IAB blog

Effects of social media on search

2009-11-04T23:10:00Z

The relationship between search and social media is the subject I get asked the most about by advertisers and agencies at the moment. It’s a hugely complex area because both search and social media mean so many different things and work together in so many different ways.

To make matters worse, the last 18 months have seen radical developments in both. However, the two have an undeniably positive effect on each other and I believe that the secret to the most effective, integrated online campaigns lies at the heart of this relationship.

The IAB will be looking into this in far more detail in the future, but right now I wanted to share my own experience below and to gather some of yours. If you feel I’ve missed something, please email me or leave a comment below so that I can adapt it.

What is search and social media?

For the purpose of this article I have made three key assumptions:

Search = a website where the primary function is to search content including video, image, blog articles etc (e.g. Bing, Google, Yahoo!)
Social media = a website or tool that allows for user interaction and content creation, whether that's a blog, forum, picture upload site, social network etc (e.g. blogs, forums, review sites, Facebook, Flickr, MySpace, Twitter, YouTube)
Social search = the search function on a social media website, e.g. Twitter search, Facebook search, Digg search.
(NB: Digg, Technorati etc can be classified as search engines, but because their content is primarily user generated or user rated, for the purpose of this article, they are classified as social media)

Table showing the effects of social media on search

This probably makes things seem a lot more complicated and perhaps a little too general, but I wanted to document everything in one place.

Explanation of the effects

Direct improvement on own website search rank (via links)
Major social bookmarking sites and networks include ‘nofollow’ script which currently reduces the effect a link has to different degrees across each search engine. However, search engines still follow and record these links and of course there are many other benefits of receiving links from the sites, e.g. gaining traffic and raising visibility of an article to help bloggers pick it up. That said, blog articles tend not to have 'nofollow', so receiving a link within an actual blog article is currently the most effective direct use of social media for improving your own website's rank. The reason a blog, forum or review section on your own site can help is because of a technique known as 'pagerank sculpting' that allows you to raise the importance of your own pages - but this is an advanced and perhaps changing technique so I won't elaborate here! :)
Significantly improves reach in search
While you can optimise your search campaign to target lots of relevant key terms, it’s not always possible to cover the thousands of key terms that attract smaller - but once combined equally important - amounts of traffic. This is known as the ‘long tail’ and where the power of Forums and Reviews created by users come into their own. Users can create thousands of new articles, allowing you to reach the thousands of search terms that may only attract one or two people each but that you'd otherwise have missed.
Improves brand visibility in search
Pages of content that you run in social networks like Facebook, MySpace and YouTube are all part of your own web presence, they also tend to rank highly in search engines. Use this to your advantage to help control the top 10 search results for your key terms.
Includes visuals or special placement to help visibility in search
Search engines now show more than just links and text results, they also show images, videos, stars for review scores and even author details. Some social media can help you make the most of these, e.g. it’s easier to include a video in Google’s results if it’s on a well optimised YouTube page, and once integrated, Twitter results may be separated out in a special part of the page in the same way that News and Blog articles are.
Improves control of brand reputation in search
Linked to 2., by extending your web presence in search and social media using social media tools, it also means you have more control over your own reputation. This doesn’t mean you can control what people say about you online, it means you can attract comments to your own properties rather than on some random ‘hate’ forum, then you can learn from it and do something about it!
Drives significant traffic to your site without search
It’s not all about search of course, social media can drive traffic to your website directly via links.
Extends brand presence into ‘social search’
By conducting the specified social media activities highlighted with green in the table above, you can ensure your brand will appear in various social network searches, e.g. Twitter, Facebook etc.
Indirectly increase searches for brand or brand phrases
You don’t always need a link, sometimes an interesting article or advert can spark a consumer to search for your brand, product or service in a search engine.This however is harder to track and measure in social media.

Conclusions… for now

This article is a whistle-stop tour of search and social media, trying to squeeze a very big subject into very few words. I’ve left a lot out here but I hope this has helped you think about the relationship between these two important marketing channels.

For me, the major breakthrough for advertisers will be the continued realisation that your web presence no longer means just your website. In fact, it’s interesting that actually, only links from other people’s blog articles will offer a significant direct improvement to your own website’s search ranking when talking about social media, while everything else is indirect word of mouth and branding.

However – and it’s a big ‘HOWEVER’ - by using social media in its many different forms, you can significantly increase the overall search ranking and visibility of your brand’s web presence in search engines in ways that no other media can.

