Thursday, July 15, 2004
Dangerous Liaisons?
Wednesday, July 14, 2004
By Alan Chapell, Chapell & Associates
Which top networking sites do -- or don't -- protect user privacy? (first of two parts)
I must confess that I really like music from the 1980s. I've consistently been a fan for more than 20 years -- even during those times when it wasn't considered cool. (My daughter insists that it has in fact never been cool to like '80's music.) Back in college, I was even fortunate enough to have shared the stage with new wave luminaries such as a Flock of Seagulls, Echo and the Bunnymen and 10,000 Maniacs. And even though I'm older and wiser now, I haven't shed my love of all things '80s. Over the years, I've used a number of sites and other interactive tools to give me a virtual heads up every time my favorite '80's band comes to town.
Many of these networking tools -- both new and old -- have been receiving a good deal of attention over the past year. Each proudly offers a number of opportunities for me to connect with like-minded individuals on both a personal and business level. Many of these sites collect a considerable amount of data on their users, and allow others to search through and view some or all of that personal data. And whenever consumer data is collected and shared online, there are bound to be some privacy concerns.
With that in mind, I took a look at a number of the social and business networking tools from a privacy and marketing perspective. Specifically, I examined the interactive communities from five different points of view: authentication, control, policing, revenue models, and blogger and customer feedback. Those five criteria break down the Chapell view on networking sites. Today, we'll look at authentication and control.
Authentication -- How do I know you are who you say you are?
I remember reading the story about the person who bought a car listed on Craigslist only to have the car stolen back by the seller a few days later. That sad tale illustrates how the Internet is held to a much higher standard on these types of issues. For example, nobody's asking my local newspaper to run background checks on everyone who responds to my ad selling my Dodge Dart. But oftentimes, that is the first question asked when evaluating an interactive tool.
In part, this is because we're in a new medium -- at least relative to newspapers -- which have been selling classified ads since the late 19th Century. But it's also because even the savviest adults are prone to let their guard down when online. Regardless, having some level of authentication can be important because it breeds a feeling of safety, and safety breeds trust. Each of these sites has a different level of authentication.
School-affiliated sites tend to have fairly rigid authentication procedures. For example, Affinity Engines, a Palo Alto company that provides social networking for alumni associations, authenticates users before they can join. Members authenticate either by sending an email from a school or alumni email address, or by faxing a transcript to the site. The Square, which has setup online networks for alumni and students of premier institutions of higher learning, (currently 40 schools including Harvard, Columbia and Georgetown) takes a similar approach.
Classmates.com, which is one of the first and the largest of the networking sites, takes more of a laissez faire approach to authentication. For example, any of their premium subscription members can sign themselves up as a reunion organizer for just about any high school or college and subsequently email his class announcing the reunion. It's a useful technology, but also one that is rife for abuse. While the credit card they use to process the membership fee can validate who a user is, there is nothing in place to validate that the user actually attended any particular school.
As a result, I was able to set myself up as a reunion organizer for something like 16 different classes in eight separate schools. Maybe I was the first to "abuse" the system in this way. Nevertheless, given their lack of authenticating steps, I'd recommend that Classmates place limits on the number of reunions a member can organize, and/or limit the number of email messages a member can deploy through the system.
Some of the sites are working towards additional authentication of members. LinkedIn, a professional networking site, for example, allows members to request an endorsement from other members, and list them on the site next to their profile. Tribe.net, a site that links people who share similar interests, also offers users the option to request testimonials from fellow Tribe members. The premise is that the testimonials/endorsements serve to authenticate as well as recommend.
As Marc Pincus, CEO of Tribe.net says, "The best thing these networks can do is provide an open, transparent model, and work towards building trust metrics similar to those established on eBay." Although trust metrics are starting to develop, most are still in their adolescent stage.
Control -- What level of control do I have over who sees my data?
One concern I've heard about networking sites involves what happens to personally identifiable information (PII) once you post it onto a site. For example, there are many things that I'll confide to my family and close friends that I'd never tell a casual acquaintance. And when it comes to professional relationships, I'm even more careful about the information I reveal. So it's extremely important for most users to have control over their PII -- who sees it, how much they can see, and when they can see it.
Most of the tools offer some level of control. For example, Affinity Engines' inCircle tool affords users the power to block other users from their network, or even to delete them. Evite, the online social planning site, lets users decide if they want to show their personal profile to other event attendees. So I may decide to show my profile to others attending my friend's birthday party, but not show my personal profile when responding to my company's happy hour event. Users may also RSVP anonymously to any event.
Tribe.net combines event listings with personal, dating and professional information. Tribe even provides job listings though a partnership with Careerbuilder.com. And since most people would prefer to reveal different things to different people based upon the context of their relationship, Tribe provides their users with a good deal of flexibility regarding the information others can see. Tribe even lets users decide whether they want to be exposed to mature content from other users.
Plaxo, a company that is trying to create a ubiquitous rolodex of Internet users, has received a good deal of criticism from privacy advocates. Its critics' argument is that the company facilitates the creation of online databases which can contain PII on people who have no idea their information is on that database. For example, if I add my friend Bill to my Plaxo contact list, and Bill isn't a member of Plaxo, then his information becomes part of my Plaxo database without his consent.
Plaxo's response is that this is no different then when I store PII from friends in my Hotmail address book. The company makes a good point. However, when I store Bill's information in Hotmail, he isn't getting an email from Hotmail asking him to confirm that information. And once Bill's data leaves the Plaxo servers and appears in his inbox, there's a chance that Bill's going to get squeamish. I'm not ready to say this is the end of the world, but just that the company has its work cut out for it in terms of managing perceptions. More on that later.
Tomorrow: The Chapell view on policing, revenue models, and blogger and customer feedback.
Alan Chapell is a consultant focusing on privacy marketing -- helping companies understand privacy and incorporate consumer perception into product development. He has been in the interactive space for more than seven years with firms such as Jupiter Research, DoubleClick and Cheetahmail. Chapell is the New York chapter chairman of the International Association of Privacy Professionals, and he publishes a daily blog on issues of consumer privacy.
iMedia
Wednesday, July 14, 2004
By Alan Chapell, Chapell & Associates
Which top networking sites do -- or don't -- protect user privacy? (first of two parts)
I must confess that I really like music from the 1980s. I've consistently been a fan for more than 20 years -- even during those times when it wasn't considered cool. (My daughter insists that it has in fact never been cool to like '80's music.) Back in college, I was even fortunate enough to have shared the stage with new wave luminaries such as a Flock of Seagulls, Echo and the Bunnymen and 10,000 Maniacs. And even though I'm older and wiser now, I haven't shed my love of all things '80s. Over the years, I've used a number of sites and other interactive tools to give me a virtual heads up every time my favorite '80's band comes to town.
Many of these networking tools -- both new and old -- have been receiving a good deal of attention over the past year. Each proudly offers a number of opportunities for me to connect with like-minded individuals on both a personal and business level. Many of these sites collect a considerable amount of data on their users, and allow others to search through and view some or all of that personal data. And whenever consumer data is collected and shared online, there are bound to be some privacy concerns.
With that in mind, I took a look at a number of the social and business networking tools from a privacy and marketing perspective. Specifically, I examined the interactive communities from five different points of view: authentication, control, policing, revenue models, and blogger and customer feedback. Those five criteria break down the Chapell view on networking sites. Today, we'll look at authentication and control.
Authentication -- How do I know you are who you say you are?
I remember reading the story about the person who bought a car listed on Craigslist only to have the car stolen back by the seller a few days later. That sad tale illustrates how the Internet is held to a much higher standard on these types of issues. For example, nobody's asking my local newspaper to run background checks on everyone who responds to my ad selling my Dodge Dart. But oftentimes, that is the first question asked when evaluating an interactive tool.
In part, this is because we're in a new medium -- at least relative to newspapers -- which have been selling classified ads since the late 19th Century. But it's also because even the savviest adults are prone to let their guard down when online. Regardless, having some level of authentication can be important because it breeds a feeling of safety, and safety breeds trust. Each of these sites has a different level of authentication.
School-affiliated sites tend to have fairly rigid authentication procedures. For example, Affinity Engines, a Palo Alto company that provides social networking for alumni associations, authenticates users before they can join. Members authenticate either by sending an email from a school or alumni email address, or by faxing a transcript to the site. The Square, which has setup online networks for alumni and students of premier institutions of higher learning, (currently 40 schools including Harvard, Columbia and Georgetown) takes a similar approach.
Classmates.com, which is one of the first and the largest of the networking sites, takes more of a laissez faire approach to authentication. For example, any of their premium subscription members can sign themselves up as a reunion organizer for just about any high school or college and subsequently email his class announcing the reunion. It's a useful technology, but also one that is rife for abuse. While the credit card they use to process the membership fee can validate who a user is, there is nothing in place to validate that the user actually attended any particular school.
As a result, I was able to set myself up as a reunion organizer for something like 16 different classes in eight separate schools. Maybe I was the first to "abuse" the system in this way. Nevertheless, given their lack of authenticating steps, I'd recommend that Classmates place limits on the number of reunions a member can organize, and/or limit the number of email messages a member can deploy through the system.
Some of the sites are working towards additional authentication of members. LinkedIn, a professional networking site, for example, allows members to request an endorsement from other members, and list them on the site next to their profile. Tribe.net, a site that links people who share similar interests, also offers users the option to request testimonials from fellow Tribe members. The premise is that the testimonials/endorsements serve to authenticate as well as recommend.
As Marc Pincus, CEO of Tribe.net says, "The best thing these networks can do is provide an open, transparent model, and work towards building trust metrics similar to those established on eBay." Although trust metrics are starting to develop, most are still in their adolescent stage.
Control -- What level of control do I have over who sees my data?
One concern I've heard about networking sites involves what happens to personally identifiable information (PII) once you post it onto a site. For example, there are many things that I'll confide to my family and close friends that I'd never tell a casual acquaintance. And when it comes to professional relationships, I'm even more careful about the information I reveal. So it's extremely important for most users to have control over their PII -- who sees it, how much they can see, and when they can see it.
Most of the tools offer some level of control. For example, Affinity Engines' inCircle tool affords users the power to block other users from their network, or even to delete them. Evite, the online social planning site, lets users decide if they want to show their personal profile to other event attendees. So I may decide to show my profile to others attending my friend's birthday party, but not show my personal profile when responding to my company's happy hour event. Users may also RSVP anonymously to any event.
Tribe.net combines event listings with personal, dating and professional information. Tribe even provides job listings though a partnership with Careerbuilder.com. And since most people would prefer to reveal different things to different people based upon the context of their relationship, Tribe provides their users with a good deal of flexibility regarding the information others can see. Tribe even lets users decide whether they want to be exposed to mature content from other users.
Plaxo, a company that is trying to create a ubiquitous rolodex of Internet users, has received a good deal of criticism from privacy advocates. Its critics' argument is that the company facilitates the creation of online databases which can contain PII on people who have no idea their information is on that database. For example, if I add my friend Bill to my Plaxo contact list, and Bill isn't a member of Plaxo, then his information becomes part of my Plaxo database without his consent.
Plaxo's response is that this is no different then when I store PII from friends in my Hotmail address book. The company makes a good point. However, when I store Bill's information in Hotmail, he isn't getting an email from Hotmail asking him to confirm that information. And once Bill's data leaves the Plaxo servers and appears in his inbox, there's a chance that Bill's going to get squeamish. I'm not ready to say this is the end of the world, but just that the company has its work cut out for it in terms of managing perceptions. More on that later.
Tomorrow: The Chapell view on policing, revenue models, and blogger and customer feedback.
Alan Chapell is a consultant focusing on privacy marketing -- helping companies understand privacy and incorporate consumer perception into product development. He has been in the interactive space for more than seven years with firms such as Jupiter Research, DoubleClick and Cheetahmail. Chapell is the New York chapter chairman of the International Association of Privacy Professionals, and he publishes a daily blog on issues of consumer privacy.
iMedia
Friday, July 09, 2004
Yahoo advertising revenues up 215%
08/07/2004 by Leigh Phillips
Print | Email Colleague | Send Feedback | Read Feedback
Internet company Yahoo has revealed that it saw a 215 per cent rise in advertising revenues this last quarter.
The company said that the result was largely due to the increasing popularity of paid-for search listings amongst advertisers. The revenues allowed the company to more than double its profits for the quarter.
The increase has come from organic growth in the search market and the company’s acquisition of paid-for search listings service Overture last year.
Yahoo reported a net profit for the quarter ending 30 June of €91m, up on €41m for the same period in 2003.
08/07/2004 by Leigh Phillips
Print | Email Colleague | Send Feedback | Read Feedback
Internet company Yahoo has revealed that it saw a 215 per cent rise in advertising revenues this last quarter.
The company said that the result was largely due to the increasing popularity of paid-for search listings amongst advertisers. The revenues allowed the company to more than double its profits for the quarter.
The increase has come from organic growth in the search market and the company’s acquisition of paid-for search listings service Overture last year.
Yahoo reported a net profit for the quarter ending 30 June of €91m, up on €41m for the same period in 2003.
Thursday, July 08, 2004
: Technology Regression
Thursday, July 08, 2004
By Joseph Jaffe, Editor at Large
The more advanced we become, the more we revert to old-fashioned use.
Editor's Note: As we head into the dog days of summer, Jaffe Juice will publish every other week until Labor Day.
A slightly different Jaffe Juice cocktail this week on a subject I've been thinking about for a while.
Technology has transformed our lives. No doubt about it. It is a change agent that acts as both enabler and catalyst in the process of supposedly making our lives more efficient.
Jeff Einstein, a fellow consultant and industry pioneer, got me to thinking when he introduced his provocative thoughts on how we have become slaves to technology or media addicts through a series of very profound articles.
What I thought I'd do in this article is to comment on the way we use technology -- or rather, highlight an interesting trend I've noticed across a variety of technologies. It seems that an apparent paradox has emerged, insofar that innovation is accompanied with a sort of retroactive consumer response. Put differently, in moving one step forward we tend to take two steps backwards in our adoption. I call it "technology regression" and I'll give you three examples to mull over.
1. Email
I've noted previously that email as we know it today will become akin to the telegram, both in terms of its application as well as its proliferation (read: extinct).
Think about the length of the average email you send today versus the last six months or three years before that -- it has shortened tremendously, hasn't it? The fact remains: If you can't make your elevator pitch in a subject head or first two to three lines in the body of the email, chances are you won't be read (or understood). Stop.
The sheer number of emails we send and receive is a major contributor towards this superficial multitasking which is necessary in order to get through the daily intake of in-boxes. But it's also the result of our impatience and abnormally high expectations regarding turnaround (the tendency of today's empowered consumer to demand instant gratification).
In the above two hyperlinked Jaffe Juices (dated January and August 2003), I spoke about instant messaging and how it has affected the way we use and respond to email. Unbeknownst to me, I had preempted the ultimate telegram-like communications device -- the Blackberry.
There's a reason some call the Blackberry, the "crackberry" (buy one and you'll see why). I, for one, looked upon anyone obsessively scrolling through their crackberry in the middle of a formal dinner or conference function, thinking to myself: "There's no way you're that important. And there's no way you need to be connected 24/7/365." That is of course, until I purchased said device myself and joined the elitist club of self-important pseudo-executives (self-deprecation is my forte).
Response length becomes measured in single words or lines. Email has, in effect, literally become the telegram (only a lot cooler).
2. The cell phone
Breaker, Breaker. This is Bravo -- Bravo -- Tango -- Charlie -- 2003 (my AOL IM handle). I have a 10-44 regarding a 10-1. "Can you hear me now? Good!"
Cellular communication has become a way of life nowadays. The OPA's ethnographic study revealed that today's college kid is more likely to have a cellphone than a landline. Where our parents' generation used to hold up a cigarette lighter at a rock concert, today's youth hold up a camera cell phone to immortalize the moment.
And yet, in this day and age of microwavable communication, several carriers -- Nextel being the dominant one -- have focused their entire point of differentiation and go-to-market message as the ability to emulate a CB radio.
The single-duplex walkie-talkie functionality is so retro it's positively Neanderthal (Neanderthal is the new Metrosexual, btw).
I'm not sure whether this push is consumer-driven or marketer-initiated. Either way, it's ironic how an advanced form of voice communication has found respite with the truckers across America.
3. The laptop PC
The tablet PC (I'm sure you know where this is going) is the next generation of mobile computing. I believe the tablet PC will provide a shot in the arm for the ailing print world through its ability to provide a reasonably similar reading experience to the user -- think of the way you read a book or newspaper versus the way you read an article on a computer screen.
But what is really happening here is that the tablet PC has enabled consumers to use a pen to write on the screen -- in other words, regress from the 40 words per minute keyboard to the illegible but comforting scribble of cursive.
I'm not sure what to make of the recurring trend of technology regression. Perhaps it's a sign that progress is a combination of the best of the old with the best of the new. Perhaps it's just indicative of the fact that innovation is less about the reinvention of the wheel, but rather the repurposing of it.
Do you have your own example of technology regression? Do you buy into this concept? If so, I'd be curious to hear your explanatory thoughts.
Over and out.
iMedia Connection
Thursday, July 08, 2004
By Joseph Jaffe, Editor at Large
The more advanced we become, the more we revert to old-fashioned use.
Editor's Note: As we head into the dog days of summer, Jaffe Juice will publish every other week until Labor Day.
A slightly different Jaffe Juice cocktail this week on a subject I've been thinking about for a while.
Technology has transformed our lives. No doubt about it. It is a change agent that acts as both enabler and catalyst in the process of supposedly making our lives more efficient.
Jeff Einstein, a fellow consultant and industry pioneer, got me to thinking when he introduced his provocative thoughts on how we have become slaves to technology or media addicts through a series of very profound articles.
What I thought I'd do in this article is to comment on the way we use technology -- or rather, highlight an interesting trend I've noticed across a variety of technologies. It seems that an apparent paradox has emerged, insofar that innovation is accompanied with a sort of retroactive consumer response. Put differently, in moving one step forward we tend to take two steps backwards in our adoption. I call it "technology regression" and I'll give you three examples to mull over.
1. Email
I've noted previously that email as we know it today will become akin to the telegram, both in terms of its application as well as its proliferation (read: extinct).
Think about the length of the average email you send today versus the last six months or three years before that -- it has shortened tremendously, hasn't it? The fact remains: If you can't make your elevator pitch in a subject head or first two to three lines in the body of the email, chances are you won't be read (or understood). Stop.
The sheer number of emails we send and receive is a major contributor towards this superficial multitasking which is necessary in order to get through the daily intake of in-boxes. But it's also the result of our impatience and abnormally high expectations regarding turnaround (the tendency of today's empowered consumer to demand instant gratification).
In the above two hyperlinked Jaffe Juices (dated January and August 2003), I spoke about instant messaging and how it has affected the way we use and respond to email. Unbeknownst to me, I had preempted the ultimate telegram-like communications device -- the Blackberry.
