - ambitious!).  Whilst I acknowledge the importance of Lord Carter’s ‘top five goals’ (universal connectivity, faster broadband, spectrum liberalisation, resolving the online piracy issue and the role of public service broadcasting/publishing in a digital age), we hope that the Government will also examine the wider digital economy (not just infrastructure issues - 11 of the 22 action items in the interim report) as it would surely be a strategic error to create the circumstances for universal broadband connectivity without fully acknowledging the role advertising plays in supporting the vast majority of the content, services and applications delivered to consumers via broadband.

We’ll get a better idea at the Digital Britain summit in London next week (but where are the new media speakers?).  Look out for the IAB Twitter feed providing you with the latest!

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Take your web presence to the consumer using interactive display advertising

O2 has been using the below ad for a while now, so I’m guessing it must be quite effective, particularly as Orange has a similar ad too. It’s an application form for a free mobile sim card embedded into the Flash advert itself.



There is no landing page conversion because conversions happen in the advert without taking the user away from the page they’re looking at. This is so simple, but to me it’s a hallelujah moment for the industry.

Increasing adverts with creative interactivity and moving away from the need to always drive people to websites can be a good decision. If people are using a website or a social network, they don’t always want to leave that. Think about the purpose of your campaign – do consumers have to go to your website to fulfil that purpose? In O2’s case, the answer was no.

Interactivity is where the power of the internet lies over other forms of display advertising. While I’m not recommending every advert become a form or a microsite within an ad – the web would become a very boring place – it is the best solution for certain campaigns.

Update: it arrived within days!

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What links Wispa, Dongles, Tweets and £3.35 billion? Online ad spend, that’s what.

So what happened in online in 2008? Well we managed to bring back a chocolate bar (yeah for Wispa!), learnt to tweet and twitter, found Coca Cola is only second in popularity to Barak Obama, went a bit iPhone crazy, a whopping 30 million of us watched online videos, we started buying laptops instead of PCs and bought millions of dongles to dangle off them. And among all of this the online ad market grew a huge 17% to £3.35 billion – that’s over half a billion more cash than was earned in 2007 (£2.8 billion).

The UK is a vibrant market for online advertising, by far one of the most developed in the western world and as the IAB are proud to announce today we now account for £1 in every £5 spent online. This is a historic achievement for online and a huge endorsement for all the work that the IAB and our members have been doing building the industry.

Growth happened in all formats. Search remains a no brainer on the marketing plan coming in at just under £2 billion for the year and growing at 22.7%. Classifieds has had a strong year, boosted by strong performance in property, automotive, recruitment and directories listings with a total of £715 million. Online display grew 7.7% to £637 million the only display medium to grow in 2008, showing that online is not just about direct response but is becoming a viable branding option for marketers as well.

Where is the growth coming from? It’s easy to understand why advertisers find online a reassuring purchase when it comes to assessing where to put their marketing budgets, not least because of our ability to respond favourably to the old fashioned return on investment questions. Online is measurable in every sense, from page views to audience profiles to transactions per user. This focus on measurability is a comfort to advertisers increasingly looking to drive more value out of their media budgets. Creatively online had a storming year as well, with a heap of innovation including the rising use of online video ad formats from traditional pre and post roll to innovative branding formats like InSkins.

Advertisers across all categories see the benefits in online, especially entertainment and media which jumped up the charts to be the leading category in display spend at 16.3% of the £637 million spent on display ad formats. Advertising for movies online has increased dramatically and these advertisers are often the first to experiment with new formats such as online video and rich media. Marketing for popular movie and DVD releases such as the Dark Knight and Mamma Mia! also helped drive this growth, and online more than held its own as highly relevant way to reach target audiences for cinema and DVD sales.

So what is going to happen in 2009? I wouldn’t want to dare to guess, though I’d much rather be in online than any other media right now. Some analysts like Enders have taken a reasonable estimate of the future climate so I’ll leave the forecasting game to them and you can make up your own mind. One thing you can bet on though – we’re a robust and growing media, and our importance in the advertising landscape is only going to increase. So raise a glass to online and our success in 2008!

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