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Education, education, education (part two)

2009-10-28T11:45:00Z

A few weeks ago I wrote about the importance of informing and educating consumers about the internet. This followed a revamp of the IAB’s website – www.youronlinechoices.co.uk – aimed at helping internet users understand online behavioural advertising, how it works and how to switch it off if they want to. Today the IAB, in partnership with business law firm Olswang, has published new research confirming that consumers need (and want) more information and education about online privacy and the practice of behavioural advertising.

The research confirms that consumers today are far more trusting of the internet as a medium, compared with more than five years ago. People – particularly young people – are more comfortable with sharing their personal information with shopping websites, banks and social networking sites. But there’s no room for complacency: consumers may be more acclimatised to the internet and the role it now plays in our everyday lives but they also want to have it on their owns terms and wish to know more about new digital marketing techniques, such as behavioural advertising.

72% of internet users are – unsurprisingly – unaware about behavioural advertising, how it works and what information is collected and used. However, the research results are particularly enlightening when consumers are provided with the relevant information. For example:

• 81% of internet users do not know the level of control they actually have over behavioural advertising, such as their right to switch it off.
• 74% of internet users are actually more comfortable with behavioural advertising when they are provided with information about what data is collected and used and how it can be controlled.

Behavioural advertising remains a relatively new online practice. As the Government’s Digital Britain report acknowledged it is an important business model to help web publishers convert “creativity into value”. Industry needs to find a balance between making advertising more measurable and effective whilst protecting consumer privacy. It’s a balance that the IAB, its members and the rest of the advertising industry is working to get right and education – as this research very clearly shows – needs to be at the heart of it.

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Digital creativity dead?

2009-10-27T10:29:00Z

Of course it’s not, but the digital creative industry can be as quiet as a corpse sometimes. This year I’ve seen absolutely blinding digital creativity in web design, interactive rich media, even in the copy used for search ads. Actual creative genius resides in digital – but sometimes, digital creatives can be so polite amidst the marketing rabble!

The IAB has Creative Showcase, which highlights the best of the best and there’s Creative Review, which is ace. Plus I’m sure creative agencies highlight their best creative to clients and internally, but if we’re to continue proving this medium I honestly believe digital creatives need to become collective uber show-offs of the highest order. And there doesn’t always need to be an award at the end of it.

Print, outdoor and TV ads sometimes end up in art galleries. Why not digital? Some digital creativity is beautiful! A stunning, interactive work of art. There are barely any digital creative blogs/sites either, yet campaigns are going live daily. Digital’s very nature makes it mass broadcast but on a personal level – so while it’s hitting the mark with its target consumers, it needs that extra push in the marketing industry to get it noticed. Here’s my push of a simple, but beautiful and clearly messaged pre-roll ad for the RAF edited specifically for online and run across WebTVEnterprise’s network. Click on the image to watch it:

Another ad I’ve seen recently that I think is brilliant is for the band Alphabeat’s new single, created by Silence Media. What I love about it is the way it grabs attention through a simple, yet inventive piece of video made specifically for online. Also, the usability is second-to-none with an expandable panel that waits 3 seconds to make sure the user really wants to see it. Please don't try to click the links within the ad because it's been taken from another site and they won't work in this example.

The IAB always recommends that online creative should be planned right at the very beginning and not pushed to one side in favour of other mediums. This has clearly been the case for this campaign, as Paul Barnard of Silence Media explains:

“The idea for the ad was discussed and planned between ourselves and the client when the campaign was first commissioned. Once the creative strategy was agreed on, the band filmed the footage. The campaign went live two weeks before the single release with the main focus being the gay market. On the week of release we broadened the campaign out to focus on a 13-34 female audience. The ad featured across key music sites and blogs along with gay, celeb and gossip sites.”

You can view more of Silence Media’s ads in their gallery and if you’ve seen some other particularly good creative, please send it to me!

iPhone – so should you

2009-10-20T16:02:00Z

In Saturday’s Guardian, Alan Rusbridger listed the 10 ways in which his life has changed since the last century. It was no great surprise that Google took the top spot. Neither was it a massive surprise that Wikipedia came second – although there is evidence to suggest that this online super power is on the wane. Twitter coming in third place raised a few more eyebrows while Rusbridger was forced to admit that putting Comment Is Free in fourth position was “a plug for the home team”. Perhaps the biggest surprise in the list though was the iPhone coming in a paltry 6th position.