There's a reason some call the Blackberry, the "crackberry" (buy one and you'll see why). I, for one, looked upon anyone obsessively scrolling through their crackberry in the middle of a formal dinner or conference function, thinking to myself: "There's no way you're that important. And there's no way you need to be connected 24/7/365." That is of course, until I purchased said device myself and joined the elitist club of self-important pseudo-executives (self-deprecation is my forte).
Response length becomes measured in single words or lines. Email has, in effect, literally become the telegram (only a lot cooler).
2. The cell phone
Breaker, Breaker. This is Bravo -- Bravo -- Tango -- Charlie -- 2003 (my AOL IM handle). I have a 10-44 regarding a 10-1. "Can you hear me now? Good!"
Cellular communication has become a way of life nowadays. The OPA's ethnographic study revealed that today's college kid is more likely to have a cellphone than a landline. Where our parents' generation used to hold up a cigarette lighter at a rock concert, today's youth hold up a camera cell phone to immortalize the moment.
And yet, in this day and age of microwavable communication, several carriers -- Nextel being the dominant one -- have focused their entire point of differentiation and go-to-market message as the ability to emulate a CB radio.
The single-duplex walkie-talkie functionality is so retro it's positively Neanderthal (Neanderthal is the new Metrosexual, btw).
I'm not sure whether this push is consumer-driven or marketer-initiated. Either way, it's ironic how an advanced form of voice communication has found respite with the truckers across America.
3. The laptop PC
The tablet PC (I'm sure you know where this is going) is the next generation of mobile computing. I believe the tablet PC will provide a shot in the arm for the ailing print world through its ability to provide a reasonably similar reading experience to the user -- think of the way you read a book or newspaper versus the way you read an article on a computer screen.
But what is really happening here is that the tablet PC has enabled consumers to use a pen to write on the screen -- in other words, regress from the 40 words per minute keyboard to the illegible but comforting scribble of cursive.
I'm not sure what to make of the recurring trend of technology regression. Perhaps it's a sign that progress is a combination of the best of the old with the best of the new. Perhaps it's just indicative of the fact that innovation is less about the reinvention of the wheel, but rather the repurposing of it.
Do you have your own example of technology regression? Do you buy into this concept? If so, I'd be curious to hear your explanatory thoughts.
Over and out.
iMedia Connection
Bertelsmann to sell cut-price, no-cover, no-liner notes versions of CDs to combat piracy
07/07/2004 by Leigh Phillips
German media conglomerate Bertelsmann has announced it is to begin offering “no-frills” and luxury versions of CDs in a bid to combat piracy.
Starting next month, Bertelsmann is to offer three versions of its CDs, a €9.99 version with only the title printed on the disc and nothing else; a €12.99 version, which will look like a regular CD, with a cover and liner notes; and a deluxe version costing €17.99, which will include video clips and other additional material.
Bertelsmann’s record label, BMG, hopes that the move will boost sales by up to 25 per cent, according to a report in the Guardian newspaper.
07/07/2004 by Leigh Phillips
German media conglomerate Bertelsmann has announced it is to begin offering “no-frills” and luxury versions of CDs in a bid to combat piracy.
Starting next month, Bertelsmann is to offer three versions of its CDs, a €9.99 version with only the title printed on the disc and nothing else; a €12.99 version, which will look like a regular CD, with a cover and liner notes; and a deluxe version costing €17.99, which will include video clips and other additional material.
Bertelsmann’s record label, BMG, hopes that the move will boost sales by up to 25 per cent, according to a report in the Guardian newspaper.
'Together we can defeat spam in two years'
By John Leyden (john.leyden at theregister.co.uk)
Published Wednesday 7th July 2004 17:13 GMT
Delegates at an International Telecommunication Union (ITU) spam conference this week have called for standardised, stronger worldwide anti-spam legislation. They aim control the 'modern day epidemic' of spam within two years.
Regulators from 60 countries along with industry representatives called for standardised legislation around the world to make it easier to prosecute spammers. Particular emphasis was placed on measures to curtail the flood of unsolicited pornographic email.
"(We have) an epidemic on our hands that we need to learn how to control," said Robert Horton, Internet strategy expert with the United Nations' International Telecommunications Union (ITU), AP reports (http://www.zwire.com/site/news.cfm?newsid=12236986&BRD=1710&PAG=461&dept_id=362262&rfi=6). Horton confidently stated (http://www.reuters.co.uk/newsArticle.jhtml?type=internetNews&storyID=5600350§ion=news) that the spam epidemic can be "defeated in short order" given "full international co-operation among governments and software companies".
Delegates will look at examples of legislation that can be used to combat the deluge of spam clogging up worldwide email systems. The initiative follows last week's announcement that the United States, the United Kingdom and Australia have signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) to cooperate internationally in the fight against spam.
"This is great news, but legislation cannot solve the problem on its own," said Carole Theriault, security consultant at IT security firm Sophos. "Spam is mushrooming to incomprehensible levels. International legislation will help, but only in conjunction with sophisticated anti-spam software and education will the situation be rectified." ®
By John Leyden (john.leyden at theregister.co.uk)
Published Wednesday 7th July 2004 17:13 GMT
Delegates at an International Telecommunication Union (ITU) spam conference this week have called for standardised, stronger worldwide anti-spam legislation. They aim control the 'modern day epidemic' of spam within two years.
Regulators from 60 countries along with industry representatives called for standardised legislation around the world to make it easier to prosecute spammers. Particular emphasis was placed on measures to curtail the flood of unsolicited pornographic email.
"(We have) an epidemic on our hands that we need to learn how to control," said Robert Horton, Internet strategy expert with the United Nations' International Telecommunications Union (ITU), AP reports (http://www.zwire.com/site/news.cfm?newsid=12236986&BRD=1710&PAG=461&dept_id=362262&rfi=6). Horton confidently stated (http://www.reuters.co.uk/newsArticle.jhtml?type=internetNews&storyID=5600350§ion=news) that the spam epidemic can be "defeated in short order" given "full international co-operation among governments and software companies".
Delegates will look at examples of legislation that can be used to combat the deluge of spam clogging up worldwide email systems. The initiative follows last week's announcement that the United States, the United Kingdom and Australia have signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) to cooperate internationally in the fight against spam.
"This is great news, but legislation cannot solve the problem on its own," said Carole Theriault, security consultant at IT security firm Sophos. "Spam is mushrooming to incomprehensible levels. International legislation will help, but only in conjunction with sophisticated anti-spam software and education will the situation be rectified." ®
Tuesday, July 06, 2004
Affiliate Marketing: A Better Pay-For-Performance Model Than Search?
by Ross Fadner
Forget pay-per-click (PPC)--pay-for-performance (PFP) is all marketers want to hear about from their advertising and publishing partners these days. And it's not just search and contextual marketing, either: Networks like ValueClick, 24/7 Real Media, and Advertising.com represent the major players in an emerging phenomenon that covers nearly all online sales channels.
One watershed moment for the phenomenon came recently when America Online announced its acquisition of Advertising.com. The effectiveness of the PFP model has long been one of the secrets of the affiliate marketing channel. The efficacy of the model was discussed recently at an invitation-only conference that was organized by performance-based affiliate network provider LinkShare Corp. last week and attended by more than 800 online executives.
Affiliate marketing is fast becoming a crucial means for online retailers to generate qualified traffic. LinkShare is one of the pioneers of the practice, whereby affiliates generate leads for their merchant partners, who subsequently compensate them if a lead generates a sale. The company said that affiliate programs could outpace search as the most cost-effective means to drive qualified traffic, and described pay-for-performance as the best way to motivate affiliates to drive that traffic.
"What search was for content, affiliate marketing is for commerce," LinkShare CEO Stephen Messer told conference attendees. Such a statement may presently be hard to qualify, but most panelists at the conference were bullish about affiliate marketing's prospects.
"Pay-for-performance affiliate marketing in the real world has a name. It's called commissioned salespeople, [and] they're the most productive people in your stores," noted Macys.com President Kent Anderson. "Our fastest-growing areas in the stores--our best-run stores--are typically commission-oriented, and I think there's an analogy [to affiliate marketing] there because you have a highly motivated sales force."
Carrie Johnson, senior analyst, Forrester Research, agreed--adding that successful online retailers treat affiliates like a sales force that needs to be educated, rather than a cost-effective media buy. Johnson cited the success of Overstock.com, a company with no offline component that effectively built brand awareness through affiliate marketing.
Buy.com founder and CEO Scott Blum noted that it will become increasingly important for retailers to switch from a PPC to a PFP model because it's much more cost-efficient. He emphasized that the recent growth and success of PFP affiliate networks like LinkShare's underscore the strength of the model.
However, there is one pay-for-performance sales channel that received nearly unanimous disapproval. Panelists agreed that the growing problem of online fraud, spyware, and spam are deterrents to the growth of online commerce, and could eventually keep consumers from shopping online. Because of its proven effectiveness as a low-cost direct sales channel, online retailers are among the heaviest users of adware and spyware. The panelists agreed that more legislation designed to confront these threats is inevitable.
Impact Venture Partners' Adam Dell noted that such marketing methods hinder the growth of the online sales channel because they violate consumer trust. "For the Internet to continue to develop and emerge as a viable distribution channel for retail commerce, trust is something that needs to be nurtured."
Adware, defined as legal ad-supported software because it properly discloses its practices in an end-user licensing agreement and provides consumers with measures for opting-out, is a target of interest for venture capitalists, according to online analysts.
According to Forrester's Johnson, the future for online commerce is bright, despite the murky areas of spyware and spam. Forrester forecasts 25 percent growth every year over the next five years for e-commerce; Johnson says she is "incredibly optimistic" about the next 5-10 years.
Mediapost
by Ross Fadner
Forget pay-per-click (PPC)--pay-for-performance (PFP) is all marketers want to hear about from their advertising and publishing partners these days. And it's not just search and contextual marketing, either: Networks like ValueClick, 24/7 Real Media, and Advertising.com represent the major players in an emerging phenomenon that covers nearly all online sales channels.
One watershed moment for the phenomenon came recently when America Online announced its acquisition of Advertising.com. The effectiveness of the PFP model has long been one of the secrets of the affiliate marketing channel. The efficacy of the model was discussed recently at an invitation-only conference that was organized by performance-based affiliate network provider LinkShare Corp. last week and attended by more than 800 online executives.
Affiliate marketing is fast becoming a crucial means for online retailers to generate qualified traffic. LinkShare is one of the pioneers of the practice, whereby affiliates generate leads for their merchant partners, who subsequently compensate them if a lead generates a sale. The company said that affiliate programs could outpace search as the most cost-effective means to drive qualified traffic, and described pay-for-performance as the best way to motivate affiliates to drive that traffic.
"What search was for content, affiliate marketing is for commerce," LinkShare CEO Stephen Messer told conference attendees. Such a statement may presently be hard to qualify, but most panelists at the conference were bullish about affiliate marketing's prospects.
"Pay-for-performance affiliate marketing in the real world has a name. It's called commissioned salespeople, [and] they're the most productive people in your stores," noted Macys.com President Kent Anderson. "Our fastest-growing areas in the stores--our best-run stores--are typically commission-oriented, and I think there's an analogy [to affiliate marketing] there because you have a highly motivated sales force."
Carrie Johnson, senior analyst, Forrester Research, agreed--adding that successful online retailers treat affiliates like a sales force that needs to be educated, rather than a cost-effective media buy. Johnson cited the success of Overstock.com, a company with no offline component that effectively built brand awareness through affiliate marketing.
Buy.com founder and CEO Scott Blum noted that it will become increasingly important for retailers to switch from a PPC to a PFP model because it's much more cost-efficient. He emphasized that the recent growth and success of PFP affiliate networks like LinkShare's underscore the strength of the model.
However, there is one pay-for-performance sales channel that received nearly unanimous disapproval. Panelists agreed that the growing problem of online fraud, spyware, and spam are deterrents to the growth of online commerce, and could eventually keep consumers from shopping online. Because of its proven effectiveness as a low-cost direct sales channel, online retailers are among the heaviest users of adware and spyware. The panelists agreed that more legislation designed to confront these threats is inevitable.
Impact Venture Partners' Adam Dell noted that such marketing methods hinder the growth of the online sales channel because they violate consumer trust. "For the Internet to continue to develop and emerge as a viable distribution channel for retail commerce, trust is something that needs to be nurtured."
Adware, defined as legal ad-supported software because it properly discloses its practices in an end-user licensing agreement and provides consumers with measures for opting-out, is a target of interest for venture capitalists, according to online analysts.
According to Forrester's Johnson, the future for online commerce is bright, despite the murky areas of spyware and spam. Forrester forecasts 25 percent growth every year over the next five years for e-commerce; Johnson says she is "incredibly optimistic" about the next 5-10 years.
Mediapost
OMD Digital's Sean Finnegan
Wednesday, April 21, 2004
By Eunice Park, Associate Editor
Online's data flow can be a double-edged sword, highlighting both successes and missed opportunities.
Sean Finnegan is the Midwest Director of OMD Digital, part of OMD Worldwide. Based in Chicago, he and his team of digital experts provide a series of strategic online media services for such mega-brands as Dell, United Airlines, Quaker, McDonald's, State Farm, The Home Depot and Wrigley. Finnegan is involved in online advertising industry groups and associations, such as the IAB, Chicago Interactive Marketing Association (CIMA), Chicago Association of Direct marketing (CADM), MSN Advisory Council, Washington Post.com Advisory Council and the iMedia Summit Advisory Board. He also travels the country speaking to colleges and universities on the study and impact of online advertising.
iMediaConnection: What's your biggest frustration these days?
Finnegan: The daily battle to manage the onslaught of data. It's an industry issue and yes, OMD has multiple advanced metrics systems in place to track and package response figures, to then act upon immediately. But at times, the amount of actionable information can add up, so I get anxious as to how we handle the receipt and reaction to this never ending flow of numbers. And we do it extremely well, but not without constant focus and attention to resources and priorities. The depth and frequency of our medium's real-time feedback is a double-edged sword. It is priceless information, largely unique to a client's media vehicle set, but if let to sit, can quickly become stale and remind you of a missed opportunity in time to alter your plan. My goal, in the midst of information overload, is to continually elevate the department to pure strategy, to enable them to implement change on key data insights versus becoming a slave to their volume.
iMediaConnection: What's easier this year than last?
Finnegan: Selling clients on their involvement in new media. OMD's clients view digital media as an innovative and different animal, yet also as just another outlet to their customer base. They do not get tripped up in the newness or technicalities of an existing or emerging digital platform. They understand media fragmentation, displacement and integration, and quickly adapt to fresh opportunities in the online space. We present our clients these unique digital opportunities with the same awareness and sales goals similar to mainline media, and the question of "how?" quickly becomes "when?"
iMediaConnection: What's one of the most successful branding campaigns your company has executed recently, and what made it successful?
Finnegan: Our recent launch of Quaker's Rice-a-Roni One Skillet campaign on AllRecipes.com comes to mind, as it productively blurs the lines of editorial and advertising. Rice-a-Roni recipe content is effectively integrated throughout the AllRecipes.com site, along with ad units within each recipe and within each printed recipe.
iMediaConnection: Can your company point to evidence that suggest online advertising and marketing are contributing positively to branding metrics?
Finnegan: Yes, and also how online impact contributes to overall awareness across media. OMD research showed that for the launch of a new CPG product, online advertising significantly increased all measured brand metrics, both independently and incrementally to offline media. These incremental lifts include unaided brand awareness (+9), aided brand awareness (+5), purchase intent (+9), brand attributes (+3). By continuing with this type of research, we hope to modify the overall media mix and not just the role of one medium.
iMediaConnection: What's one of the most successful direct response campaigns your company has executed recently, and what made it successful?
Finnegan: Allow me to be somewhat general, and say that we continue to see new and improved success with all of our search engine marketing (SEM) efforts. The approach may not be attractive, but it works, and its model ensures that your forecast is largely accurate when it comes to receiving actual returns. We are capitalizing on all facets of SEM, taking our clients deeper into this vehicle with local, contextual and wireless, too.
iMediaConnection: Have any of your clients successfully utilized any emerging technologies, such as IM, wireless, iTV, etc.?
Finnegan: We've seen several successes within the world of instant messaging -- especially with our younger audience (teen and young adult). This space has allowed our consumers to become a part of the conversation, and not just a pusher of a message. We are also scaling our efforts (commensurate with audience) with the various forms of iTV and gaming.
iMediaConnection: Are you working with search and local search for your clients? Why? And how's it going?
Finnegan: Definitely, as I mentioned in my answer dodge above on DR campaigns. Search and, increasingly, local search are becoming invaluable tools to our ROI initiatives.
iMediaConnection: What are you telling your clients about rich media?
Finnegan: We are using rich media now more for sales-based campaigns. Though immediate response rates have always been well above average to online SAUs, the cost of entry always presented too much of a risk and conversion rates were not always stellar. Traditionally used for announcement-based messaging, with a proper pricing model and refined use, we have made using this format more amenable to our response goals.
iMediaConnection: What can't the Internet do, as much as we wish it could?
Finnegan: In the manner that TV generates water cooler chat (e.g. 'Sopranos'), its not yet much of a buzz generator. The Internet is more of a silent tool used continuously, personally, productively and in various ways. However, I do hear, see and feel a buzz whenever the connection is down.
iMediaConnection: How is the agency-seller relationship these days? How could it be better?
Finnegan: Much improved and more like the traditional relationships. The exchanges between us and our partners are productive, trustworthy, helpful and beneficial to the client. This was not achievable in the heyday of kids, IPOs and egos. I am much more confident in our industry because of the experience and maturity levels on both sides of the table.
iMediaConnection: Are you having issues with terms and conditions?
Finnegan: With certain companies, unfortunately, yes. We remind ourselves and partners that contracts are usually drafted in happy times but that we must focus on the possibility of the future not being so rosy. Thus, certain sticking points that appear to suggest a lack of trust. For example, sequential liability is still a major issue to contend with, but in the end, we tend to work it out.
iMediaConnection: Are you working with your clients' non-interactive agencies? How are you perceived -- as a partner or still as an oddity?
Finnegan: OMD is an integrated media services company, and thus OMD Digital sits amongst and works in lock-step with the OMD non-interactive departments. We also work in the same positive fashion with Omnicom's non-interactive brand agencies, such as DDB, BBDO and TBWA / Chiat Day.
iMediaConnection: What's the one thing you wish clients would understand?
Finnegan: Probably the true labor intensity of managing a digital campaign. To quickly illustrate this point and avoid whining, when forecasting resources, we generally use a traditional to online billings measure that shows it takes the same amount of manhours to service $10 in offline media to $1 in online. It also helps to communicate that a typical digital media group handles six different functions in planning, buying, billing, research, traffic and reporting/optimization.
iMediaConnection: What's the one thing you wish publishers would understand?
