RadioCaffeine

Do Ads Work?

2009-01-03T07:12:00.001-05:00

A great post to kick-off the new year for anyone buying (or selling!) advertising. Forward this post to your favorite media salesperson or buyer.

Do Ads Work?
by Seth Godin

If the local bank were offering a sale on dollar bills, ninety cents each, how many would you buy?Most rational people would say, "I'll take them all please." Especially if you had thirty days to pay for them.

So, why, precisely, do you have an ad budget?If your ads work, if you can measure them and they return more profit than they cost, why not keep buying them until they stop working?
And if they don't work, why are you running them?

The time-tested response is that you're not sure, that ads are risky, that you can't tell. And for some sorts of products and some sorts of ads, you'll get no argument from me.

Digital ads are different (or they should be). You should know cost per click and revenue per click and be able to make a smart guess about lifetime value of a click. And if that's positive, buy, buy, buy.

And if you don't know those things, why are you buying digital ads?

When Amazon was at its key growth peak, the mantra there was $33. They would buy unlimited ads, of any kind, as long as they generated new customers for $33 or less each. There was a risk that $33 was too high a number for the business to sustain, but the ads were no risk at all. As long as they came in under that number, there was unlimited money to buy them.How often do year the marketing person say, "that's a neat idea, but we don't have the budget this year"?

Shouldn't she say, "We have an unlimited budget for ads that work"...

Traditional Media Drives Interactive Usage

2008-12-19T12:18:00.000-05:00

Survey Uncovers Drivers of Digital Influence and Reveals How Information is Shared Online

A new research study gleaned from a field of nearly 1,000 digital influencers demonstrates traditional and online media are both important sources when it comes to sharing news. The study by IM MS&L finds that traditional media play a vital role in igniting the process that leads influencers to share information online and via word of mouth.

Eight in ten influencers often go online to find out more after:

Reading something in a magazine or newspaper (84%)
Hearing something on TV or the Radio (84%)

"This research supports the need for influencer marketing campaigns to leverage both traditional and online tools to connect with consumers."
~ Renee Wilson
Deputy MD of MS&L New York
Director of the agency's IM MS&L practice.

Source: MSL News Release, 11/16/08.
Full release: http://www.mslworldwide.com/in-the-news/press-releases/traditional-media-sparks-word-of-mouth

Godin Delivers The Goods

2008-11-23T20:56:00.000-05:00

Video recording of a live seminar with Seth Godin.
Well worth the investment of an hour to view.
Pass this opportunity over at your own risk.

Video Landing Page Piracy

2008-07-24T11:13:00.002-05:00

Interesting take on providing engaging content on an advertising landing page: http://www.vidsense.com/touchofgray/index.html#evtv1-2121

"Touch Of Gray" took video accessible from a video sharing site of a scene from "A Few Good Men" and embedded the video player on a promotional page. Since the video was actually provided via a social site using their embedded video player, I think this effective skirts the issue of licensing rights -- the infringer is actually the site that provides the video -- not the owner of the landing page.

We use similar reasoning when posting music videos from YouTube on the Mix site and sports videos on The Fan -- this example took it a step further by using a single advertiser. This could be a concept to exploit for advertisers of our own.

A Veterinarian landing page that displays a funny animal video...
A Sports Bar that displays a funny beer commercials...
A Travel Agency that uses a clip from the movie National Lampoon's Vacation...
An Employment Agency that uses video from Office Space...
An Insurance Agency that uses videos of catastrophes...

Lots of possibilities.

Why you need to change the way you advertise

2007-10-03T01:01:00.000-05:00

An Adweek survey released this week serves as a wake-up call from the audience on the other end of your advertising.

The worst of it...

84% agree (strongly/somewhat) "Too many things are over-hyped now."
72% agree "I get tired of people trying to grab my attention and sell me stuff."
52% agree "There's too much advertising -- I would support stricter limits."
47% regard "Advertising as background noise."
61% do not see advertising as persuasive.
Advertisers lost to Lawyers in the amount of respect felt their industry (14% vs. 19%)
Advertisers are still ahead in the respect department (for the moment!) when compared to Politicians (10%) and Car Salesmen (5%).

The best of it...

82% indicate they had a positive engagement with media overall
41% consume "interactive" media
2/3 claimed that "advertising is an important part of the American culture."

Want more of the story?

New Media Budgets

2007-03-22T07:41:00.001-05:00

87.4% of Executives to Invest in New Media Marketing
Confidence in new media is on the rise, according to the American Advertising Federation's AAF Media Investment Survey 2007. Results show a growing inclination among executives to augment traditional media with new media properties and experimentation, and responses indicate that traditional media categories are in serious need of innovation if they are to remain competitive.

A full 87.4% of respondents believe that the pace and scope of innovation in the media landscape inspire creativity, and they are willing to invest their budgets to harness that creativity.