“Can you remember the moment when you first held one?” asked Rusbridger. “The involuntary gasp as you saw what it could do?” While he acknowledges that as a result of the iPhone, “the only limit to what a mobile phone could become is human imagination itself”, it’s something of a surprise that the editor of The Guardian shouldn’t rate the technology higher, given its potential for growing his brand’s digital audience.

As well as offering a serious boost to Apple’s bottom line, the iPhone has revolutionised the way we consume media. IAB research shows that 40 per cent of iPhone users already use the internet on their phones more than on a PC, helping to fuel a spectacular surge in mobile internet usage. What’s more, over one billion iPhone apps have been downloaded worldwide with the average UK user downloading 37 each. According to Comscore, 11.3 million people in the UK use the mobile internet per month, representing a rise of 28 per cent year on year, while some 597,112 people in the UK use applications per month, a 1,724 per cent rise year on year.

This has helped to feed improvements across the board in the mobile market with rapid improvements to handsets and high speed networks, affordable data plans and mass consumer browsing now the norm. As Tim Hussain, head of mobile and video advertising at BSkyB, said at the IAB mobile forum last month, "the world did change with the iPhone".

On Monday, Rusbridger’s paper wrote: “Have you noticed how it’s impossible to read a newspaper these days without coming across a story about an iPhone? It’s as if the very word confers instant coolness and connectedness”. The Guardian concluded that the word “iPhone” had occurred “a whopping” 143 times in national newspapers over the last week. Two things are interesting about this. Firstly, 143 mentions of the word “iPhone” doesn’t actually sound like a lot, and secondly, “coolness” is not the most important reason for talking about the iPhone.

We at the IAB believe that the iPhone – and other smart phones like it – go beyond cool and instead open up hugely useful services for people looking to consume media on the move. It’s as a result of these changes that we’ve decided to revamp our mobile offering in partnership with Incentivated. Our new mobile site is now up and running – why not check it out.

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By removing anonymity social media has found its voice

2009-10-19T10:56:00Z

Online communities and sites with user generated content (UGC) have been an obsession of mine since the late 90’s ever since I discovered chat rooms, instant messenger and forums. My single greatest passion is being involved in and running online communities for people to chat and share ideas and information. UGC has since been morphed by marketers into ‘social media’, which, when you look beyond the jargon, is just a more advanced platform for UGC with one significant difference: the removal of anonymity behind usernames. In my youth mine was the wildly inappropriate “FatXena”.

FatXena was a trigger happy opinionated so and so, whereas Jack Wallington was far tamer in reality. This created a split in personality between my online and offline life. I wasn’t alone either, it was always well documented how vocal people felt they could be behind a username online even when the person tapping away was a timid little mouse.

Thanks to social networks like Facebook, LinkedIn and even UGC like BBC’s Have Your Say, this e-bipolar disorder is gradually being wiped out, although it still exists on forums which make up the vast majority of social media. I have many theories about the effects this is having, but for advertisers my point here is that removing anonymity means users are a more accurate portrayal of their genuine personality. One thing I’ve observed in my own group of friends is that the most social offline are also the most social online – in the past, during FatXena’s time, it was generally the absolute opposite.

There’s always been much talk among online community managers about finding the ‘opinion formers’ when in the past, the ones they found online were probably not the kind of people to drive opinion offline. Therefore, the real reason for marketers to be excited about ‘social media’ is not only because it is mainstream, but because there is a very real crossover in personalities. I’ll leave it up to you to decide what this means for your business, but to me, it’s one of the most exciting developments of our era.

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No one's an expert

2009-10-14T13:48:00Z

Other advertising platforms like outdoor, print and radio have been around for decades and significant changes to each medium have been few and far between, allowing people ample time to learn their intricacies and perfect their skills. The problem with the internet is that it’s only been around for two decades, mainstream for far less and everything keeps changing. How can people possibly keep up?

I've met hundreds of marketers from across the industry in my daily work here at the IAB and while many are expert specialists and we have lots of excellent digital leaders, no one is an expert in everything because it is impossible to be. This is a huge challenge because quite often people will need to work with technology or a technique from an area they’ve never used before. It befuddles them, delays them, and before they know it everything’s moved on.

Bill Gates once said that the leaders of the future will be those that can adapt to change the fastest, which I can’t disagree with at the moment given the current speed of technological change. But do we really want a world built on change experts? Sometimes the best results come from time and experience learning something’s intricacies.