Finnegan: Well, for my position, I would like my media partner friends to understand that during an average workday, I typically receive close to 50 phone calls and one business-related email per minute (not to mention my cascading windows of IM messages, cell phone calls and text messages). I also travel a decent amount, so it's tough for me to return all messages and still do my job. I have to prioritize my day so that I am always delivering value to OMD's clients. Oh, and see my family.
iMediaConnection: What remains the industry's biggest stumbling block?
Finnegan: Competitive reporting. Its current state is a joke and a huge hindrance to justifying fair budget allocations. I understand that it's just one measure, but currently, it is only useful as a competitive creative tracker and almost a good source for site titles used. I have to do a deeper dive on the various methodology models, but from my vantage point, the spending levels reported are outrageously high. This excess may be a result of the services placing average industry CPMs against affiliate and house ads. It needs to be fixed ASAP.
iMediaConnection: What are you reading these days?
Finnegan: When I have time to read (we have four children), I read the WSJ cover to cover on the train in the a.m. and the Chicago Sun Times on the way out. Book-wise, I am on somewhat of a divinity kick lately as I have just finished 'The Da Vinci Code' and 'Gods and Generals' and am now on the final book in the 'Left Behind' series --'Glorious Appearing.' I tend to glean management insight and sometimes marketing strategy from history, political and eternally-minded books.
iMediaConnection: And finally, tell us something we don't know yet, but that we will this year.
Finnegan: That our fifth (and final) child will be born in July!
Wednesday, April 21, 2004
By Eunice Park, Associate Editor
Online's data flow can be a double-edged sword, highlighting both successes and missed opportunities.
Sean Finnegan is the Midwest Director of OMD Digital, part of OMD Worldwide. Based in Chicago, he and his team of digital experts provide a series of strategic online media services for such mega-brands as Dell, United Airlines, Quaker, McDonald's, State Farm, The Home Depot and Wrigley. Finnegan is involved in online advertising industry groups and associations, such as the IAB, Chicago Interactive Marketing Association (CIMA), Chicago Association of Direct marketing (CADM), MSN Advisory Council, Washington Post.com Advisory Council and the iMedia Summit Advisory Board. He also travels the country speaking to colleges and universities on the study and impact of online advertising.
iMediaConnection: What's your biggest frustration these days?
Finnegan: The daily battle to manage the onslaught of data. It's an industry issue and yes, OMD has multiple advanced metrics systems in place to track and package response figures, to then act upon immediately. But at times, the amount of actionable information can add up, so I get anxious as to how we handle the receipt and reaction to this never ending flow of numbers. And we do it extremely well, but not without constant focus and attention to resources and priorities. The depth and frequency of our medium's real-time feedback is a double-edged sword. It is priceless information, largely unique to a client's media vehicle set, but if let to sit, can quickly become stale and remind you of a missed opportunity in time to alter your plan. My goal, in the midst of information overload, is to continually elevate the department to pure strategy, to enable them to implement change on key data insights versus becoming a slave to their volume.
iMediaConnection: What's easier this year than last?
Finnegan: Selling clients on their involvement in new media. OMD's clients view digital media as an innovative and different animal, yet also as just another outlet to their customer base. They do not get tripped up in the newness or technicalities of an existing or emerging digital platform. They understand media fragmentation, displacement and integration, and quickly adapt to fresh opportunities in the online space. We present our clients these unique digital opportunities with the same awareness and sales goals similar to mainline media, and the question of "how?" quickly becomes "when?"
iMediaConnection: What's one of the most successful branding campaigns your company has executed recently, and what made it successful?
Finnegan: Our recent launch of Quaker's Rice-a-Roni One Skillet campaign on AllRecipes.com comes to mind, as it productively blurs the lines of editorial and advertising. Rice-a-Roni recipe content is effectively integrated throughout the AllRecipes.com site, along with ad units within each recipe and within each printed recipe.
iMediaConnection: Can your company point to evidence that suggest online advertising and marketing are contributing positively to branding metrics?
Finnegan: Yes, and also how online impact contributes to overall awareness across media. OMD research showed that for the launch of a new CPG product, online advertising significantly increased all measured brand metrics, both independently and incrementally to offline media. These incremental lifts include unaided brand awareness (+9), aided brand awareness (+5), purchase intent (+9), brand attributes (+3). By continuing with this type of research, we hope to modify the overall media mix and not just the role of one medium.
iMediaConnection: What's one of the most successful direct response campaigns your company has executed recently, and what made it successful?
Finnegan: Allow me to be somewhat general, and say that we continue to see new and improved success with all of our search engine marketing (SEM) efforts. The approach may not be attractive, but it works, and its model ensures that your forecast is largely accurate when it comes to receiving actual returns. We are capitalizing on all facets of SEM, taking our clients deeper into this vehicle with local, contextual and wireless, too.
iMediaConnection: Have any of your clients successfully utilized any emerging technologies, such as IM, wireless, iTV, etc.?
Finnegan: We've seen several successes within the world of instant messaging -- especially with our younger audience (teen and young adult). This space has allowed our consumers to become a part of the conversation, and not just a pusher of a message. We are also scaling our efforts (commensurate with audience) with the various forms of iTV and gaming.
iMediaConnection: Are you working with search and local search for your clients? Why? And how's it going?
Finnegan: Definitely, as I mentioned in my answer dodge above on DR campaigns. Search and, increasingly, local search are becoming invaluable tools to our ROI initiatives.
iMediaConnection: What are you telling your clients about rich media?
Finnegan: We are using rich media now more for sales-based campaigns. Though immediate response rates have always been well above average to online SAUs, the cost of entry always presented too much of a risk and conversion rates were not always stellar. Traditionally used for announcement-based messaging, with a proper pricing model and refined use, we have made using this format more amenable to our response goals.
iMediaConnection: What can't the Internet do, as much as we wish it could?
Finnegan: In the manner that TV generates water cooler chat (e.g. 'Sopranos'), its not yet much of a buzz generator. The Internet is more of a silent tool used continuously, personally, productively and in various ways. However, I do hear, see and feel a buzz whenever the connection is down.
iMediaConnection: How is the agency-seller relationship these days? How could it be better?
Finnegan: Much improved and more like the traditional relationships. The exchanges between us and our partners are productive, trustworthy, helpful and beneficial to the client. This was not achievable in the heyday of kids, IPOs and egos. I am much more confident in our industry because of the experience and maturity levels on both sides of the table.
iMediaConnection: Are you having issues with terms and conditions?
Finnegan: With certain companies, unfortunately, yes. We remind ourselves and partners that contracts are usually drafted in happy times but that we must focus on the possibility of the future not being so rosy. Thus, certain sticking points that appear to suggest a lack of trust. For example, sequential liability is still a major issue to contend with, but in the end, we tend to work it out.
iMediaConnection: Are you working with your clients' non-interactive agencies? How are you perceived -- as a partner or still as an oddity?
Finnegan: OMD is an integrated media services company, and thus OMD Digital sits amongst and works in lock-step with the OMD non-interactive departments. We also work in the same positive fashion with Omnicom's non-interactive brand agencies, such as DDB, BBDO and TBWA / Chiat Day.
iMediaConnection: What's the one thing you wish clients would understand?
Finnegan: Probably the true labor intensity of managing a digital campaign. To quickly illustrate this point and avoid whining, when forecasting resources, we generally use a traditional to online billings measure that shows it takes the same amount of manhours to service $10 in offline media to $1 in online. It also helps to communicate that a typical digital media group handles six different functions in planning, buying, billing, research, traffic and reporting/optimization.
iMediaConnection: What's the one thing you wish publishers would understand?
Finnegan: Well, for my position, I would like my media partner friends to understand that during an average workday, I typically receive close to 50 phone calls and one business-related email per minute (not to mention my cascading windows of IM messages, cell phone calls and text messages). I also travel a decent amount, so it's tough for me to return all messages and still do my job. I have to prioritize my day so that I am always delivering value to OMD's clients. Oh, and see my family.
iMediaConnection: What remains the industry's biggest stumbling block?
Finnegan: Competitive reporting. Its current state is a joke and a huge hindrance to justifying fair budget allocations. I understand that it's just one measure, but currently, it is only useful as a competitive creative tracker and almost a good source for site titles used. I have to do a deeper dive on the various methodology models, but from my vantage point, the spending levels reported are outrageously high. This excess may be a result of the services placing average industry CPMs against affiliate and house ads. It needs to be fixed ASAP.
iMediaConnection: What are you reading these days?
Finnegan: When I have time to read (we have four children), I read the WSJ cover to cover on the train in the a.m. and the Chicago Sun Times on the way out. Book-wise, I am on somewhat of a divinity kick lately as I have just finished 'The Da Vinci Code' and 'Gods and Generals' and am now on the final book in the 'Left Behind' series --'Glorious Appearing.' I tend to glean management insight and sometimes marketing strategy from history, political and eternally-minded books.
iMediaConnection: And finally, tell us something we don't know yet, but that we will this year.
Finnegan: That our fifth (and final) child will be born in July!
Multi-Channel Goes Both Ways
Wednesday, April 21, 2004
By Rebecca Weeks, Contributor
Pure-play Internet companies find success advertising offline, too (first of two parts).
While multi-media hungry consumers are giving marketers a run for their money, pure-play Internet companies are demonstrating how to successfully win customers over through integrated campaigns containing, of all things, a TV component.
With the flood of pure play Internet companies advertising on TV, one would think it was 1999 all over again. Dozens of bullish brands are taking a leap of faith into television, helping to curb the media industry?s overriding fear of TV advertising?s downfall. However, this time around, dotcoms don?t simply have their heads in the clouds. They are using integrated campaigns to help balance their return on investment (ROI).
Although ad spending may have peaked during the holidays and the Super Bowl, online companies are proving they need no special occasion to pay the lofty prices demanded by campaigns with a TV component.
Marketing teams, recognizing that their one-channel marketing strategies fail to capture today?s media hungry consumers, are trying to understand audiences which have less predictable behavior patterns. The abundance of media alternatives and formats is giving consumers new ways to consume -- ways that cannot be accurately tracked by our existing tools. Integrated marketing is proving to be the most successful way to communicate parallel to the way audiences now multitask.
Television + Web = Best Multitasking Combo
The most recent study on simultaneous media usage has once again confirmed what many media professionals predicted: audiences continue to absorb several media at once.
Agora/BIGresearch?s study revealed that 70 percent of media users try, at one time or another, to use two or more forms of media at once. It also revealed that, of those who watch TV regularly or occasionally and use another medium, 74.2 percent are reading the newspaper and 66.2 percent are online. Of those consumers using the Internet as the foreground medium, 52.1 percent say they listen to a favorite tune or talk radio when waiting to download something online, 61.8 percent say they watch TV and 20.2 percent read the newspaper.
Buyers and planners need to begin accounting for this growing multitasking society, not only to communicate with consumers effectively, but also to maximize their companies? return.
Which combination can be leveraged most successfully?
Online advertising is particularly effective when combined with TV, says an IAB Canada study that examined the value-added role Internet advertising plays in the overall media mix. For campaigns using TV and the Web together, versus TV only, the findings show a 48 percent lift in tagline association, a 16 percent lift in key brand relevance metric and a 35 percent lift in event sponsorship association. From the consumer perspective, calls to action from TV to the Internet are simple and intuitive. And from the company?s perspective, driving traffic online -- the most cost-efficient and measurable place to do business -- is the ultimate goal.
While TV has been known to effectively deliver emotion, radio is seen as somewhat neutral, print fills in the data gaps, direct mail directs immediate action and last, but not least, the Internet is morphing into a mixture of these roles. Modern marketing executives are realizing the power of combining the strength of each medium into integrated campaigns, even though their brands may have been established on the foundation of one channel. An integrated campaign has the potential to separate an online provider from both its Web and non-Internet competition.
A Web Portal Re-brands via TV
On April 8, Yahoo! unveiled a $100 million TV ad campaign to brand the company as the ?Life Engine? for its users. The four 30-second spots, by Soho Square in New York, use split screens to compare two Yahoo! users -- a celebrity and a regular person. The company is marketing the strength of its various properties, not just an overall one as it has done in the past.
In one spot, former California governor Gray Davis is paired with a junior high school student who uses Yahoo! Mail to persuade classmates to vote for her as treasurer of the eighth grade. Meanwhile, Davis uses the search engine to look for a new job, and says, ?If a former actor can be governor, maybe a former governor can be an actor.? The spot ends with a voice-over describing Yahoo! as a ?Search engine. Music engine. Life engine.? And it trails off with the Yahoo! yodel.
Another spot features Mickey Hart, the drummer for the Grateful Dead, juxtaposed with Charlie 2una, a member of the hip-hop group Jurassic 5, talking about how they use Launch, Yahoo!?s online music service. Part of what makes these spots a success is a creative strategy that presents the audience with two different demographics, each using Yahoo! to achieve a certain goal.
Yahoo!?s last brand campaign in February 2002 positioned it primarily as a destination for search, but the new one hopes to empower people in both their professional and personal lives. As the most trafficked Internet destination worldwide, Yahoo! has previously utilized TV campaigns for its shopping and personals departments, rather than for re-branding. The company made history in 1996 as one of the first dotcoms to debut TV commercials, with the long-running ?Do You Yahoo!?? campaign.
iMedia Connection
Wednesday, April 21, 2004
By Rebecca Weeks, Contributor
Pure-play Internet companies find success advertising offline, too (first of two parts).
While multi-media hungry consumers are giving marketers a run for their money, pure-play Internet companies are demonstrating how to successfully win customers over through integrated campaigns containing, of all things, a TV component.
With the flood of pure play Internet companies advertising on TV, one would think it was 1999 all over again. Dozens of bullish brands are taking a leap of faith into television, helping to curb the media industry?s overriding fear of TV advertising?s downfall. However, this time around, dotcoms don?t simply have their heads in the clouds. They are using integrated campaigns to help balance their return on investment (ROI).
Although ad spending may have peaked during the holidays and the Super Bowl, online companies are proving they need no special occasion to pay the lofty prices demanded by campaigns with a TV component.
Marketing teams, recognizing that their one-channel marketing strategies fail to capture today?s media hungry consumers, are trying to understand audiences which have less predictable behavior patterns. The abundance of media alternatives and formats is giving consumers new ways to consume -- ways that cannot be accurately tracked by our existing tools. Integrated marketing is proving to be the most successful way to communicate parallel to the way audiences now multitask.
Television + Web = Best Multitasking Combo
The most recent study on simultaneous media usage has once again confirmed what many media professionals predicted: audiences continue to absorb several media at once.
Agora/BIGresearch?s study revealed that 70 percent of media users try, at one time or another, to use two or more forms of media at once. It also revealed that, of those who watch TV regularly or occasionally and use another medium, 74.2 percent are reading the newspaper and 66.2 percent are online. Of those consumers using the Internet as the foreground medium, 52.1 percent say they listen to a favorite tune or talk radio when waiting to download something online, 61.8 percent say they watch TV and 20.2 percent read the newspaper.
Buyers and planners need to begin accounting for this growing multitasking society, not only to communicate with consumers effectively, but also to maximize their companies? return.
Which combination can be leveraged most successfully?
Online advertising is particularly effective when combined with TV, says an IAB Canada study that examined the value-added role Internet advertising plays in the overall media mix. For campaigns using TV and the Web together, versus TV only, the findings show a 48 percent lift in tagline association, a 16 percent lift in key brand relevance metric and a 35 percent lift in event sponsorship association. From the consumer perspective, calls to action from TV to the Internet are simple and intuitive. And from the company?s perspective, driving traffic online -- the most cost-efficient and measurable place to do business -- is the ultimate goal.
While TV has been known to effectively deliver emotion, radio is seen as somewhat neutral, print fills in the data gaps, direct mail directs immediate action and last, but not least, the Internet is morphing into a mixture of these roles. Modern marketing executives are realizing the power of combining the strength of each medium into integrated campaigns, even though their brands may have been established on the foundation of one channel. An integrated campaign has the potential to separate an online provider from both its Web and non-Internet competition.
A Web Portal Re-brands via TV
On April 8, Yahoo! unveiled a $100 million TV ad campaign to brand the company as the ?Life Engine? for its users. The four 30-second spots, by Soho Square in New York, use split screens to compare two Yahoo! users -- a celebrity and a regular person. The company is marketing the strength of its various properties, not just an overall one as it has done in the past.
In one spot, former California governor Gray Davis is paired with a junior high school student who uses Yahoo! Mail to persuade classmates to vote for her as treasurer of the eighth grade. Meanwhile, Davis uses the search engine to look for a new job, and says, ?If a former actor can be governor, maybe a former governor can be an actor.? The spot ends with a voice-over describing Yahoo! as a ?Search engine. Music engine. Life engine.? And it trails off with the Yahoo! yodel.
Another spot features Mickey Hart, the drummer for the Grateful Dead, juxtaposed with Charlie 2una, a member of the hip-hop group Jurassic 5, talking about how they use Launch, Yahoo!?s online music service. Part of what makes these spots a success is a creative strategy that presents the audience with two different demographics, each using Yahoo! to achieve a certain goal.
Yahoo!?s last brand campaign in February 2002 positioned it primarily as a destination for search, but the new one hopes to empower people in both their professional and personal lives. As the most trafficked Internet destination worldwide, Yahoo! has previously utilized TV campaigns for its shopping and personals departments, rather than for re-branding. The company made history in 1996 as one of the first dotcoms to debut TV commercials, with the long-running ?Do You Yahoo!?? campaign.
iMedia Connection
Parties to Allow Bloggers to Cover Conventions for First Time
By Brian Faler
Special to The Washington Post
Tuesday, July 6, 2004; Page A04
More than 15,000 people will converge on Boston later this month to cover the Democratic National Convention -- including, for the first time, bloggers.
The Democratic Party plans to give media credentials to a select group of bloggers who want to cover the event, where Sen. John F. Kerry (Mass.) is expected to accept his party's presidential nomination. The group has not announced which bloggers might get the passes, but that information will come in the "next few weeks," an event spokeswoman said. The convention begins July 26.
But officials said whoever gets credentials will have the same opportunities to cover the four-day event that journalists enjoy. "We want to treat them just the same as other reporters," said Mike Liddell, the convention's director of online communications. "We're even planning to do a breakfast for them the first day of the convention."
The Republican Party recently decided that it will also give bloggers credentials for its convention later this summer. A spokesman for the event said it is still working out details.
The Web sites, which are essentially online journals, have become a prominent campaign tool this election season -- ever since former Democratic presidential candidate Howard Dean's official blog caught on. Since then, scores of other candidates have developed similar sites. Some candidates have begun advertising on other independent blogs -- especially sites that feature commentaries, usually partisan, on the political news of the day.
But neither party has ever allowed bloggers to cover one of its presidential conventions firsthand -- and the decision seems to promise a clash of two very different cultures. The conventions have become carefully staged productions intended, primarily, to reintroduce the parties' nominees to the general public. Independent blogs -- especially those focusing on politics -- are far more freewheeling, their authors mixing fact with opinion and under no obligation to be either fair or accurate.
Joe Trippi, former campaign manager for Dean's campaign, said he supports the decision but that it presents some risk to the Democrats. He said many bloggers are more liberal than Kerry -- and may feel free to vent their frustration with the candidate if, for example, he presents himself at the convention as a centrist.
"They're much tougher, I think, from an ideological bent than mainstream press," Trippi said. "You're not going to take any flak from the mainstream press for tacking to the center on a given issue."
But he and other Democrats said the plan also gives the party a chance to reach a larger audience. Although television networks have cut back on their coverage of the conventions -- saying they yield little news -- some bloggers have attracted sizable audiences. Lina Garcia, a spokeswoman for the convention, said she hopes the bloggers will help the party reach young people. "A lot of young people blog now, and they're important to us," she said.
Markos Moulitsas Zuniga, a Berkeley, Calif.-based lawyer who runs one of the most popular liberal blogs -- Dailykos.com -- predicted that many bloggers will beam a reliably pro-Democratic message back to their readers. "We're all partisan. We don't pretend to be otherwise and would not be constrained by bounds of having to balance out what we write with the other side," he said. "So it's a much more direct way to get out the party's message to its constituents and potential constituents."
It is not clear how the Democratic Party will decide among the more than 60 bloggers who have applied for credentials. Convention officials said they are considering three criteria: the size of the blogger's audience, the "professionalism" of the site and the amount of original material it includes. It is subjective and a little vague. But then again, Liddell said, no one has tried this before. "We don't have a guide to go by," he said.
Washington Post
By Brian Faler
Special to The Washington Post
Tuesday, July 6, 2004; Page A04
More than 15,000 people will converge on Boston later this month to cover the Democratic National Convention -- including, for the first time, bloggers.
The Democratic Party plans to give media credentials to a select group of bloggers who want to cover the event, where Sen. John F. Kerry (Mass.) is expected to accept his party's presidential nomination. The group has not announced which bloggers might get the passes, but that information will come in the "next few weeks," an event spokeswoman said. The convention begins July 26.
But officials said whoever gets credentials will have the same opportunities to cover the four-day event that journalists enjoy. "We want to treat them just the same as other reporters," said Mike Liddell, the convention's director of online communications. "We're even planning to do a breakfast for them the first day of the convention."
The Republican Party recently decided that it will also give bloggers credentials for its convention later this summer. A spokesman for the event said it is still working out details.
The Web sites, which are essentially online journals, have become a prominent campaign tool this election season -- ever since former Democratic presidential candidate Howard Dean's official blog caught on. Since then, scores of other candidates have developed similar sites. Some candidates have begun advertising on other independent blogs -- especially sites that feature commentaries, usually partisan, on the political news of the day.
But neither party has ever allowed bloggers to cover one of its presidential conventions firsthand -- and the decision seems to promise a clash of two very different cultures. The conventions have become carefully staged productions intended, primarily, to reintroduce the parties' nominees to the general public. Independent blogs -- especially those focusing on politics -- are far more freewheeling, their authors mixing fact with opinion and under no obligation to be either fair or accurate.
Joe Trippi, former campaign manager for Dean's campaign, said he supports the decision but that it presents some risk to the Democrats. He said many bloggers are more liberal than Kerry -- and may feel free to vent their frustration with the candidate if, for example, he presents himself at the convention as a centrist.
"They're much tougher, I think, from an ideological bent than mainstream press," Trippi said. "You're not going to take any flak from the mainstream press for tacking to the center on a given issue."
But he and other Democrats said the plan also gives the party a chance to reach a larger audience. Although television networks have cut back on their coverage of the conventions -- saying they yield little news -- some bloggers have attracted sizable audiences. Lina Garcia, a spokeswoman for the convention, said she hopes the bloggers will help the party reach young people. "A lot of young people blog now, and they're important to us," she said.
Markos Moulitsas Zuniga, a Berkeley, Calif.-based lawyer who runs one of the most popular liberal blogs -- Dailykos.com -- predicted that many bloggers will beam a reliably pro-Democratic message back to their readers. "We're all partisan. We don't pretend to be otherwise and would not be constrained by bounds of having to balance out what we write with the other side," he said. "So it's a much more direct way to get out the party's message to its constituents and potential constituents."
It is not clear how the Democratic Party will decide among the more than 60 bloggers who have applied for credentials. Convention officials said they are considering three criteria: the size of the blogger's audience, the "professionalism" of the site and the amount of original material it includes. It is subjective and a little vague. But then again, Liddell said, no one has tried this before. "We don't have a guide to go by," he said.
Washington Post
Email Marketers Must Target To Stand Out
by Ross Fadner
One-to-one marketing, long considered the "holy grail" of advertising, remains a myth--but only because marketers have failed to implement the targeting strategies necessary to make it a reality, according to a recent Jupiter Research webinar.
The webinar, "Target Marketing: Using Dynamic Content to Improve Results," showcased a series of surveys that examined the marketing methods deployed by email marketers, as well as consumer attitudes toward their efforts. David Daniels, Jupiter Research's research director and webinar speaker, noted that "behavior is an untapped resource by most marketers today." He said that audience segmentation--which is made possible through surfing behavior, purchasing behavior, past email behavior, and psychographic information, as well as by demographic and geographic information--is largely underexploited by email marketers.
According to a Jupiter Executive survey, 76 percent of marketers personalize their marketing messages by five or fewer segments. Moreover, Daniels revealed that the survey shows how email marketers tend to segment by consumer attributes gleaned from traditional offline methods such as demographic and geographic information, ignoring valuable differentiation points such as open and click-through rates. In fact, less than half of those surveyed (45 percent) use open and click-through rates to segment their campaigns.
Daniels noted that retail, for which email marketing presents a valuable channel for direct sales, was surprisingly poor when it came to campaign personalization and audience segmentation. Only 16 percent of marketers targeted their campaigns by demographic/geographic data, and just 4 percent personalized messages--which included simply using the potential customer's name. Furthermore, just 6 percent of messages reviewed allowed consumers to proceed to checkout directly from the email; all others brought consumers to a landing page.
According to Daniels, marketers must develop a customer segmentation strategy in order to make dynamic content work for them. "We're all still largely product-focused," he said--"we're not really customer-focused yet." He added: "You should be trying to market product 'A' to customer 'B,'" noting that products need to be aligned to the appropriate customer. Other Jupiter research showed that advancing response rates through behavioral targeting can increase revenues by as much as 50 percent.
Daniels noted that improved segmentation may help alleviate the threat posed by spam. Increasingly, consumers perceive email marketing efforts as spam, even when they acknowledge that they opted into receiving messages in the first place.
According to a 2003 Jupiter/Ipsos-Insight Individual User survey, consumers said that 44 percent of the email they receive is spam, 31 percent comes from friends and family, and 16 percent are messages they opted into receiving. Thirteen percent of respondents said that they report email they no longer receive as spam.
Daniels opined that the clutter consumers receive after opting into and receiving email messages leads them to report it as spam. For example, when Jupiter researchers opted into receiving messages from 122 travel companies, they received more than 30 messages on Tuesdays and Wednesdays. Daniels said that personalizing and segmenting email initiatives will help email marketers stand out from the clutter, and ultimately drive sales.
Mediapost
by Ross Fadner
One-to-one marketing, long considered the "holy grail" of advertising, remains a myth--but only because marketers have failed to implement the targeting strategies necessary to make it a reality, according to a recent Jupiter Research webinar.
The webinar, "Target Marketing: Using Dynamic Content to Improve Results," showcased a series of surveys that examined the marketing methods deployed by email marketers, as well as consumer attitudes toward their efforts. David Daniels, Jupiter Research's research director and webinar speaker, noted that "behavior is an untapped resource by most marketers today." He said that audience segmentation--which is made possible through surfing behavior, purchasing behavior, past email behavior, and psychographic information, as well as by demographic and geographic information--is largely underexploited by email marketers.
According to a Jupiter Executive survey, 76 percent of marketers personalize their marketing messages by five or fewer segments. Moreover, Daniels revealed that the survey shows how email marketers tend to segment by consumer attributes gleaned from traditional offline methods such as demographic and geographic information, ignoring valuable differentiation points such as open and click-through rates. In fact, less than half of those surveyed (45 percent) use open and click-through rates to segment their campaigns.
Daniels noted that retail, for which email marketing presents a valuable channel for direct sales, was surprisingly poor when it came to campaign personalization and audience segmentation. Only 16 percent of marketers targeted their campaigns by demographic/geographic data, and just 4 percent personalized messages--which included simply using the potential customer's name. Furthermore, just 6 percent of messages reviewed allowed consumers to proceed to checkout directly from the email; all others brought consumers to a landing page.
According to Daniels, marketers must develop a customer segmentation strategy in order to make dynamic content work for them. "We're all still largely product-focused," he said--"we're not really customer-focused yet." He added: "You should be trying to market product 'A' to customer 'B,'" noting that products need to be aligned to the appropriate customer. Other Jupiter research showed that advancing response rates through behavioral targeting can increase revenues by as much as 50 percent.
Daniels noted that improved segmentation may help alleviate the threat posed by spam. Increasingly, consumers perceive email marketing efforts as spam, even when they acknowledge that they opted into receiving messages in the first place.
According to a 2003 Jupiter/Ipsos-Insight Individual User survey, consumers said that 44 percent of the email they receive is spam, 31 percent comes from friends and family, and 16 percent are messages they opted into receiving. Thirteen percent of respondents said that they report email they no longer receive as spam.
Daniels opined that the clutter consumers receive after opting into and receiving email messages leads them to report it as spam. For example, when Jupiter researchers opted into receiving messages from 122 travel companies, they received more than 30 messages on Tuesdays and Wednesdays. Daniels said that personalizing and segmenting email initiatives will help email marketers stand out from the clutter, and ultimately drive sales.
Mediapost
By Jay Conrad Levinson
Author, "Guerrilla Marketing" series of books
Over 14 million sold; now in 39 languages
The best-selling marketing series in history
The Guerrilla Marketing Association gives you live access
to Jay Conrad Levinson and comes with a free one-month trial.
Click Here
GUERRILLA INTELLIGENCE FROM THE FRONT LINES
* Franchising is not risk-free according to a study of start-ups. The failure rate for new franchisees was 35% compared with 28% for independent businesses. Worse yet, franchisees had lower earnings than non-franchises due to franchise fees and royalties.
* How many people sit through a computerized telemarketing call? Only 3% do, but 33% sit through a call from a live human being. In total, 4% of people reached by a telemarketing call actually place an order.
* Coca-Cola is now described as a "guerrilla marketer" by industry spokespeople who cite Coke's willingness to shell out $250 million for the rights to be the Super Bowl's official soft drink for five years, but to run zero commercials while the game was telecast. Coke shows guerrilla tactics by its checkout stand placement and six-pack promotions that invite buyers to call a toll-free number. Coke is it! What? A guerrilla marketer.
* Independent workers now comprise over one-half of the U.S. labor force. 80% do it by choice. Most common reasons why: control over work life, tired of commuting, wanting to make more money, wanting more diversity in work life, wanting to spend more time with family. Guerrilla thinking.
* Learn about the surprising pulling power of bench billboards by calling the National Bench Advertising Association at 1-800-999-2964.
* Accepting credit cards can increase your business up to 80%. To get it you need "merchant status." Get it from your bank or learn how online.
* Classic guerrilla marketing was the Burma-Shave signs, a series of six roadside signs. They appeared in 7000 locations in 45 states forming a poem, and this guerrilla is proud to have written two of them.
* How do people get magazines? In l982, 28.7% came from newsstands, 71.3% by subscriptions. In l993, 19.5% come from newsstands, 80.5% from subscriptions. You can see the trend. Why do publishers push subscriptions over news stand sales? Publishers now know much more about readers when they subscribe.
* In what may be the first commercial for a commercial, the Interactive Network launched a radio campaign to get people to tune into its TV infomercial.
* Guerrilla ski resort: a Vermont ski resort keeps a database on every one of their skiers, especially regulars. If the 5-day forecast looks good on a Monday, the resort notifies its database operation which mails postcards to skiers on a Tuesday who get the message on a Thursday or Friday, and are boogieing down the bumps by the weekend -- hopefully.
* Your name or logo should be very subtle on gifts of crystal or silver because it defaces and reduces in value the gift itself. Use restraint there. * Guerrilla sampling factoids: Reebok used kiosks in 200 malls to attract people to try its latest pump technology shoes; 15% who tried, bought. 77% of marketers try sampling. 85% of those expect to maintain or increase it. 73% of companies tried sampling for new products, 66% for existing products. Conversion rates from sampling: estimated at 10%-15%.
* Why do visitors visit trade show displays? 25% for a feeling of obligation to an existing supplier, 23% for habit, 15% because of a personal invitation, 12% because of publicity in a trade magazine, 9% because of other advertising, 9% as a response to a mailed invitation, and 4% as a result of a recommendation from an associate.
* People reveal more of themselves when a computer asks the questions, giving more meaningful and in-depth responses to sensitive issues, according to Psychology Today.
* What do people want in a circular? 86% want price; 74% want the brand name; 69% want a photo of the product; 58% want the store's address; 52% want data on quality and service; 46% want the phone number of the store; 43% want the discount percentage; 42% want rebate information.
Author, "Guerrilla Marketing" series of books
Over 14 million sold; now in 39 languages
The best-selling marketing series in history
The Guerrilla Marketing Association gives you live access
to Jay Conrad Levinson and comes with a free one-month trial.
Click Here
GUERRILLA INTELLIGENCE FROM THE FRONT LINES
* Franchising is not risk-free according to a study of start-ups. The failure rate for new franchisees was 35% compared with 28% for independent businesses. Worse yet, franchisees had lower earnings than non-franchises due to franchise fees and royalties.
* How many people sit through a computerized telemarketing call? Only 3% do, but 33% sit through a call from a live human being. In total, 4% of people reached by a telemarketing call actually place an order.
* Coca-Cola is now described as a "guerrilla marketer" by industry spokespeople who cite Coke's willingness to shell out $250 million for the rights to be the Super Bowl's official soft drink for five years, but to run zero commercials while the game was telecast. Coke shows guerrilla tactics by its checkout stand placement and six-pack promotions that invite buyers to call a toll-free number. Coke is it! What? A guerrilla marketer.
* Independent workers now comprise over one-half of the U.S. labor force. 80% do it by choice. Most common reasons why: control over work life, tired of commuting, wanting to make more money, wanting more diversity in work life, wanting to spend more time with family. Guerrilla thinking.
* Learn about the surprising pulling power of bench billboards by calling the National Bench Advertising Association at 1-800-999-2964.
* Accepting credit cards can increase your business up to 80%. To get it you need "merchant status." Get it from your bank or learn how online.
* Classic guerrilla marketing was the Burma-Shave signs, a series of six roadside signs. They appeared in 7000 locations in 45 states forming a poem, and this guerrilla is proud to have written two of them.
* How do people get magazines? In l982, 28.7% came from newsstands, 71.3% by subscriptions. In l993, 19.5% come from newsstands, 80.5% from subscriptions. You can see the trend. Why do publishers push subscriptions over news stand sales? Publishers now know much more about readers when they subscribe.
* In what may be the first commercial for a commercial, the Interactive Network launched a radio campaign to get people to tune into its TV infomercial.
* Guerrilla ski resort: a Vermont ski resort keeps a database on every one of their skiers, especially regulars. If the 5-day forecast looks good on a Monday, the resort notifies its database operation which mails postcards to skiers on a Tuesday who get the message on a Thursday or Friday, and are boogieing down the bumps by the weekend -- hopefully.
* Your name or logo should be very subtle on gifts of crystal or silver because it defaces and reduces in value the gift itself. Use restraint there. * Guerrilla sampling factoids: Reebok used kiosks in 200 malls to attract people to try its latest pump technology shoes; 15% who tried, bought. 77% of marketers try sampling. 85% of those expect to maintain or increase it. 73% of companies tried sampling for new products, 66% for existing products. Conversion rates from sampling: estimated at 10%-15%.
* Why do visitors visit trade show displays? 25% for a feeling of obligation to an existing supplier, 23% for habit, 15% because of a personal invitation, 12% because of publicity in a trade magazine, 9% because of other advertising, 9% as a response to a mailed invitation, and 4% as a result of a recommendation from an associate.
* People reveal more of themselves when a computer asks the questions, giving more meaningful and in-depth responses to sensitive issues, according to Psychology Today.
* What do people want in a circular? 86% want price; 74% want the brand name; 69% want a photo of the product; 58% want the store's address; 52% want data on quality and service; 46% want the phone number of the store; 43% want the discount percentage; 42% want rebate information.
Internet booste le secteur de la VAD
Les Français sont de plus en plus friands de l'achat à distance, grâce à l'Internet notamment. C'est ce que démontre une étude réalisée par le Credoc (Centre de Recherche pour l'Etude et l'Observation des Conditions de vie) pour la Fédération des entreprises de vente à distance (Fevad) en mai 2004. Selon cette enquête, l'e-commerce touche aujourd'hui près d'un français sur quatre. En quatre ans, le commerce électronique enregistre la plus forte progression parmi les différents moyens de commande à distance.
Pénétration de la vente à distance et de l'e-commerce en France
Canal d'achat 2000 2004 Exclusivité du canal
Courrier 49 % 56 % 21,4 %
Téléphone 33 % 38 % 6,6 %
Internet 4 % 23 % 6,9 %
Minitel 9% 4 % -
Total VAD 56 % 73 % -
Source : Etude Fevad-Credoc mai 2004. Base totale : 1.019 personnes
Le démarrage de l'e-Commerce a été lent dans l'Hexagone, mais les Français rattrapent progressivement leur retard depuis quatre ans. En 2000, ils n'étaient que 4 % à déclarer avoir déjà fait des achats en ligne. Aujourd'hui, ils sont 23 % à se qualifier de cyber-acheteurs. Une progression due à la combinaison de trois facteurs, selon Catherine Bougeois, responsable de la communication à la Fevad : "une offre de produits élargie, la démocratisation de l'Internet et l'instauration de la confiance vis à vis du paiement en ligne." Le problème de la confiance paraît en effet résolu puisque 98 % des clients des sites marchands déclarent vouloir continuer à commander des produits et des services sur Internet.
Les cyber-acheteurs ont une fréquence d'achat plus élevée que la moyenne des autres canaux : 67 % commandent à distance au moins une fois tous les deux mois. L'étude Fevad-Credoc souligne l'évolution du profil des consommateurs en ligne. A l'origine, le cyber-acheteur est un homme (59 %) de moins de 35 ans, habitant dans une ville de plus de 200.000 habitants, diplômé du supérieur et dont les revenus sont plus élevés que la moyenne (44 %). La population des acheteurs en ligne aujourd'hui se ruralise (55 %), est de plus en plus présente au sein de toutes les catégories socio-professionnelles et dispose de revenus moyens (40 %).