As I’ve mentioned, internet advertising does have strong expertise in silos like display, search and affiliate. Here the technology evolves and improves and the specialists can keep up with this if it’s their primary focus. Bringing it all together and delivering a fully integrated, expert marketing solution is the difficulty.

“Lack of communication” is the phrase I hear the most in digital, so communicating more, sharing knowledge and ideas is obviously key – but does anyone really do it? And if they do, is it enough? Well, I obviously see knowledge sharing on a daily basis in meetings and events. However, I think we as a marketing industry can and must share a lot more information. While they exist, asking for simple things like great creative and successful case studies can be like drawing blood from a stone. Too much of internet advertising is perceived to be built on ‘knowledge’ and people are too protective of it.

Sharing is a vital step for internet advertising to continue to mature, but fundamentally I believe the biggest fault lies with technology providers and software engineers: they make things far too complicated. Even the most user friendly technology isn’t user friendly enough if you look at the big picture. No, you will never need a single person to login to your display ad network interface, search interface, enewsletter admin, booking systems, planning systems, reports etc etc. It makes sense to have specific teams, but we do need people that understand to a significant degree what they all do to allow them to become the ‘internet advertising overlords’ we need.

This has turned into a two sided rant, so I’ll bring it to a close with this:

Share more + make things easier = more experts

It seems like a no brainer, but who’s honestly doing both?

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Celebrity

2009-10-09T12:51:00Z

A while ago I questioned where all of the celebrities were in online advertising, the question still stands – where are they? Using celebrities is a number one tool in your marketing tool box for brand endorsement and attracting attention. If print, outdoor, radio and TV gets Cheryl Cole, why can’t we in display ads? Over to you L’Oreal.

A race online for 2012

2009-10-07T15:18:00Z

The government’s Digital Inclusion Champion, Martha Lane Fox, made a strong case about the importance of inclusion at yesterday’s Digital Engagement conference.

Explaining that she was drawn to her job (which carries with it what she called “an insane title”) because it offered an “irresistible challenge”, Lane Fox argued that there are two main reasons why we should care about the large portion of society who are socially and economically excluded from the digital world.

Topping the list for Lane Fox was social cohesion. “I believe in an equal society”, stated Lane Fox. As a result the Lastminute.com founder is keen to use digital technology in an effort to avoid creating an excluded “needy sub class”.

As a case study, she pointed to the example of Knowle West Media Centre, a project that is empowering a generation through digital media (for those of you unfamiliar with Knowle West, it’s where Tricky was brought up – this video gives a good idea of what it’s like).

Such projects, argued Lane Fox, “increase education, employment opportunities and give people a voice.”

However, social factors are not the only issues at play for Lane Fox. The “brutal economic reasons” are equally crucial.

Outlining some headline figures from PwC research due out next week, Lane Fox argued that if all children were given online skills and access to online tools, this would result in a £25bn saving to the UK through increased employment. What’s more, if five per cent of those currently unemployed got online and got a job that would result in a saving of £675 million. Lane Fox then pointed out that it cost £44,000 per person to deal with the “bottom 20%” of the UK’s socio-demographic make up and argued that getting this group online, “I’m sure would cut that cost”.

This may sound like wishful thinking on the part of Lane Fox, but with the meat and veg of the research due out next week, we shall have to wait and see how much evidence there is for her arguments.

Lane Fox concluded her speech by outlining her concept for “a race online for 2012.” As part of her vision she aims to halve the number of people who don’t have online access by 2012. “It would be a disaster to allow a digital sub class to develop”, argued Lane Fox. It’s a bold plan, but Lane Fox believes it will help to make Britain a “digital leader”. Surely this can only be a good thing.

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Education, education, education (part one)

2009-10-07T11:01:00Z

It's official: us Brits love shopping online. According to research by price comparison service, Uswitch, 93% of the UK population now shop on the internet (I think that’s 93% of the 2,500 adults they surveyed!). And, as consumers continue to ‘connect’ so advertisers increasingly look to the internet as a platform to get their messages across and sell their wares. The two are mutually beneficial. Some of us just can’t get enough of all this (it’s empowering and addictive). For others the tide of change is uncomfortable and some need help getting connected in the first place (and there’s no one better than digital entrepreneur and Government Digital Inclusion Champion, Martha Lane Fox, to make this happen).