Cette tendance est liée naturellement à la forte progression de l'Internet au sein de la population française (23,5 millions d'internautes en mars 2004 selon Médiamétrie, soit 38 % des Français), mais également à la diversification de l'offre sur Internet. Au début très centrée sur les produits high-tech et culturels, l'offre s'étend aujourd'hui à de plus nombreux services. Ainsi, la vente de billets ou de voyages en ligne arrive en troisième position derrière les livres et les CD/DVD. Quant à la vente sur Internet de billets de spectacles, c'est un secteur en forte croissance selon l'étude Fevad-Credoc.
En savoir plus
Premier trimestre en rose pour le commerce électronique
Le e-commerce français progresse de plus de 50 % en 2003
Dernier enseignement significatif, la clientèle de la vente à distance est multicanale. La proportion de personnes qui utilise un seul mode de commande (35 %) est identique à la part des acheteurs qui multiplient les moyens d'achat à distance (36 %). Les cyber-acheteurs sont plus volontiers multicanalistes : les exclusifs Internet ne représentent que 29 % des cyber-acheteurs et à peine 7 % du total des acheteurs à distance. A l'exception du minitel, tous les modes de commande à distance sont en hausse.
Au final, trois Français sur quatre disent acheter à distance en 2004, contre un sur deux en 2000. "La vente à distance aux particuliers est boostée par Internet. Nombre de nouveaux clients ne seraient jamais venus à la VAD sans Internet", conclut Catherine Bougeois.
Emilie LEVEQUE, JDN
Les Français sont de plus en plus friands de l'achat à distance, grâce à l'Internet notamment. C'est ce que démontre une étude réalisée par le Credoc (Centre de Recherche pour l'Etude et l'Observation des Conditions de vie) pour la Fédération des entreprises de vente à distance (Fevad) en mai 2004. Selon cette enquête, l'e-commerce touche aujourd'hui près d'un français sur quatre. En quatre ans, le commerce électronique enregistre la plus forte progression parmi les différents moyens de commande à distance.
Pénétration de la vente à distance et de l'e-commerce en France
Canal d'achat 2000 2004 Exclusivité du canal
Courrier 49 % 56 % 21,4 %
Téléphone 33 % 38 % 6,6 %
Internet 4 % 23 % 6,9 %
Minitel 9% 4 % -
Total VAD 56 % 73 % -
Source : Etude Fevad-Credoc mai 2004. Base totale : 1.019 personnes
Le démarrage de l'e-Commerce a été lent dans l'Hexagone, mais les Français rattrapent progressivement leur retard depuis quatre ans. En 2000, ils n'étaient que 4 % à déclarer avoir déjà fait des achats en ligne. Aujourd'hui, ils sont 23 % à se qualifier de cyber-acheteurs. Une progression due à la combinaison de trois facteurs, selon Catherine Bougeois, responsable de la communication à la Fevad : "une offre de produits élargie, la démocratisation de l'Internet et l'instauration de la confiance vis à vis du paiement en ligne." Le problème de la confiance paraît en effet résolu puisque 98 % des clients des sites marchands déclarent vouloir continuer à commander des produits et des services sur Internet.
Les cyber-acheteurs ont une fréquence d'achat plus élevée que la moyenne des autres canaux : 67 % commandent à distance au moins une fois tous les deux mois. L'étude Fevad-Credoc souligne l'évolution du profil des consommateurs en ligne. A l'origine, le cyber-acheteur est un homme (59 %) de moins de 35 ans, habitant dans une ville de plus de 200.000 habitants, diplômé du supérieur et dont les revenus sont plus élevés que la moyenne (44 %). La population des acheteurs en ligne aujourd'hui se ruralise (55 %), est de plus en plus présente au sein de toutes les catégories socio-professionnelles et dispose de revenus moyens (40 %).
Cette tendance est liée naturellement à la forte progression de l'Internet au sein de la population française (23,5 millions d'internautes en mars 2004 selon Médiamétrie, soit 38 % des Français), mais également à la diversification de l'offre sur Internet. Au début très centrée sur les produits high-tech et culturels, l'offre s'étend aujourd'hui à de plus nombreux services. Ainsi, la vente de billets ou de voyages en ligne arrive en troisième position derrière les livres et les CD/DVD. Quant à la vente sur Internet de billets de spectacles, c'est un secteur en forte croissance selon l'étude Fevad-Credoc.
En savoir plus
Premier trimestre en rose pour le commerce électronique
Le e-commerce français progresse de plus de 50 % en 2003
Dernier enseignement significatif, la clientèle de la vente à distance est multicanale. La proportion de personnes qui utilise un seul mode de commande (35 %) est identique à la part des acheteurs qui multiplient les moyens d'achat à distance (36 %). Les cyber-acheteurs sont plus volontiers multicanalistes : les exclusifs Internet ne représentent que 29 % des cyber-acheteurs et à peine 7 % du total des acheteurs à distance. A l'exception du minitel, tous les modes de commande à distance sont en hausse.
Au final, trois Français sur quatre disent acheter à distance en 2004, contre un sur deux en 2000. "La vente à distance aux particuliers est boostée par Internet. Nombre de nouveaux clients ne seraient jamais venus à la VAD sans Internet", conclut Catherine Bougeois.
Emilie LEVEQUE, JDN
Advertisers demand proof of web traffic
Posted: 10 June 2004 By: Jemima Kiss
Email: jemima@journalism.co.uk
More advertisers than ever are demanding independent proof of web statistics, according to new research by Benchmark.
Commissioned by industry auditor ABC Electronic (ABCE), the research found that 90 per cent of advertisers now demand independent, third party evidence of web traffic. General awareness of web auditing services is up to 95 per cent from just 72 per cent in 2002.
The research was good news for ABCE, the major industry auditor for web and email publications. Eighty-six per cent of media buyers surveyed said that ABCE is a valuable form of industry measurement, and 88 per cent recognised the ABCE website as a source of certified information.
Overall, the research indicates a higher awareness of how to recognise and apply industry measuring standards, with advertisers increasingly using independently audited figures to imform their purchasing decisions.
Tree Elven, web editor of Hellomagazine.com, told dotJournalism that ABCE auditing is a vital part of the publication's editorial and commerical policy.
"Our brand name is a popular and trusted one, and we believe that independent auditing is key to providing maximum confidence in among our advertisers," said Ms Elven.
dotJournalism
Posted: 10 June 2004 By: Jemima Kiss
Email: jemima@journalism.co.uk
More advertisers than ever are demanding independent proof of web statistics, according to new research by Benchmark.
Commissioned by industry auditor ABC Electronic (ABCE), the research found that 90 per cent of advertisers now demand independent, third party evidence of web traffic. General awareness of web auditing services is up to 95 per cent from just 72 per cent in 2002.
The research was good news for ABCE, the major industry auditor for web and email publications. Eighty-six per cent of media buyers surveyed said that ABCE is a valuable form of industry measurement, and 88 per cent recognised the ABCE website as a source of certified information.
Overall, the research indicates a higher awareness of how to recognise and apply industry measuring standards, with advertisers increasingly using independently audited figures to imform their purchasing decisions.
Tree Elven, web editor of Hellomagazine.com, told dotJournalism that ABCE auditing is a vital part of the publication's editorial and commerical policy.
"Our brand name is a popular and trusted one, and we believe that independent auditing is key to providing maximum confidence in among our advertisers," said Ms Elven.
dotJournalism
Being a Profitable Publisher, Step 4
Monday, June 21, 2004
By Aaron DelloIacono Thies, Ad Delivery Solutions
Increase total percentage of sold inventory, especially value-added inventory.
In the previous installment of this series, I wrote that building ad value can create improved ad revenue. However, a Web site's real average inventory value can only be determined based on what is actually sold. In basic terms, there are three types of ad inventory:
Primary (high-value): Ad inventory that has been sold at a higher rate, achieved using value-boosting techniques.
Secondary or remnant (low-value): Ad inventory that has been sold with no special value added to it.
Unsold: Ad inventory that could not be sold at all.
Typically, primary inventory has about two to eight times the value of secondary inventory, which makes it critical to find ways to sell the primary inventory as completely as possible. All of a publisher's special tools and technology that enable more value in inventory are wasted if that inventory cannot be sold.
It is ideal if all of your high-value inventory can be sold, but this is hard to achieve. To account for this, it is wise to have sales offerings and packages in place that allow for the combined sale of inventory and give enhanced value. These different advertising options, which sacrifice some value for more volume, will help ensure that unsold inventory is minimized. Here are some examples of technology-based sales techniques or packages:
"Page Wrap" advertising: Two or more coordinated ad units are served simultaneously on the same page in complimentary fashion and visible at the same time.
Roadblocks: A package that provides exclusive delivery to a particular page, section or group of pages on the site. Roadblocks are sometimes sold at a fixed price because the daily delivery cannot be predicted. This package provides good branding opportunities to advertisers.
Sequencing: A sequenced package, often called a "surround session," is a series of advertisements shown in a particular order within successive page views of a single user session. Advertisers typically are charged for each completed ad sequence.
Improving your ability to sell also depends on good communication of the information about your advertising to the advertiser. Once the ad vehicles, value-added targeting and ad packages are set up, they must also be properly translated into a clear and marketable set of written advertising options and benefits for advertisers to see, known as a "media kit." An effective media kit will contain the following elements:
Description of the site's audience.
Information about the site's traffic.
An explanation of advertising purchasing options, ad unit descriptions and packages.
Information about your advertising clients and their successes.
Information about how to buy and setup an ad campaign.
This information, freely available, will allow advertisers to make good decisions and derive value from a publisher's offerings by understanding its benefits.
Lastly, it is desirable that a publisher's ad serving management technology contain robust inventory forecasting and planning tools so that the media sales team can predict and sell the available inventory. Inventory forecasting gives sales and trafficking staff the ability to efficiently "see" what will be available in the future and make accurate planning and selling decisions.
A delivery forecasting tool uses algorithms to look at historical delivery and predict future delivery volumes broken down by attributes such as section (channel), page and position. The most basic forecasting will show expected inventory and which percentage of that inventory is already sold or scheduled, i.e. guaranteed. A sophisticated ad inventory forecasting tool also can account for special days and day of week trends, expected inventory by targeting and campaign attributes, or even will provide "impact analysis," which is the ability to project the impact of a new campaign on existing campaigns before the new campaign goes into live delivery rotation.
Next week: Step 5 -- minimizing the cost to purchase, setup and maintain ad serving technology.
Aaron DelloIacono Thies founded Ad Delivery Solutions, a full-service consulting business providing planning, technical services, and project management for Web publishers, site networks and agencies who use digital advertising management, delivery and reporting technology, in 2002. Prior to starting ADS, Thies was a senior technical support engineer with 24/7 Real Media.
iMedia Connection
Monday, June 21, 2004
By Aaron DelloIacono Thies, Ad Delivery Solutions
Increase total percentage of sold inventory, especially value-added inventory.
In the previous installment of this series, I wrote that building ad value can create improved ad revenue. However, a Web site's real average inventory value can only be determined based on what is actually sold. In basic terms, there are three types of ad inventory:
Primary (high-value): Ad inventory that has been sold at a higher rate, achieved using value-boosting techniques.
Secondary or remnant (low-value): Ad inventory that has been sold with no special value added to it.
Unsold: Ad inventory that could not be sold at all.
Typically, primary inventory has about two to eight times the value of secondary inventory, which makes it critical to find ways to sell the primary inventory as completely as possible. All of a publisher's special tools and technology that enable more value in inventory are wasted if that inventory cannot be sold.
It is ideal if all of your high-value inventory can be sold, but this is hard to achieve. To account for this, it is wise to have sales offerings and packages in place that allow for the combined sale of inventory and give enhanced value. These different advertising options, which sacrifice some value for more volume, will help ensure that unsold inventory is minimized. Here are some examples of technology-based sales techniques or packages:
"Page Wrap" advertising: Two or more coordinated ad units are served simultaneously on the same page in complimentary fashion and visible at the same time.
Roadblocks: A package that provides exclusive delivery to a particular page, section or group of pages on the site. Roadblocks are sometimes sold at a fixed price because the daily delivery cannot be predicted. This package provides good branding opportunities to advertisers.
Sequencing: A sequenced package, often called a "surround session," is a series of advertisements shown in a particular order within successive page views of a single user session. Advertisers typically are charged for each completed ad sequence.
Improving your ability to sell also depends on good communication of the information about your advertising to the advertiser. Once the ad vehicles, value-added targeting and ad packages are set up, they must also be properly translated into a clear and marketable set of written advertising options and benefits for advertisers to see, known as a "media kit." An effective media kit will contain the following elements:
Description of the site's audience.
Information about the site's traffic.
An explanation of advertising purchasing options, ad unit descriptions and packages.
Information about your advertising clients and their successes.
Information about how to buy and setup an ad campaign.
This information, freely available, will allow advertisers to make good decisions and derive value from a publisher's offerings by understanding its benefits.
Lastly, it is desirable that a publisher's ad serving management technology contain robust inventory forecasting and planning tools so that the media sales team can predict and sell the available inventory. Inventory forecasting gives sales and trafficking staff the ability to efficiently "see" what will be available in the future and make accurate planning and selling decisions.
A delivery forecasting tool uses algorithms to look at historical delivery and predict future delivery volumes broken down by attributes such as section (channel), page and position. The most basic forecasting will show expected inventory and which percentage of that inventory is already sold or scheduled, i.e. guaranteed. A sophisticated ad inventory forecasting tool also can account for special days and day of week trends, expected inventory by targeting and campaign attributes, or even will provide "impact analysis," which is the ability to project the impact of a new campaign on existing campaigns before the new campaign goes into live delivery rotation.
Next week: Step 5 -- minimizing the cost to purchase, setup and maintain ad serving technology.
Aaron DelloIacono Thies founded Ad Delivery Solutions, a full-service consulting business providing planning, technical services, and project management for Web publishers, site networks and agencies who use digital advertising management, delivery and reporting technology, in 2002. Prior to starting ADS, Thies was a senior technical support engineer with 24/7 Real Media.
iMedia Connection
Monday, July 05, 2004
China censoring SMS
China is to censor mobile text messages, according to the BBC.
The government has issued new regulations permitting mobile operators to monitor text messages for pornography or fraud, but it is more likely that the government is concerned about dissident content.
Indeed, as the BBC notes, already one Chinese company is marketing technology that allows the filtering of "false political rumours" and "reactionary remarks".
Reportedly, the Chinese government is attempting to prevent a recurrence of the rapid spread of information similar to what happened during last year’s SARS outbreak. The government had initially tried to contain awareness of the epidemic, but was later forced to admit the true scale of the problem largely because text messages sent internally alerted people to the problem and belied the government’s public statements on the crisis.
DMEurope
China is to censor mobile text messages, according to the BBC.
The government has issued new regulations permitting mobile operators to monitor text messages for pornography or fraud, but it is more likely that the government is concerned about dissident content.
Indeed, as the BBC notes, already one Chinese company is marketing technology that allows the filtering of "false political rumours" and "reactionary remarks".
Reportedly, the Chinese government is attempting to prevent a recurrence of the rapid spread of information similar to what happened during last year’s SARS outbreak. The government had initially tried to contain awareness of the epidemic, but was later forced to admit the true scale of the problem largely because text messages sent internally alerted people to the problem and belied the government’s public statements on the crisis.
DMEurope
Washington sex blogger signs book deal
By Lester Haines (lester.haines at therockalltimes.co.uk)
Published Friday 2nd July 2004 14:45 GMT
Washington sex blogger Jessica Cutler - aka Washingtonienne - has reportedly signed a $300,000 book deal with HyperionDisney.
Cutler formerly worked sorting mail for Republican Senator Mike DeWine but was shown the door after using Congressional computers to write her now-legendary blog. The diaries recount Washingtonienne's sexual shenannigans on Capitol Hill, including fumblings with an unnamed Bush administration appointee. She also apparently sold herself like a two-bit hussy to supplement her meagre $25k salary.
Cutler's agent told the New York Times that the book deal was in the "substantial six figures." Wonkette.com (http://www.wonkette.com/) is a little more forthcoming, noting:
About that Washingtonienne book deal: We hear the bidding started Tuesday at $75K, based on a 25 page proposal (described a "pretty f***ing twisted"). A dozen houses went for it, and she wound up with a cool $300-f***ing-000.
And she still owes us for drinks!
Cutler will also pose for the November issue of Playboy, according to the NYT. No more cut-price sexual favours between sorting mail for this go-ahead girl, it's clear.
The Register
By Lester Haines (lester.haines at therockalltimes.co.uk)
Published Friday 2nd July 2004 14:45 GMT
Washington sex blogger Jessica Cutler - aka Washingtonienne - has reportedly signed a $300,000 book deal with HyperionDisney.
Cutler formerly worked sorting mail for Republican Senator Mike DeWine but was shown the door after using Congressional computers to write her now-legendary blog. The diaries recount Washingtonienne's sexual shenannigans on Capitol Hill, including fumblings with an unnamed Bush administration appointee. She also apparently sold herself like a two-bit hussy to supplement her meagre $25k salary.
Cutler's agent told the New York Times that the book deal was in the "substantial six figures." Wonkette.com (http://www.wonkette.com/) is a little more forthcoming, noting:
About that Washingtonienne book deal: We hear the bidding started Tuesday at $75K, based on a 25 page proposal (described a "pretty f***ing twisted"). A dozen houses went for it, and she wound up with a cool $300-f***ing-000.
And she still owes us for drinks!
Cutler will also pose for the November issue of Playboy, according to the NYT. No more cut-price sexual favours between sorting mail for this go-ahead girl, it's clear.
The Register
Jaffe Juice: Evolving The Model Part 2
Thursday, April 22, 2004
By Joseph Jaffe, Editor at Large
Joseph offers more ideas for new revenue streams for publishers and marketers (second of two parts).
Last week, I introduced five insights regarding the fairly staid and traditional business model which, for the most part, holds that content is subsidized by advertising:
Consumers will pay for value.
Happy mediums should suffice.
If it doesn?t smell like advertising than perhaps it?s not advertising.
When there?s writing on the wall, read it.
From ROI to RUE.
This week, I?ll conclude with my remaining five thoughts on the subject at hand.
6. Beware the brands.
About 18 months ago, Coca-Cola?s Steven Heyer warned the would-be arrogant publishing community to watch over their proverbial shoulders, especially as the year?s TV upfront was looming large. He rather prophetically suggested that the world?s largest brands were in fact the world?s largest networks -- commanding the broadest and deepest global reach and affinity.
The allusion to the Coca-Cola channel was one expression of this vision, but certainly American Express? Seinfeld-Superman Chronicles, BMWFilms, Tiger Trap and even BK?s Subservient Chicken are expressions of how brands are essentially bypassing publishers, using their Web sites as fulfillment.LINK TO GRAD CONN In some cases, media value is unpaid through the power of word-of-mouth. In others, media support is coming from the familiar offline world.
This is a strange, but true v2.0 of "if you build it, they will come." The concern of publishers going direct to clients is turned on its head with this ironic scenario of brands going direct to consumers.
Implications to the media and agency communities? If you can?t deliver the goods, your clients will do it themselves via (and viva!) boutiques.