So, it’s important to inform and educate people about the internet. This is not a new message: government, Ofcom and others, including industry, have spearheaded campaigns to help people – particularly parents and children - better understand online and its significant benefits but also the challenges it throws up in our everyday lives. Understanding how to keep safe and secure is lesson number one and many schools build this into their curricula activities as they integrate the use of the internet into children’s learning.

This week the IAB has revamped its consumer website dedicated to explaining behavioural advertising: www.youronlinechoices.co.uk. We launched this site when we published our Good Practice Principles earlier this year to govern the practice. One of the three key commitments is education and many of the businesses involved continually go to great lengths to provide consumers with helpful information. Our website builds on these: providing easy-to-understand information on behavioural advertising, how it works and the role it plays in helping make online content, services and applications available at little or no cost. This is backed up by the other commitments: transparency about what information is collected and used to deliver more relevant advertising as well as the opportunity to opt out or switch it off. So the new website includes a centralised page for consumers to visit to opt out of behavioural advertising by the businesses that are complying with the IAB’s Good Practice Principles. Our future aim is to make this even more user friendly.

The launch of the website marks the point that those businesses that have signed up to the Good Practice Principles and have live commercial UK operations are complying with the commitments. To complement this, each of these businesses’ compliance will be independently verified by auditor ABCe to provide greater assurance in this practice. This is key but its only by explaining clearly what this is all about and how it all works that we can really expect consumers – heavy or light internet users – to accept and understand why we’re taking this approach.

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5 Killer Online Video Stats

2009-10-05T07:40:00Z

Over the last two years I’ve been lucky to head up the IAB Video Council and while there’s always been a buzz around online video it’s never been greater than now. There may be some teething problems to overcome in this new channel - such as increasing research - but every single senior marketer I’ve spoken to about it (and there have been hundreds) see its huge potential and want to use it. I predict - and I checked that it’s therefore ok to say that the IAB is predicting - that 2010 will be the year that online video makes its mark on the advertising world. Here are five stats to help convince you:

82% of people in the US watched an average of 9.7 hours of online video in August 2009 with consumption in the UK equally high - both markets growing for the past few years now (ComScore).
People are more accepting of online video ads than many other forms of advertising because they are seen as more relevant and therefore less intrusive. 70% of people in a survey of 5,000 Europeans found it acceptable for a video ad to be shown before an online video (Tremor Media).
Online video advertising spend for pre/mid/post-roll has grown in the UK to almost £11.7 million for the first half of 2009, close to 200% growth in 12 months (PwC/IAB AdSpend Study, members only).
97% of UK media buyers in a survey of over 100 expect this growth to continue over the next 12 months too, with over half (54%) of the media buyers expecting this growth to be over 50% (Web TV Enterprises).
92% of broadband users have connections of 2MB or far higher, which is almost every internet user in the UK, making video bigger and better quality, the same with your adverts (BMRB Internet Monitor).

IAB members can share more online video stats and information by joining our online video advertising community.

Online is now number one in the UK

2009-09-30T10:47:00Z

Online commands respect : Another IAB Ad Spend report, another milestone for online – this time the big one

We released the IAB Ad Spend results today, with the record breaking news that not only has Ad Spend grown again – as it has every half year since we launched the survey in 1998 – but we have finally done what media pundits have been guessing and betting on for years. That is we are now the largest medium in the UK, with 23.5% share of all media spend now being spent on online display, classifieds and search. We are larger than TV not by a fraction, but by £113.6 million. We are also now larger than press display by £369 million.

We know that this is happening in a strange market however, with rumours that TV prices are back to 1980s levels (so it’s not just fashion that’s harking back to the good old days of Dynasty-style shoulder pads and studs, but TV prices too) and constant press stories decrying the fall of print circulations, all too often ignoring some of the success stories bucking the trend in both of these media. But the important thing for us here at the IAB, and the reason why we are very proud of our industry, is the proof that when the going gets tough, online can more than hold its own against other media. Budgets are being cut and prices are falling, but online is maintaining and growing its importance in the media budget.

Just to put the sceptics point of view across, we do present the data splitting press display and classified, so press combined is still the largest media. And we do include search in our figures, which some commentators are quick to point out is maybe not fair when comparing this to display media in particular. But the rise of search agencies with large blue chip clients spending their large blue chip client marketing budgets shows that this is not just an online directory service, it is a core part of the total media and brand marketing mix, not just the online bit. And even though online display did fall a bit on this time last year, though only by 5.2%, it remains the most successful display media in growth terms, with all other display media falling dramatically in this recession, with only cinema at 7.8% decline also getting away with single figures declining growth rates.