7. Everyone has a price.
My good friend and music industry guru, Ty Braswell, does one thing consistently. He?s always fidgeting with and exploring a multitude of scenarios, alternatives or contingencies which suggest various price points, value propositions and B2C exchanges.
If I tell him that consumers will never willingly watch advertising, for example, he?ll ask me if I?ll watch a 30-second commercial for one free mp3 download from Sony Connect. If I tell him no way, he?ll offer up two downloads. Eventually I?ll succumb to his considered haggle.
The point is that everyone has a price -- and at that particular price point or value level, consumers will entertain almost anything, won?t they?
Perhaps we have just been too inflexible and narrow-minded about how we perceive and define the very fibers of the constructs that make up the media business.
8. Kevorkian those old metrics.
I?m not sure that Kevorkian has ever been used as a verb, but if it can work for Google, then it sure as hell should be an option for this editor-at-large!
Remember the IRP? Actually you probably won?t remember the IRP -- it was my early attempt at suggesting an evolved form and version of the GRP or even TRP -- a rating point which not only built in one?s target audience, but indeed measured actual versus potential delivery, together with advanced (and meaningful) metrics such as time spent, attentiveness, engagement, et al.
Today, these kinds of telling data points are realities -- for example, DoubleClick?s suite of next generation metrics makes this possible.
I?ve said it before and I?ll say it again: When marketers are able to determine if their TV ads were actually served (meaning a viewer was on the specific channel at the time when the first second of a commercial appeared) and completed (meaning the viewer did not change the channel or fast forward his TiVo during the duration of the 30-second interval), do we really think they won?t completely shift the way they buy, based now on actual versus potential?
9. Pull my finger.
The shift from push to pull is in full effect. I don?t have to tell anyone reading this what role search plays anymore, but what about the bigger picture -- the power of pull? I always recall my delusions of grandeur when I registered advertisingondemand.com in the spring of 1999.
Clearly, Les Moonves did not approach me with a 7-figure proposal to purchase this domain from me (I let the title deed lapse when it came up for its first renewal, along with the other 50 domains in my possession), however, that doesn?t change the reality of a world in which self-selected advertising is no longer a pipe-dream.
I fully predict and envision a landscape -- sooner than we might all expect -- where almost every form of media will have customized and personalized advertising delivered for their "customers of one."
10. Ultimately, the consumer will always have the final vote.
This might sound like a cop-out, or certainly an anticlimactic ending to the list, but it couldn?t be more important and more appropriate.
Consumers are smarter than we ever give them credit for being. Today?s empowered consumer seeks out, and simultaneously destroys, attention invaders -- purveyors of irrelevant advertising. They flat-out reject propositions that are not just mutually beneficial, but also tip the scales in their favors.
As expressed in user inexperience, they will always have the final say on everything from intrusiveness, full-screen advertising, uninitiated sound, pop-ups, behavioral targeting, and the list goes on.
The implications are very simple and straight forward:
Offer them options -- the more the better.
Don?t be afraid to try out new approaches.
Listen.
Manage expectations.
Practice consistency to a fault.
But you knew all of that already, didn?t you?
iMedia Connection
Thursday, April 22, 2004
By Joseph Jaffe, Editor at Large
Joseph offers more ideas for new revenue streams for publishers and marketers (second of two parts).
Last week, I introduced five insights regarding the fairly staid and traditional business model which, for the most part, holds that content is subsidized by advertising:
Consumers will pay for value.
Happy mediums should suffice.
If it doesn?t smell like advertising than perhaps it?s not advertising.
When there?s writing on the wall, read it.
From ROI to RUE.
This week, I?ll conclude with my remaining five thoughts on the subject at hand.
6. Beware the brands.
About 18 months ago, Coca-Cola?s Steven Heyer warned the would-be arrogant publishing community to watch over their proverbial shoulders, especially as the year?s TV upfront was looming large. He rather prophetically suggested that the world?s largest brands were in fact the world?s largest networks -- commanding the broadest and deepest global reach and affinity.
The allusion to the Coca-Cola channel was one expression of this vision, but certainly American Express? Seinfeld-Superman Chronicles, BMWFilms, Tiger Trap and even BK?s Subservient Chicken are expressions of how brands are essentially bypassing publishers, using their Web sites as fulfillment.LINK TO GRAD CONN In some cases, media value is unpaid through the power of word-of-mouth. In others, media support is coming from the familiar offline world.
This is a strange, but true v2.0 of "if you build it, they will come." The concern of publishers going direct to clients is turned on its head with this ironic scenario of brands going direct to consumers.
Implications to the media and agency communities? If you can?t deliver the goods, your clients will do it themselves via (and viva!) boutiques.
7. Everyone has a price.
My good friend and music industry guru, Ty Braswell, does one thing consistently. He?s always fidgeting with and exploring a multitude of scenarios, alternatives or contingencies which suggest various price points, value propositions and B2C exchanges.
If I tell him that consumers will never willingly watch advertising, for example, he?ll ask me if I?ll watch a 30-second commercial for one free mp3 download from Sony Connect. If I tell him no way, he?ll offer up two downloads. Eventually I?ll succumb to his considered haggle.
The point is that everyone has a price -- and at that particular price point or value level, consumers will entertain almost anything, won?t they?
Perhaps we have just been too inflexible and narrow-minded about how we perceive and define the very fibers of the constructs that make up the media business.
8. Kevorkian those old metrics.
I?m not sure that Kevorkian has ever been used as a verb, but if it can work for Google, then it sure as hell should be an option for this editor-at-large!
Remember the IRP? Actually you probably won?t remember the IRP -- it was my early attempt at suggesting an evolved form and version of the GRP or even TRP -- a rating point which not only built in one?s target audience, but indeed measured actual versus potential delivery, together with advanced (and meaningful) metrics such as time spent, attentiveness, engagement, et al.
Today, these kinds of telling data points are realities -- for example, DoubleClick?s suite of next generation metrics makes this possible.
I?ve said it before and I?ll say it again: When marketers are able to determine if their TV ads were actually served (meaning a viewer was on the specific channel at the time when the first second of a commercial appeared) and completed (meaning the viewer did not change the channel or fast forward his TiVo during the duration of the 30-second interval), do we really think they won?t completely shift the way they buy, based now on actual versus potential?
9. Pull my finger.
The shift from push to pull is in full effect. I don?t have to tell anyone reading this what role search plays anymore, but what about the bigger picture -- the power of pull? I always recall my delusions of grandeur when I registered advertisingondemand.com in the spring of 1999.
Clearly, Les Moonves did not approach me with a 7-figure proposal to purchase this domain from me (I let the title deed lapse when it came up for its first renewal, along with the other 50 domains in my possession), however, that doesn?t change the reality of a world in which self-selected advertising is no longer a pipe-dream.
I fully predict and envision a landscape -- sooner than we might all expect -- where almost every form of media will have customized and personalized advertising delivered for their "customers of one."
10. Ultimately, the consumer will always have the final vote.
This might sound like a cop-out, or certainly an anticlimactic ending to the list, but it couldn?t be more important and more appropriate.
Consumers are smarter than we ever give them credit for being. Today?s empowered consumer seeks out, and simultaneously destroys, attention invaders -- purveyors of irrelevant advertising. They flat-out reject propositions that are not just mutually beneficial, but also tip the scales in their favors.
As expressed in user inexperience, they will always have the final say on everything from intrusiveness, full-screen advertising, uninitiated sound, pop-ups, behavioral targeting, and the list goes on.
The implications are very simple and straight forward:
Offer them options -- the more the better.
Don?t be afraid to try out new approaches.
Listen.
Manage expectations.
Practice consistency to a fault.
But you knew all of that already, didn?t you?
iMedia Connection
Multi-Channel Goes Both Ways Part 2
Thursday, April 22, 2004
By Rebecca Weeks, Contributor
Pure-play Internet companies sacrifice Internet's accountability for TV's mass (second of two parts).
Part one looked at why pure-play dotcoms are looking to offline media to round out branding campaigns.
Why would pure-plays sacrifice the precise target demos and measurability of Internet advertising?
The most often cited reason is that TV offers volumes that the Web often cannot, and this satisfies a company?s need for brand awareness growth. Another goal is to instill in consumers a sense of trust that, despite the dotcom bust, their business is built to last. Perhaps more relevant two or three years ago, some executives also seek to gain attention from investors and the markets. However, as more and more companies in the same category compete for attention, it becomes harder and harder to achieve these objectives utilizing only offline media. Not only does the decrease in effectiveness result from competitive forces, it also could be the result of implementation issues like timing concerns, or from creative or selfish pressure from agencies or too much emphasis on being memorable instead of measurable.
Brand Equities Extend through Multi-channels
For a completely integrated campaign, Yahoo! is rolling out print, radio and outdoor advertising -- in New York City?s Times Square, San Francisco and Los Angeles -- first nationally, but eventually extending globally. Yahoo! will feature online rich media and banner advertising throughout its own network and unnamed off-network sites. Yahoo! designed the campaign?s micro-site with two intentions: 1.) to promote sampling of Yahoo! properties through interaction with the celebrities and people who appear in the commercials; and 2.) to expose existing Yahoo! users that, for example, only use two or three properties to additional properties.
Nine months of research, development and testing informed the campaign, led by Cammie Dunaway, Yahoo!?s chief marketing officer, who joined the company last July. Dunaway is charged with leveraging Yahoo!?s strong brand equities (its popularity, iconic yodel and friendly community), while making it more relevant to consumer needs.
?The brand has a lot of equity, but you?re constantly re-earning the loyalty of your consumers,? Dunaway says. ?Yahoo! has entered new businesses, consumers are spending more time with us, and the whole market and environment has really changed. We felt it was time to evolve the position that would retain the great fun of Yahoo!, but would add some stature and some substance to the brand, and would more directly address the way Yahoo! helps our users get more value from their lives,? she says.
Yahoo! is not alone
Other Internet pure-play categories showing staying power on the television advertising scene are financial service and travel. Just as they did throughout 2002, online brokerage advertisers are spending more aggressively than other sectors like e-commerce or content. This spring, E*Trade and Ameritrade rolled out competing national cable advertising campaigns along with print and online support.
Online travel competition is heating up as the economy rebounds. Whereas three months ago Hotwire promoted discounted pricing with its ?Eat. Sleep. Drive. Cheap? campaign, Orbitz is now focusing on the ease of shopping for travel.
Orbitz debuted a television campaign on April 12 promoting the ultimate benefit of shopping for travel online: the joy of easily finding what you want. Each of the three spots features the tagline "Orbitz. And Go.? That line came from extensive consumer research on the behavior of online travel shoppers. The tagline will also appear on the homepage, right above the "Orbot," which is the site's main search tool.
"Not only are we using 'Orbitz' as a verb, we're also telling consumers that there will be no need to search any further. Once you find what you need on Orbitz, the next thing to do is go," says Mike Sands, Orbitz's chief marketing officer.
In "Seal," a father planning an Orlando vacation searches for, and then finds, a talented performing seal, which happens to be hiding in a cubicle at his job. In "Vegas," a man dreaming of Vegas tracks down three showgirls outside on his patio. The 30-second and 15-second spot, from Y&R/Chicago, will run exclusively on cable news, entertainment and lifestyle networks, such as CNBC, MSNBC, USA, Comedy Central, VH-1 and Spike. The third ad, aimed at the gay travel market, will air exclusively on Bravo at the end of April.
Although for years, dotcoms relied on a zany or weird persona, the majority of Web firms are starting to embrace a more sophisticated and conservative approach to branding. They understand that building long-term customers is far more valuable than grabbing one-time shoppers, and that brand recognition does not translate into sales overnight. So, in addition to mass-media advertising, they are experimenting with discounts, giveaway promotions and other less-expensive ideas.
While dotcom TV advertising remains a shadow of what it was in its late 1990s heyday, the healthy, cash-flow positive companies can continue to allocate double-digit million dollar budgets to fully integrated campaigns.
The challenge will be to strike a profitable balance of awareness, traffic and transaction.
iMedia Connection
Thursday, April 22, 2004
By Rebecca Weeks, Contributor
Pure-play Internet companies sacrifice Internet's accountability for TV's mass (second of two parts).
Part one looked at why pure-play dotcoms are looking to offline media to round out branding campaigns.
Why would pure-plays sacrifice the precise target demos and measurability of Internet advertising?
The most often cited reason is that TV offers volumes that the Web often cannot, and this satisfies a company?s need for brand awareness growth. Another goal is to instill in consumers a sense of trust that, despite the dotcom bust, their business is built to last. Perhaps more relevant two or three years ago, some executives also seek to gain attention from investors and the markets. However, as more and more companies in the same category compete for attention, it becomes harder and harder to achieve these objectives utilizing only offline media. Not only does the decrease in effectiveness result from competitive forces, it also could be the result of implementation issues like timing concerns, or from creative or selfish pressure from agencies or too much emphasis on being memorable instead of measurable.
Brand Equities Extend through Multi-channels
For a completely integrated campaign, Yahoo! is rolling out print, radio and outdoor advertising -- in New York City?s Times Square, San Francisco and Los Angeles -- first nationally, but eventually extending globally. Yahoo! will feature online rich media and banner advertising throughout its own network and unnamed off-network sites. Yahoo! designed the campaign?s micro-site with two intentions: 1.) to promote sampling of Yahoo! properties through interaction with the celebrities and people who appear in the commercials; and 2.) to expose existing Yahoo! users that, for example, only use two or three properties to additional properties.
Nine months of research, development and testing informed the campaign, led by Cammie Dunaway, Yahoo!?s chief marketing officer, who joined the company last July. Dunaway is charged with leveraging Yahoo!?s strong brand equities (its popularity, iconic yodel and friendly community), while making it more relevant to consumer needs.
?The brand has a lot of equity, but you?re constantly re-earning the loyalty of your consumers,? Dunaway says. ?Yahoo! has entered new businesses, consumers are spending more time with us, and the whole market and environment has really changed. We felt it was time to evolve the position that would retain the great fun of Yahoo!, but would add some stature and some substance to the brand, and would more directly address the way Yahoo! helps our users get more value from their lives,? she says.
Yahoo! is not alone
Other Internet pure-play categories showing staying power on the television advertising scene are financial service and travel. Just as they did throughout 2002, online brokerage advertisers are spending more aggressively than other sectors like e-commerce or content. This spring, E*Trade and Ameritrade rolled out competing national cable advertising campaigns along with print and online support.
Online travel competition is heating up as the economy rebounds. Whereas three months ago Hotwire promoted discounted pricing with its ?Eat. Sleep. Drive. Cheap? campaign, Orbitz is now focusing on the ease of shopping for travel.
Orbitz debuted a television campaign on April 12 promoting the ultimate benefit of shopping for travel online: the joy of easily finding what you want. Each of the three spots features the tagline "Orbitz. And Go.? That line came from extensive consumer research on the behavior of online travel shoppers. The tagline will also appear on the homepage, right above the "Orbot," which is the site's main search tool.
"Not only are we using 'Orbitz' as a verb, we're also telling consumers that there will be no need to search any further. Once you find what you need on Orbitz, the next thing to do is go," says Mike Sands, Orbitz's chief marketing officer.
In "Seal," a father planning an Orlando vacation searches for, and then finds, a talented performing seal, which happens to be hiding in a cubicle at his job. In "Vegas," a man dreaming of Vegas tracks down three showgirls outside on his patio. The 30-second and 15-second spot, from Y&R/Chicago, will run exclusively on cable news, entertainment and lifestyle networks, such as CNBC, MSNBC, USA, Comedy Central, VH-1 and Spike. The third ad, aimed at the gay travel market, will air exclusively on Bravo at the end of April.
Although for years, dotcoms relied on a zany or weird persona, the majority of Web firms are starting to embrace a more sophisticated and conservative approach to branding. They understand that building long-term customers is far more valuable than grabbing one-time shoppers, and that brand recognition does not translate into sales overnight. So, in addition to mass-media advertising, they are experimenting with discounts, giveaway promotions and other less-expensive ideas.
While dotcom TV advertising remains a shadow of what it was in its late 1990s heyday, the healthy, cash-flow positive companies can continue to allocate double-digit million dollar budgets to fully integrated campaigns.
The challenge will be to strike a profitable balance of awareness, traffic and transaction.
iMedia Connection
Behavioral Targeting 101
Wednesday, April 28, 2004
By Russell Shaw, Contributor
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Specialists explain what this functionality is and isn't about (first of two parts).
"It were a journey like the path to heaven, to help you find them," the great English poet John Milton wrote in 1634.
Now, in 2004, a number of behavioral targeting infrastructure and software companies are on a journey to help advertisers find "them" -- potential customers whose Web-surfing patterns and behavior indicate a willingness to be receptive to customized offerings for their products and services.
"You have to think about where all this starts. It is about giving the consumer as much relevant advertising as you can, via addressable mediums," says Dave Hills, president of media solutions for 24/7 Real Media.
"In behavioral targeting, the most important issue is starting with the right data," says Dave Morgan, CEO of Tacoda Systems. "There is a hypothesis of what are the 10 to 15 available data points you can use that can significantly impact the value of an audience member. It is not about data mining, or amassing data, but on focusing a collection of high-value data points."
The key, then, is finding these high-value data points. The overriding and proven assumption here is that what pages Web site visitors click on and where they go from those pages indicates at least a presumptive interest in buying products related to the topics that they click on. For example, repeat visits to a Web page with reviews of sport utility vehicles, coupled with a cruise to the automotive section of classified ads on a site, clearly indicate at least a curiosity about SUVs.
Now, let us suppose that same visitor is also going to pages where she clicks through to an online book seller to a book about how to help your child adjust to kindergarten. Behavioral targeting specialists may look at this data and start to conclude that the site visitor is looking for an SUV to fit the transportation needs of her growing brood.
Often, this information is not just gleaned from one visit, but repeat visits over time. Perhaps on the first few visits to a newspaper site, most clicks are to articles about SUVs. On the second visit, or maybe the third, the articles are revisited, but the customer also clicks on the automotive ads. It does not take a degree in rocket science (or in marketing, for that matter) to recognize the likelihood the customer is on a likely trajectory from "investigate" to "purchase."
"We have learned there's no question that quantifying the quality and acceleration of surfing habits can be a significant indicator of purchasing intent," says Morgan.
A Dallas Mitsubishi car dealer used contextual advertising within the automotive section of DallasNews.com to deliver targeted banners to consumers. The newspaper served the same ads, which appeared in the summer of 2003, when visitors returned to DallasNews.com even if they were outside the automotive area. The dealer used Tacoda's Systems' Audience Management System targeting capabilities to reach visitors whose prior actions suggested a keen interest in the advertiser's message.
Belo Interactive, which oversees DallasNews.com, reported that the response rate among the target audience was 7.7 percent as compared to the national average of 0.33 percent. These ads played a part in doubling the number of credit applications the dealership received, and increased the number of online searches by 17 percent. The DallasNews.com campaign generated 44 percent of the total phone calls into the dealership, at a time when several other automotive promotions were running in other media.