At £317 million for the half year to June 2009, online display is showing its strength and we expect it to ride out the rest of the recession well against other display formats. This is an exciting time to be selling online display, as new methods of targeting, behavioural advertising and reach measurements are becoming mainstream and the introduction of UKOM, the online industry’s answer to calls for one source of planning data, is being launched to build further confidence and growth in online display.

Classifieds are growing but are having a mixed time of it, with recruitment classifieds falling from this time last year, but growing from the last six months of 2008. All other classifieds are performing very well online showing growth from the same period last year, and in total classifieds makes up 22% of the online marketing mix, showing the effectiveness of and belief in this medium.

Search is by no means the be all and end all of online, though it has been a medium worth over £1 billion every six months for the last year. And it shows no signs of declining from this. As new offerings such as Bing bring innovation and choice to the market, and new product launches from Google such as FastFlip means this medium keeps being relevant and effective for advertisers.

We at the IAB are very excited for the next six months to see where ad spend will end up for the whole of 2009, even if sadly I won’t be here to announce it as I am leaving to start my own business. However I am very happy that my last week at the IAB sees the announcement of the big news that, perhaps earlier than most of us expected, online is now number 1 in the UK. And I was there at the heart of the industry when it happened.

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The one where M&S advertise me clothes they already know I’m interested in

2009-09-10T11:37:00Z

I’m getting used to behavioural advertising. It makes me amused when I’ve read an article about a Maserati to then be served an ad for one on another website (note to advertisers – interest does not equal income). But at the weekend something new happened. I was browsing the M&S website, looked at a couple of items and then put them in my shopping basket, then realised that payday was not for ages so shut down the website and carried on surfing the net when twenty minutes later on the news of the world site (I’m fascinated by Katie & Peter, please forgive me my bad taste) I was served an ad for M&S that showcased exactly the two pieces of clothing I had been looking at on their site. Clever, and kind of cool when you think about it. For a demo of how this works visit http://www.struq.com/demo/.

This kind of advertising is yet another example of how technology is allowing advertisers to reach interested consumers online. Behavioural advertising is driving value in our industry and is helping advertisers to understand how to get more bang for their budget out of what can sometimes be a confusing market in terms of planning for audience reach online. It is helping advertisers buy target audiences for brand awareness campaigns, and not just being used for direct response as was traditionally the case. It is not surprising that advertisers are taking advantage of the technology on offer to buy audiences that through behavioural advertising technology they know are already interested in their products and have visited your website. It is not difficult to see the attraction in buying an audience that though you don’t know who they are, you know that they like reading about cars, or holidays, and therefore that might make them more interested in what you are selling than if you knew absolutely nothing about what they liked. Behavioural advertising has always been popular among direct response advertisers, but more sophisticated tools and alliances online with retailers and ad serving companies will help to drive the use of targeted ad buys for branded advertisers, not just those looking for clicks and acquisitions.

There are also a host of new formats out there that are giving advertisers even more choice for their media budgets. Innovations in formats are driving renewed interest and are building the internet’s reputation as a serious branding medium, such as the widespread use of rich media, pre and post roll, media player skins and the exciting new billboard format (written about previously on the IAB blog).

This innovation is happening alongside the development of UKOM, the online industry’s answer to calls for a common planning tool, which will give even more information to advertisers and media planners on online audiences and how best to reach them. All of this adds up to a fantastic year for online, with strong foundations being laid for digital media when we come out of the recession.

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All eyes on Spotify

2009-09-08T10:14:00Z

Murdoch and the paid content coalition would do well to keep an eye on Spotify. Spotify, the new music streaming service, offers two options to consumers: 1. Listen to unlimited music online for free but with advertising 2. Listen to unlimited music without adverts for £10 a month.

Up until now, this choice hasn’t been forced, but now the Spotify iPhone app is out, you can only use Spotify on the go if you are a premium, £10 a month user. Personally I think this is a righteous bargain - £10 a month for unlimited music? I used to pay this exact amount before Spotify for unlimited music on Napster, and that didn’t even work on iPods. Convenience was its draw.

Will it work for the mainstream? It depends whether content publishers can deliver quality, exclusive content for consumers. At the moment Robbie Williams, Madonna, Cheryl Cole, Shakira and more new singles aren’t on Spotify and won’t be for at least a month, yet I can quite easily download them illegally. Not quite there yet music industry, but Spotify is a massive step in the right direction.