The world of online news is fertile ground for behavioral targeting solution providers. Tacoda, for example, works with USAToday.com, Tribune Interactive, Advance Internet and Weather.com.
It has a lot to do with the nature of dead-tree newspapers and their online counterparts as gatherers of timely information meant to serve readers with a collective trove of interests, concerns and hobbies. Plus, the nature of the news is that it frequently changes, a dynamic process in which new pages of at least presumptive interest get posted all the time.
"A lot of inventory is available for newspaper online publishers," says Brian Handly, CEO of Accipter Solutions, Inc., based in Raleigh, NC. Also the broad scope of categories -- sports, business finance, even the classified section -- and the ways in which the user goes to the local level, shows that they are interested in finding these people."
iMedia Connection
Wednesday, April 28, 2004
By Russell Shaw, Contributor
Page Options
Print Page
Email Page
Subscribe
Specialists explain what this functionality is and isn't about (first of two parts).
"It were a journey like the path to heaven, to help you find them," the great English poet John Milton wrote in 1634.
Now, in 2004, a number of behavioral targeting infrastructure and software companies are on a journey to help advertisers find "them" -- potential customers whose Web-surfing patterns and behavior indicate a willingness to be receptive to customized offerings for their products and services.
"You have to think about where all this starts. It is about giving the consumer as much relevant advertising as you can, via addressable mediums," says Dave Hills, president of media solutions for 24/7 Real Media.
"In behavioral targeting, the most important issue is starting with the right data," says Dave Morgan, CEO of Tacoda Systems. "There is a hypothesis of what are the 10 to 15 available data points you can use that can significantly impact the value of an audience member. It is not about data mining, or amassing data, but on focusing a collection of high-value data points."
The key, then, is finding these high-value data points. The overriding and proven assumption here is that what pages Web site visitors click on and where they go from those pages indicates at least a presumptive interest in buying products related to the topics that they click on. For example, repeat visits to a Web page with reviews of sport utility vehicles, coupled with a cruise to the automotive section of classified ads on a site, clearly indicate at least a curiosity about SUVs.
Now, let us suppose that same visitor is also going to pages where she clicks through to an online book seller to a book about how to help your child adjust to kindergarten. Behavioral targeting specialists may look at this data and start to conclude that the site visitor is looking for an SUV to fit the transportation needs of her growing brood.
Often, this information is not just gleaned from one visit, but repeat visits over time. Perhaps on the first few visits to a newspaper site, most clicks are to articles about SUVs. On the second visit, or maybe the third, the articles are revisited, but the customer also clicks on the automotive ads. It does not take a degree in rocket science (or in marketing, for that matter) to recognize the likelihood the customer is on a likely trajectory from "investigate" to "purchase."
"We have learned there's no question that quantifying the quality and acceleration of surfing habits can be a significant indicator of purchasing intent," says Morgan.
A Dallas Mitsubishi car dealer used contextual advertising within the automotive section of DallasNews.com to deliver targeted banners to consumers. The newspaper served the same ads, which appeared in the summer of 2003, when visitors returned to DallasNews.com even if they were outside the automotive area. The dealer used Tacoda's Systems' Audience Management System targeting capabilities to reach visitors whose prior actions suggested a keen interest in the advertiser's message.
Belo Interactive, which oversees DallasNews.com, reported that the response rate among the target audience was 7.7 percent as compared to the national average of 0.33 percent. These ads played a part in doubling the number of credit applications the dealership received, and increased the number of online searches by 17 percent. The DallasNews.com campaign generated 44 percent of the total phone calls into the dealership, at a time when several other automotive promotions were running in other media.
The world of online news is fertile ground for behavioral targeting solution providers. Tacoda, for example, works with USAToday.com, Tribune Interactive, Advance Internet and Weather.com.
It has a lot to do with the nature of dead-tree newspapers and their online counterparts as gatherers of timely information meant to serve readers with a collective trove of interests, concerns and hobbies. Plus, the nature of the news is that it frequently changes, a dynamic process in which new pages of at least presumptive interest get posted all the time.
"A lot of inventory is available for newspaper online publishers," says Brian Handly, CEO of Accipter Solutions, Inc., based in Raleigh, NC. Also the broad scope of categories -- sports, business finance, even the classified section -- and the ways in which the user goes to the local level, shows that they are interested in finding these people."
iMedia Connection
PR on Steroids
Wednesday, April 28, 2004
By Rob Key, Converseon
Affiliate marketing can be much more than a virtual sales force.
Affiliate marketing programs create and leverage a network of complementary Web sites -- targeting the same demographic -- to generate customer leads or sales on a commission basis. Companies from financial services to retail to healthcare are finding affiliate programs to be a highly effective customer acquisition channel. But is that enough?
Affiliate programs can do more than just act as a virtual sales force. Carefully planned and managed, they can be used to carry an editorial message to educate a target audience, generate visibility for a product or company, inform, persuade, and even help manage a company's reputation.
If this sounds like the province of public relations, it's for a good reason. Affiliate network technologies and participants can complement traditional public relations, because they offer a cost-effective channel to reach thousands or hundreds of thousands of visitors clustered around Web sites users have elected to visit. On the other hand, sites in affiliate networks often need new and compelling content -- and the majority of Weblog (blog) publishers are open to receiving relevant editorial, but not advertising. For both Web sites and blogs, offers presented contextually, with articles, drive higher sales conversion than do typical banner ads.
It stands to reason: A diet product combined with an advisory article on eating tips, authored by a nutritionist, with a text link to an offer is much more compelling than a typical banner with an unconvincing offer to "lose up to 30 pounds in 30 days." A cosmetics product site can grab attention by providing beauty tips from famous experts, as opposed to just banners and buttons. An office product company can provide ongoing advice to small businesses to improve their productivity.
In the online world, an informed consumer is a better customer, which gets back to the basics of marketing communications. Positioning your company as a solution -- and not just a package of products -- can help differentiate you in an otherwise crowded marketplace. It also can help substantially raise your conversion rates.
If PR and affiliate marketing fusion is such a win/win, why is it so rare?
All too often, public relations efforts focus on major media and overlook the opportunity to infuse editorial into an affiliate program with potentially thousands of sites that, in aggregate, can deliver greater reach and a larger audience. For their part, affiliate sites often focus on utilizing standard banners and buttons. Many merchants tend to treat the affiliate program like a stepchild to an online media program, and don?t take advantage of the opportunity to test new, creative approaches that transcend banners and buttons.
The practice of syndicating content to a wide range of community or niche publications is actually a widely accepted one in the offline public relations world. Syndicated services, like NAPS, distribute company-authored advisory or tips articles to thousands of offline community newspapers with great success. Fusing PR with an affiliate program is a powerful yet underleveraged online version of an established offline practice. Unlike top publishers with well-defined creative standards, most affiliate sites provide a wide-ranging opportunity to test and utilize "beyond the banner" creative approaches, like articles.
The opportunity doesn?t stop with editorial, though. Word-of-mouth -- or mouse -- remains a primary way for individuals online to learn about new offers. Many companies maintain a database of satisfied customers generated by an affiliate program. This group is a potentially powerful online sales force. By turning satisfied online customers into evangelists -- and by providing them with a tracking code and basic rules of conduct -- companies can create effiliates: an online legion of satisfied customers spreading the word virally to friends and family, and being compensated for it.
Users who've pre-elected to view specific content are much more valuable than anonymous users. They're potential allies around whom a company can build grassroots support for a corporate initiative, or buzz for a new product. For example, pharmaceutical firms could syndicate editorial vignettes to thousands of motherhood sites and earn long-term loyalty (not just a quick sale) by providing childcare education. Distribution companies could syndicate employment offers to recruit short-term labor for holiday rush periods (we'd wager that this is much more cost-effective than using headhunters). We call this the "editorial sale."
Envisage the editorial sale as a form of content syndication. It shouldn't be hard for corporate communications professionals to think beyond just sales ROI and into the realm of disseminating corporate information. Affiliate programs can be powerful in the persuasion business, because they target Web users who've elected to visit a site out of personal interest -- and sites with a broad reaching, more generous editorial filter. These visitors have made a conscious effort to go to a specific location on the Web. Why not present them with relevant information right at the point of maximum interest? In this regard, presenting editorial is little different than paid product placement on a Web page or an advertorial.
How to make your affiliate program work as a PR tool
Unfortunately, affiliate program agreements tend to be treated like software licenses: no-one reads them. There are too many programs and offers for the average site to wade through. However, some basic tactical controls combined with a strategic perspective can leverage new opportunities:
Check out every potential affiliates' sites, manually approve each, and avoid the temptation to recruit too many.
Create new compelling content every month or quarter. Think like a journalist, not like a corporate communications advertorial writer. Content is appreciated if it avoids propaganda-sounding verbiage. Utilize a well-known third person or industry expert for additional credibility.
Learn which affiliates accept content like article or video, review their sites carefully, and make sensible suggestions to improve them.
If you're an affiliate manager, tap into your company's PR team to see what corporate content is available. If there isn't a PR group, consider the type of content your target audience finds useful and hire a PR agency or third party experts to produce it.
If you're a PR manager, engage your affiliate team to review those active affiliates you might approach from the PR perspective.
Think about potential affiliates, such as blogs, in the broadest possible terms -- and from a PR perspective rather than a paid-media perspective.
Enforce the agreement and eject affiliates -- and efilliates -- who break the rules.
Communicate regularly with affiliates. Ask what content they?d like to add to their site, and what their audiences are looking for.
Repackage your editorial, position papers and other corporate materials into a user-centric format like a vignette or a Webette, and use a chatty local newspaper tone instead of corporate-speak.
Build hybrid offers where the affiliate payout scales along with the depth of interaction with a visitor.
Understand your ROI -- in this case, Return on Information. You may already have metrics for the value of an educated stakeholder. If not, your affiliate marketing partner should be able to help you develop them.
In an era of proliferating affiliate programs, there is a clear need for new, creative approaches. Infusing your affiliate marketing program with some powerful PR techniques is one proven area for opportunity. It?s a clear enough truism that an educated consumer is often your best customer. Follow that wisdom with your affiliate program, and you?ll soon benefit from higher conversion rates and more valuable, loyal customers.
iMedia Connection
Wednesday, April 28, 2004
By Rob Key, Converseon
Affiliate marketing can be much more than a virtual sales force.
Affiliate marketing programs create and leverage a network of complementary Web sites -- targeting the same demographic -- to generate customer leads or sales on a commission basis. Companies from financial services to retail to healthcare are finding affiliate programs to be a highly effective customer acquisition channel. But is that enough?
Affiliate programs can do more than just act as a virtual sales force. Carefully planned and managed, they can be used to carry an editorial message to educate a target audience, generate visibility for a product or company, inform, persuade, and even help manage a company's reputation.
If this sounds like the province of public relations, it's for a good reason. Affiliate network technologies and participants can complement traditional public relations, because they offer a cost-effective channel to reach thousands or hundreds of thousands of visitors clustered around Web sites users have elected to visit. On the other hand, sites in affiliate networks often need new and compelling content -- and the majority of Weblog (blog) publishers are open to receiving relevant editorial, but not advertising. For both Web sites and blogs, offers presented contextually, with articles, drive higher sales conversion than do typical banner ads.
It stands to reason: A diet product combined with an advisory article on eating tips, authored by a nutritionist, with a text link to an offer is much more compelling than a typical banner with an unconvincing offer to "lose up to 30 pounds in 30 days." A cosmetics product site can grab attention by providing beauty tips from famous experts, as opposed to just banners and buttons. An office product company can provide ongoing advice to small businesses to improve their productivity.
In the online world, an informed consumer is a better customer, which gets back to the basics of marketing communications. Positioning your company as a solution -- and not just a package of products -- can help differentiate you in an otherwise crowded marketplace. It also can help substantially raise your conversion rates.
If PR and affiliate marketing fusion is such a win/win, why is it so rare?
All too often, public relations efforts focus on major media and overlook the opportunity to infuse editorial into an affiliate program with potentially thousands of sites that, in aggregate, can deliver greater reach and a larger audience. For their part, affiliate sites often focus on utilizing standard banners and buttons. Many merchants tend to treat the affiliate program like a stepchild to an online media program, and don?t take advantage of the opportunity to test new, creative approaches that transcend banners and buttons.
The practice of syndicating content to a wide range of community or niche publications is actually a widely accepted one in the offline public relations world. Syndicated services, like NAPS, distribute company-authored advisory or tips articles to thousands of offline community newspapers with great success. Fusing PR with an affiliate program is a powerful yet underleveraged online version of an established offline practice. Unlike top publishers with well-defined creative standards, most affiliate sites provide a wide-ranging opportunity to test and utilize "beyond the banner" creative approaches, like articles.
The opportunity doesn?t stop with editorial, though. Word-of-mouth -- or mouse -- remains a primary way for individuals online to learn about new offers. Many companies maintain a database of satisfied customers generated by an affiliate program. This group is a potentially powerful online sales force. By turning satisfied online customers into evangelists -- and by providing them with a tracking code and basic rules of conduct -- companies can create effiliates: an online legion of satisfied customers spreading the word virally to friends and family, and being compensated for it.
Users who've pre-elected to view specific content are much more valuable than anonymous users. They're potential allies around whom a company can build grassroots support for a corporate initiative, or buzz for a new product. For example, pharmaceutical firms could syndicate editorial vignettes to thousands of motherhood sites and earn long-term loyalty (not just a quick sale) by providing childcare education. Distribution companies could syndicate employment offers to recruit short-term labor for holiday rush periods (we'd wager that this is much more cost-effective than using headhunters). We call this the "editorial sale."
Envisage the editorial sale as a form of content syndication. It shouldn't be hard for corporate communications professionals to think beyond just sales ROI and into the realm of disseminating corporate information. Affiliate programs can be powerful in the persuasion business, because they target Web users who've elected to visit a site out of personal interest -- and sites with a broad reaching, more generous editorial filter. These visitors have made a conscious effort to go to a specific location on the Web. Why not present them with relevant information right at the point of maximum interest? In this regard, presenting editorial is little different than paid product placement on a Web page or an advertorial.
How to make your affiliate program work as a PR tool
Unfortunately, affiliate program agreements tend to be treated like software licenses: no-one reads them. There are too many programs and offers for the average site to wade through. However, some basic tactical controls combined with a strategic perspective can leverage new opportunities:
Check out every potential affiliates' sites, manually approve each, and avoid the temptation to recruit too many.
Create new compelling content every month or quarter. Think like a journalist, not like a corporate communications advertorial writer. Content is appreciated if it avoids propaganda-sounding verbiage. Utilize a well-known third person or industry expert for additional credibility.
Learn which affiliates accept content like article or video, review their sites carefully, and make sensible suggestions to improve them.
If you're an affiliate manager, tap into your company's PR team to see what corporate content is available. If there isn't a PR group, consider the type of content your target audience finds useful and hire a PR agency or third party experts to produce it.
If you're a PR manager, engage your affiliate team to review those active affiliates you might approach from the PR perspective.
Think about potential affiliates, such as blogs, in the broadest possible terms -- and from a PR perspective rather than a paid-media perspective.
Enforce the agreement and eject affiliates -- and efilliates -- who break the rules.
Communicate regularly with affiliates. Ask what content they?d like to add to their site, and what their audiences are looking for.
Repackage your editorial, position papers and other corporate materials into a user-centric format like a vignette or a Webette, and use a chatty local newspaper tone instead of corporate-speak.
Build hybrid offers where the affiliate payout scales along with the depth of interaction with a visitor.
Understand your ROI -- in this case, Return on Information. You may already have metrics for the value of an educated stakeholder. If not, your affiliate marketing partner should be able to help you develop them.
In an era of proliferating affiliate programs, there is a clear need for new, creative approaches. Infusing your affiliate marketing program with some powerful PR techniques is one proven area for opportunity. It?s a clear enough truism that an educated consumer is often your best customer. Follow that wisdom with your affiliate program, and you?ll soon benefit from higher conversion rates and more valuable, loyal customers.
iMedia Connection
Jaffe Juice: 10 Thoughts on Creativity
Thursday, June 24, 2004
By Joseph Jaffe, Editor at Large
Where the industry needs to go creatively (final of three parts).
Last week I continued the series on online creativity by tackling the following points:
A different kind of emotion
Show me my &%$#@ ads!
A new definition of creativity
This week I'll bring this baby home with four remaining thoughts.
7. Broadb®and -- TV's Savior
TV was never the creative app. Video was -- and by that I mean, the flawless delivery of sight + sound + motion.
The ability to emote, tell a story, enrapture and engage has never really been a function of size of screen (if it were than ye ol' Cineplex would be the uber creative sandbox as opposed to the "Thank you for coming to Loews" drivel), but rather the product of being able to deliver the kind of message that titillates and tantalizes the senses -- without limitations, constraints or bandwidth restrictions.
Broadband changes everything.
We've all heard that phrase ad nauseum, but not until one experiences video on the Web firsthand (like I'm sure we all have), does the promise hit home as resoundingly and convincingly.
To emphasize this point even more, one only needs to go back to dial-up as an experiment in morbid masochism, just to remind us that the injection of bandwidth is more closely aligned with revolutionary than evolutionary progress. Comparing this to the tube's black-and-white to color migration doesn't do it justice. This is more like the appearance of a new dimension.
8. Can you hear me now? Bad!
I wrote an entire piece on the subject in a previous Jaffe Juice, so I won't expand on this too much here.
Whereas I made a rather absolute statement advocating a zero tolerance policy for messaging with components of uninitiated audio (in other words, where sound plays automatically), I did also caveat that statement with an admission that there are circumstances when this can and does work.
My concern remains that I'm not convinced there are enough people (with the exception of those reading this today) who are able to discern between what is acceptable and what is clearly not when it comes to making a judgment call on audio.
With the advent of the earlier point (Broadb®and), it would be borderline negligent to deny the presence and potential of sound to enrich the quality of advertising messaging, however we do need to be especially judicious in terms of both managing consumer expectations and simultaneously helping educate and evolve them in the process.
9. Customization of ideas, standardization of execution
The phrase above is my elevator pitch to sum up the ongoing soap opera debate and discussion about standards, standardization or guidelines.
In an industry that has just entered its teens, it would be both foolish and short sighted to attempt to reduce the number of creative possibilities (synonyms: formats or units) to an oversimplified handful. For starters, we'd be assigning a contrived ceiling to the extent to which we would be able to continue to innovate. We'd also be attempting to benchmark ourselves relative to traditional media -- be it 30 or 15 seconds; full-page, half-page or quarter-page.
And that's a bad thing. Why?
I recall my own words on a panel some two-and-a-half years ago advocating full-page, half-page and quarter-page -- all three have since been realized, but not without a good degree of kicking and screaming.
The apparent contradiction is easily resolved. For starters, the one extreme of five to 10 leading formats/units has got to be better than the other radical of thousands upon thousands of cockroach-like buttons, et al. The important distinction is that this should be a means to an end and not an end unto itself (I feel like I'm saying this a lot these days). A house built on a foundation of cement is going to be a lot sturdier than one built on a swamp, no? How that house is then designed or modeled and subsequently built is completely up for grabs.
To the extent that we can liberate ourselves from the cesspool of execution hell, versioning "click here" 1,000 ways from Sunday, will ultimately help us spend more time on coming up with (and being able to implement) that elusive "big idea."
And just when you thought it was safe to go back into the water, this certainly doesn't eliminate custom solutions or approaches at all. In fact, the "customization of ideas, customization of execution" exception (not the norm) works exceptionally well on a one-on-one (meaning one advertiser and one publisher) basis. It's no different from what Home Depot has done with Trading Spaces for example. It's just not a scaleable, "mass" media option.
10. Be warned: you are all being bypassed!
This is perhaps the most appropriate way to end the three-part series on online creativity -- with a warning, which quite frankly is a boon for creatives, but a burden for their media counterparts.
"If you build it, they will come," is a familiar statement from the dotcom days of old, which was subsequently proven to be woefully inept. Enough Fortune 500 companies poured enough money into either building their dotcom sites or a saccharine lifestyle aggregator to help them sell panty liners and toilet paper.
And yet today, if you open up the Wall Street Journal or read through the pages of Ad Age, you'll no doubt get excited about Seinfeld and Superman, Subservient Chicken, SeeWhatHappens, Tiger Trap or the quintessential poster child, BMW Films, only to scratch your head with the realization that none of these examples deployed a particularly large paid or distributed media component to their online shenanigans.
The one-two punch of traditional media and word-of-mouth seem to work pretty well in terms of driving consumers to the respective minisites-du-jour.
I'm not saying I have the answer. Oh wait, yes I am -- see points one through nine for a head start down what I believe to be a path worth pursuing. And if you still have any questions, contact me. We'll do lunch.
iMedia Connection
Thursday, June 24, 2004
By Joseph Jaffe, Editor at Large
Where the industry needs to go creatively (final of three parts).
Last week I continued the series on online creativity by tackling the following points:
A different kind of emotion
Show me my &%$#@ ads!
A new definition of creativity
This week I'll bring this baby home with four remaining thoughts.
7. Broadb®and -- TV's Savior
TV was never the creative app. Video was -- and by that I mean, the flawless delivery of sight + sound + motion.
The ability to emote, tell a story, enrapture and engage has never really been a function of size of screen (if it were than ye ol' Cineplex would be the uber creative sandbox as opposed to the "Thank you for coming to Loews" drivel), but rather the product of being able to deliver the kind of message that titillates and tantalizes the senses -- without limitations, constraints or bandwidth restrictions.
Broadband changes everything.
We've all heard that phrase ad nauseum, but not until one experiences video on the Web firsthand (like I'm sure we all have), does the promise hit home as resoundingly and convincingly.
To emphasize this point even more, one only needs to go back to dial-up as an experiment in morbid masochism, just to remind us that the injection of bandwidth is more closely aligned with revolutionary than evolutionary progress. Comparing this to the tube's black-and-white to color migration doesn't do it justice. This is more like the appearance of a new dimension.
8. Can you hear me now? Bad!
I wrote an entire piece on the subject in a previous Jaffe Juice, so I won't expand on this too much here.
Whereas I made a rather absolute statement advocating a zero tolerance policy for messaging with components of uninitiated audio (in other words, where sound plays automatically), I did also caveat that statement with an admission that there are circumstances when this can and does work.
My concern remains that I'm not convinced there are enough people (with the exception of those reading this today) who are able to discern between what is acceptable and what is clearly not when it comes to making a judgment call on audio.
With the advent of the earlier point (Broadb®and), it would be borderline negligent to deny the presence and potential of sound to enrich the quality of advertising messaging, however we do need to be especially judicious in terms of both managing consumer expectations and simultaneously helping educate and evolve them in the process.
9. Customization of ideas, standardization of execution
The phrase above is my elevator pitch to sum up the ongoing soap opera debate and discussion about standards, standardization or guidelines.
In an industry that has just entered its teens, it would be both foolish and short sighted to attempt to reduce the number of creative possibilities (synonyms: formats or units) to an oversimplified handful. For starters, we'd be assigning a contrived ceiling to the extent to which we would be able to continue to innovate. We'd also be attempting to benchmark ourselves relative to traditional media -- be it 30 or 15 seconds; full-page, half-page or quarter-page.
And that's a bad thing. Why?
I recall my own words on a panel some two-and-a-half years ago advocating full-page, half-page and quarter-page -- all three have since been realized, but not without a good degree of kicking and screaming.
The apparent contradiction is easily resolved. For starters, the one extreme of five to 10 leading formats/units has got to be better than the other radical of thousands upon thousands of cockroach-like buttons, et al. The important distinction is that this should be a means to an end and not an end unto itself (I feel like I'm saying this a lot these days). A house built on a foundation of cement is going to be a lot sturdier than one built on a swamp, no? How that house is then designed or modeled and subsequently built is completely up for grabs.
To the extent that we can liberate ourselves from the cesspool of execution hell, versioning "click here" 1,000 ways from Sunday, will ultimately help us spend more time on coming up with (and being able to implement) that elusive "big idea."
And just when you thought it was safe to go back into the water, this certainly doesn't eliminate custom solutions or approaches at all. In fact, the "customization of ideas, customization of execution" exception (not the norm) works exceptionally well on a one-on-one (meaning one advertiser and one publisher) basis. It's no different from what Home Depot has done with Trading Spaces for example. It's just not a scaleable, "mass" media option.
10. Be warned: you are all being bypassed!
This is perhaps the most appropriate way to end the three-part series on online creativity -- with a warning, which quite frankly is a boon for creatives, but a burden for their media counterparts.
"If you build it, they will come," is a familiar statement from the dotcom days of old, which was subsequently proven to be woefully inept. Enough Fortune 500 companies poured enough money into either building their dotcom sites or a saccharine lifestyle aggregator to help them sell panty liners and toilet paper.
And yet today, if you open up the Wall Street Journal or read through the pages of Ad Age, you'll no doubt get excited about Seinfeld and Superman, Subservient Chicken, SeeWhatHappens, Tiger Trap or the quintessential poster child, BMW Films, only to scratch your head with the realization that none of these examples deployed a particularly large paid or distributed media component to their online shenanigans.
The one-two punch of traditional media and word-of-mouth seem to work pretty well in terms of driving consumers to the respective minisites-du-jour.
I'm not saying I have the answer. Oh wait, yes I am -- see points one through nine for a head start down what I believe to be a path worth pursuing. And if you still have any questions, contact me. We'll do lunch.
iMedia Connection
28, 2004
E-COMMERCE REPORT
Web Marketers Get Personal
By BOB TEDESCHI
N the 2002 movie "Minority Report," the character played by Tom Cruise, John Anderton, darted through a city in which electronic billboard advertisements spoke to him by name.
The next wave of Internet advertising could make John Andertons of us all.
Starting next week, a handful of marketers in the United States will begin sending customized ads to Internet users who land on About.com, Lycos and nytimes.com, among other Web sites. So, instead of seeing a random advertisement for the Audio Book Club or the e-travel agencies Orbitz and Priceline, you might see ads addressing you by name, mentioning some of your past purchases at the site and urging you to return.
(The idea sounds spookier than it is. Only those who have agreed to receive electronic messages from companies they have done business with will see the ads.)
Analysts and industry executives say this new approach offers online sellers a new and inexpensive way to retain customers they have spent heavily to acquire. In recent years, marketers have mainly used e-mail messages to persuade users to return, but spam filters now block many legitimate commercial e-mail messages and spam-weary consumers are less inclined to open commercial messages that make it to their in-boxes.
The company behind the new ads, Dotomi, is the brainchild of Yair Goldfinger, who created the technology that eventually became AOL's instant messaging service. According to John Federman, Dotomi's chief executive and the former publisher of PCWeek, Mr. Goldfinger developed Dotomi's "direct messaging" system as a kind of commercial analog to instant messaging.
"This lets you create, in effect, a marketer buddy list," Mr. Federman said, borrowing a phrase known to instant messaging system users as the list of people who have permission to contact them. "You're enabling a group of marketers with whom you have a stated affinity to send you electronic communications."
The publishers' technology systems will be set up to recognize when a user arrives, and will then retrieve an ad that has been built especially for that user. Just as Web sites like Amazon and others place cookies, or tiny text files containing identification numbers, onto their customers' computers so they can recognize them when they return, so, too, will Dotomi's publishing clients use cookies to spot customers of Dotomi's advertisers.
Mr. Federman said Dotomi tested the service last year in Israel, where the company's technology team is based. Customers were initially seduced by the novelty of being summoned by name to click on an ad, and they did so at a rate of 34 percent. (The average click rate for a so-called banner ad in the United States is less than a half of a percent.) Once the novelty wore thin, the click rates settled at 7 to 12 percent - still a rate many advertisers would pay dearly for.
Dotomi's 70 Israeli clients, who include Burger King, American Express and Holiday Inn, use the ads in several ways. El Al, the Israeli airline, sends out birthday messages to its customers. Other companies remind users to catch the sunset at a specific time, since they know where their customers live. Some companies send special offers.
Mr. Federman said four marketers have signed up for the service in the two months since Dotomi began offering it in the United States: Orbitz, Audio Book Club and two other advertisers whose names will not be disclosed until ads begin running. Another five, Mr. Federman said, are about to sign agreements. After a test period, Dotomi will charge $20 for every 1,000 displayed.
By comparison, some Web sites can charge $40 to $100 for 1,000 displays on popular pages - those that attract car buyers, for instance, said Charlene Li, an advertising analyst with Forrester Research. But for ads that run without regard to a highly targeted audience, publishers typically charge about $2 per 1,000.
In turn, Dotomi will pay publishers an undisclosed premium above what it would cost to place ads, in exchange for the publishers overseeing a slightly more complicated advertisement delivery method. Mr. Federman said that 70 percent of Internet users in the United States visit at least one of the publishers Dotomi has signed up to run the ads.
According to executives at MediaBay, which markets audio books and vintage radio broadcasts through its catalog and online businesses, Audio Book Club and Radio Spirits, the Dotomi ads are a cheap alternative to the company's paper-based ads. "Based on Dotomi's average click rates and our traditional rates, we believe we can lower our cost per order up to 50 percent," said Magnus Gustafsson, MediaBay's senior vice president for marketing.
The ads, which MediaBay will start running next month, will incorporate the names and past purchases of the roughly 130,000 people who have given the company its e-mail address. For instance, if a customer purchased all of John Grisham's older novels through Audio Book Club, the company will send them an ad promoting the new Grisham releases on whatever Dotomi-affiliated Web site they happen to be visiting.
Initially, not every advertisement will contain an offer created exclusively for them. Rather, MediaBay will create a handful of offers for broader customer segments - say all the people who bought Walter Isaacson's Benjamin Franklin biography - then simply affix a name to each offer and keep it ready for when a customer lands in Dotomi's Web.
MediaBay will obtain permission, via e-mail message, to send the ads. It will also promote the ads in its catalog mailings and during the checkout process on its Web sites.
Publishers, meanwhile, will welcome the chance to run Dotomi's ads, said Craig Swerdloff, the vice president for national direct marketing sales at MaxOnline, which places ads on a network of more than 1,500 Web sites like Billboard.com, CheapTickets.com, EdgarOnline and DilbertZone.com.
Because Dotomi is paying publishers more than what typical advertisers would pay, "most publishers will say 'Sure, let's see how our visitors take to this,' " Mr. Swerdloff said. "If customers start complaining, sites can always turn it down."
Even privacy-sensitive consumers will have little cause to worry, though, said Fran Maier, president of TrustE, a nonprofit privacy certification program for Web sites.
"Our concern was that people would see these ads and think, 'Oh my God, my information is being taken and used,' " she said. "But this is completely opt-in, so customers should know what they're getting.
Mr. Federman, of Dotomi, also said the company lacks the willingness or technological ability to track a consumer's behavior across different Web sites to, say, display an auto ad when it determines a customer has been surfing car-buying sites.
Analysts suggest that if Dotomi can prepare consumers well enough to minimize the spook factor of personalized ads, it could create a lucrative market. But Denise Garcia, an online advertising analyst with Gartner, a technology consulting firm, noted that marketers have to persuade a significant number of consumers to agree to the ads before it's worth their while to embark on such campaigns.
"And until a lot of marketers are doing this," Ms. Garcia said, "it won't be a huge money maker."
Sarah Fay, president of Carat Interactive, a Boston-based advertising firm, predicted that advertisers would work hard to make customers comfortable with such ads.
"Loyalty marketing is becoming one of the top ways to increase sales," Ms. Fay said. "You see it with catalogers, and how sophisticated they are about mining their e-mail databases. This gives you a new way to touch people who really have a relationship with your company."
New York Times
E-COMMERCE REPORT
Web Marketers Get Personal
By BOB TEDESCHI
N the 2002 movie "Minority Report," the character played by Tom Cruise, John Anderton, darted through a city in which electronic billboard advertisements spoke to him by name.
The next wave of Internet advertising could make John Andertons of us all.
Starting next week, a handful of marketers in the United States will begin sending customized ads to Internet users who land on About.com, Lycos and nytimes.com, among other Web sites. So, instead of seeing a random advertisement for the Audio Book Club or the e-travel agencies Orbitz and Priceline, you might see ads addressing you by name, mentioning some of your past purchases at the site and urging you to return.
(The idea sounds spookier than it is. Only those who have agreed to receive electronic messages from companies they have done business with will see the ads.)
Analysts and industry executives say this new approach offers online sellers a new and inexpensive way to retain customers they have spent heavily to acquire. In recent years, marketers have mainly used e-mail messages to persuade users to return, but spam filters now block many legitimate commercial e-mail messages and spam-weary consumers are less inclined to open commercial messages that make it to their in-boxes.
The company behind the new ads, Dotomi, is the brainchild of Yair Goldfinger, who created the technology that eventually became AOL's instant messaging service. According to John Federman, Dotomi's chief executive and the former publisher of PCWeek, Mr. Goldfinger developed Dotomi's "direct messaging" system as a kind of commercial analog to instant messaging.
"This lets you create, in effect, a marketer buddy list," Mr. Federman said, borrowing a phrase known to instant messaging system users as the list of people who have permission to contact them. "You're enabling a group of marketers with whom you have a stated affinity to send you electronic communications."
The publishers' technology systems will be set up to recognize when a user arrives, and will then retrieve an ad that has been built especially for that user. Just as Web sites like Amazon and others place cookies, or tiny text files containing identification numbers, onto their customers' computers so they can recognize them when they return, so, too, will Dotomi's publishing clients use cookies to spot customers of Dotomi's advertisers.
Mr. Federman said Dotomi tested the service last year in Israel, where the company's technology team is based. Customers were initially seduced by the novelty of being summoned by name to click on an ad, and they did so at a rate of 34 percent. (The average click rate for a so-called banner ad in the United States is less than a half of a percent.) Once the novelty wore thin, the click rates settled at 7 to 12 percent - still a rate many advertisers would pay dearly for.
Dotomi's 70 Israeli clients, who include Burger King, American Express and Holiday Inn, use the ads in several ways. El Al, the Israeli airline, sends out birthday messages to its customers. Other companies remind users to catch the sunset at a specific time, since they know where their customers live. Some companies send special offers.
Mr. Federman said four marketers have signed up for the service in the two months since Dotomi began offering it in the United States: Orbitz, Audio Book Club and two other advertisers whose names will not be disclosed until ads begin running. Another five, Mr. Federman said, are about to sign agreements. After a test period, Dotomi will charge $20 for every 1,000 displayed.
By comparison, some Web sites can charge $40 to $100 for 1,000 displays on popular pages - those that attract car buyers, for instance, said Charlene Li, an advertising analyst with Forrester Research. But for ads that run without regard to a highly targeted audience, publishers typically charge about $2 per 1,000.
In turn, Dotomi will pay publishers an undisclosed premium above what it would cost to place ads, in exchange for the publishers overseeing a slightly more complicated advertisement delivery method. Mr. Federman said that 70 percent of Internet users in the United States visit at least one of the publishers Dotomi has signed up to run the ads.
According to executives at MediaBay, which markets audio books and vintage radio broadcasts through its catalog and online businesses, Audio Book Club and Radio Spirits, the Dotomi ads are a cheap alternative to the company's paper-based ads. "Based on Dotomi's average click rates and our traditional rates, we believe we can lower our cost per order up to 50 percent," said Magnus Gustafsson, MediaBay's senior vice president for marketing.
The ads, which MediaBay will start running next month, will incorporate the names and past purchases of the roughly 130,000 people who have given the company its e-mail address. For instance, if a customer purchased all of John Grisham's older novels through Audio Book Club, the company will send them an ad promoting the new Grisham releases on whatever Dotomi-affiliated Web site they happen to be visiting.
Initially, not every advertisement will contain an offer created exclusively for them. Rather, MediaBay will create a handful of offers for broader customer segments - say all the people who bought Walter Isaacson's Benjamin Franklin biography - then simply affix a name to each offer and keep it ready for when a customer lands in Dotomi's Web.
MediaBay will obtain permission, via e-mail message, to send the ads. It will also promote the ads in its catalog mailings and during the checkout process on its Web sites.
Publishers, meanwhile, will welcome the chance to run Dotomi's ads, said Craig Swerdloff, the vice president for national direct marketing sales at MaxOnline, which places ads on a network of more than 1,500 Web sites like Billboard.com, CheapTickets.com, EdgarOnline and DilbertZone.com.
Because Dotomi is paying publishers more than what typical advertisers would pay, "most publishers will say 'Sure, let's see how our visitors take to this,' " Mr. Swerdloff said. "If customers start complaining, sites can always turn it down."
Even privacy-sensitive consumers will have little cause to worry, though, said Fran Maier, president of TrustE, a nonprofit privacy certification program for Web sites.
"Our concern was that people would see these ads and think, 'Oh my God, my information is being taken and used,' " she said. "But this is completely opt-in, so customers should know what they're getting.
Mr. Federman, of Dotomi, also said the company lacks the willingness or technological ability to track a consumer's behavior across different Web sites to, say, display an auto ad when it determines a customer has been surfing car-buying sites.
Analysts suggest that if Dotomi can prepare consumers well enough to minimize the spook factor of personalized ads, it could create a lucrative market. But Denise Garcia, an online advertising analyst with Gartner, a technology consulting firm, noted that marketers have to persuade a significant number of consumers to agree to the ads before it's worth their while to embark on such campaigns.
"And until a lot of marketers are doing this," Ms. Garcia said, "it won't be a huge money maker."
Sarah Fay, president of Carat Interactive, a Boston-based advertising firm, predicted that advertisers would work hard to make customers comfortable with such ads.
"Loyalty marketing is becoming one of the top ways to increase sales," Ms. Fay said. "You see it with catalogers, and how sophisticated they are about mining their e-mail databases. This gives you a new way to touch people who really have a relationship with your company."
New York Times