Recession = innovation

2009-09-07T12:05:00Z

Working at the IAB is a funny old job. Sometimes it feels like we’re trying to solve a Rubik’s Cube while an entire industry worth of stakeholders are peering over our shoulders egging us on to do it faster. It can be a tough slog figuring out how we get all of the colours into the right place, but when we deliver, it’s hugely satisfying and often powerful. That’s why we love it… The satisfying bit, not because we’re power mad!

Last year, before the recession reared its ugly head we expected 2009 to be the year when online looked inwardly at its business operations and bettered its technical wizardry. Undoubtedly, in IAB council meetings we’ve seen this happen, but the degree to which it has happened is unexpected. We've seen direct evidence of the recession forcing reassessment and the need to ‘be better’ beyond what I think would have been possible without the recession shaped stick beating everyone over the head.

Video advertising

Online video advertising is one clear example. Two years ago, advertising around online video barely existed. In late 2008 we had sophisticated advertising models, but it was clear more needed to happen to make trading easier and to prove the channel. Now, in September 2009 the online video market is still new but the sides of the Rubik’s cube almost match and it all happened right in front of me in our September Video Council meeting.

Our Video Council has formed in natural parallel with the market and it’s been a joy to behold. Last month video consultant Robert Black was re-elected as chair of the Video Council for the second year of its short life, and this week saw a full room of senior experts from across the value chain in attendance. We still want to engage more people, but we already have senior representatives from creative agencies, media agencies, publishers, broadcasters, networks and technology providers. I have an addiction to completing collections, and I hadn’t felt so satisfied since I completed my set of Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtle stickers in the 80’s.

Agencies are key

We held an Online Video Creative roundtable last week too and I think the missing piece to the puzzle has arrived. Creative agencies ‘get’ online video, now they just need the green light from advertisers to put their ideas into practice. Media agencies also ‘get’ it, with a large number of the bigger agencies establishing teams purely to bridge the gap between advertising on TVs and the online world. The cogs are in place, the lights are green and all systems are go!

A worry for emerging markets in a recession is that they get pushed aside in favour of the tried and tested; stifling innovation. To the contrary for video advertising, it has invigorated innovation. All of these companies have been forced to innovate through a high-pressure economy. This is reflected by the coming together of the biggest players in video advertising in the IAB Video Council – a group that is helping connect the dots to aid trading.

Better business

Video advertising isn’t the only industry that has benefited from looking inwardly, but it’s probably the most obvious. Each company has newer, better systems, more research, more experience and it feels like we’ve reached the edge of the anticipated boom everyone is reporting. 2010 is going to be beautiful, and full of completed Rubik's cubes.

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Gaga gets it! And puts online consumers first.

2009-09-04T15:19:00Z

I’ve noticed that I generally start a blog post apologising for the many celebrity references, and not talking overtly about advertising, but I guess brands can actually learn a lot from the rich and famous, who are of course brands in themselves, and digitally some of the most forward-thinking there are. Step forward Lady Gaga, a current obsession of a couple of IABers, not just because she has good music and clothes, but also because she’s a fan of… online video! In a recent interview with Newsweek, Gaga spoke about the structure and look of her performances, which are tailored to suit the online viewer:

“I like to watch my performances sometimes. I'm always trying to improve on choreography and the stage shows. I like to watch the lighting. I often argue with my lighting designer on the show; as much as I like to light the show for the room, it's important to light the show and design the sound for YouTube. In truth, lots of my fans can't make it to my shows in Israel or Germany or in Paris, so they go online to watch them.” Whether you like her or not, Gaga is quite the artist, and I’m guessing others probably don’t have quite the same vision when they’re choreographing their stage shows. But what a refreshing view, to recognise that most of us now look to the internet to access entertainment.

It’s not just the delivery method, it’s also the space you’re working with that matters. The IAB has been saying this for a while but it really is essential to tailor your ads or content for the medium, the device and the frame of mind of the consumer watching it. Whether content has been filmed at Glastonbury in HD, or an ad produced in the vast plains of Africa, your viewer needs to appreciate the theme and message even on the small screen – when you consider that videos are played online on an even smaller screen, sometimes providing the same content on all devices will not be relevant. This is an important creative consideration, but is still not right at the top of the agenda when producing videos online – many are still not bespoke for the medium.

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