Other findings:

73% of respondents reserve 1%-20% of their budget for experimentation and new media properties.
12.37% of respondents reserve 21%-40% of their budget for experimentation and new media properties.
Concerning media planning in 2007, respondents ranked "I am always open to new ways to use traditional media" at 78%, "the right media mix almost always includes a balance of traditional and nontraditional media" at 75.5%, and "the search for new media properties to grow my brand never stops" at 57.7%.

On Similar Topic...
Email is a key point of influence for consumer purchase decisions, according to the Microsoft Digital Advertising Solutions research released in January by Word Of Mouth Marketing Association member company Microsoft. The findings suggest that many of consumers' major decisions are influenced by email conversations with friends and family and point to the medium as a place where marketers can insert messages that might impact consumers during the decision-making process.

Other findings:

45% of frequent online users say email is their primary form of communication.
66% of male and 81% of female respondents discuss social arrangements (what films, concerts, or events to see or where to eat) via email.
41% of men discuss financial services purchases via email.
77% of women discuss travel plans via email.

Combining the stats regarding company intention to invest in new media with the information regarding how people use email ought to provide some compelling reasons for contacting prospects specifically targeted to sponsor email newsletters.

Secrets of Marketing to Men

2006-08-26T06:22:00.000-05:00

Great article in this past week's BWOnline on the topic of targeted males in your marketing. Advertising to men falls into more than the two cliched columns of the Metrosexual (fashion and 'product' obsessed) and the Retrosexual (sports and beer obsessed) -- they only account for about %5 of the male population on either side of the spectrum.

Here's how you reach the rest.

Branding beyond slapping your logo on something

2006-07-01T04:16:00.000-05:00

Excellent article from Adweek.com's Saneel Radia has been posted to Yahoo News. It focuses on the need to look at marketing within video games (as well as other media) from level of interactivity with the consumer, rather than slapping your logo on any ol' space in the game and waiting for users to knock you down and shove money in your pocket.

How might this apply to radio? Here's Saneel's take on it: "...when brands think about music's role in their marketing, do they find ways to integrate their brand name into lyrics? The answer is a resounding "no" for a number of reasons. First, they aren't dazzled by music's interactivity. Second, the music industry is motivated in ways that movie studios and game publishers are not (yet). The state of their business requires finding innovative ways to partner with brands, but there's no reason we need to wait until gaming publishers are in dire need of our dollars--because that's not going to be the case for a very long time."

Three suggestions to consider:
1. Approach game publishers as partners
2. Determine how the brand might add value to the consumers' experience
3. Include all aspects of gaming in the equation: from retail experience to social interactivity to extension of game content

In my opinion, the most important question Radia raises in considering how to include your brand within gaming content (or ANY media content) is this: How do your consumers choose to fit gaming into their communication platform? Answer that question and you're impact will go beyond just slapping your logo up on another billboard -- whether in the real world or a virtual one.

Read the entire article here.

Technorati Profile

iNielsen

2006-06-16T08:28:00.000-05:00

PROMO reports: "In an effort to better track how consumers are watching TV programs, Nielsen Media Research will soon be able to measure viewership beyond TV screens, including iPods, cell phones and Internet programming ... To kickoff the tracking for the smaller screens, Nielsen plans to create a 400-person panel of iPod users by yearend to measure viewing on such portable devices."

Will users be seeing YOUR ads?
Is your content (and if you're not viewing your advertising as CONTENT by now, just go ahead set a match to your money) compelling enough that someone would pay a buck to download it?

Have you made it easy for consumers to share your content?
Is it impossible for viewers NOT to tell their friends about it?
Can they easily cut and paste a cool graphic or (better yet) a video or audio player into their MySpace page or blog?

Need more ideas on adding some caffeine to your content?
Drop me a line.

Snapple Begins "Brandcasting"

2006-05-30T06:25:00.000-05:00

Snapple Buys Up Radio, Carpets Northeast with Promotions
Snapple wants consumers' attention as summer kicks off, and will likely get it by offering radio listeners 40 consecutive days of commercial free radio, as well as carpeting several New England states with promotions and samples.

The deal between the WFNX Radio Network and Snapple began Friday, the start of Memorial Day weekend and the unofficial start of summer. Under its "Summer Free For All" promotion, Snapple purchased every minute of WFNX's advertising time for the six-week period at alternative radio stations in Boston and Southern New Hampshire. The messaging runs through the Fourth of July weekend.

It calls for the two to create non-traditional on-air messaging that will engage listeners and tout the Snapple brand. Termed "brandcasting," Snapple said this unique partnership will redefine how brands use radio for marketing.

The festivities began Friday as the Snapple/WFNX "Guitarmeter" -- a 10-foot tall, guitar-shaped thermometer -- was unveiled by Wendy "The Snapple Lady" at Store 24 in Copley Square in Boston. At the site, consumers will be offered Snapple samples whenever the temperature rises to 85 degrees.

...Full story in Promo Magazine...

NOTE: My buddy Chuck rightfully points out that he had an early call to action about going commercial-free a few years ago -- and then officially posted the theory in detail on his own blog at RadioBistro.com.

Had Bad Pizza? They'd Like To Meetz'Ya!

2006-05-29T07:30:00.000-05:00

I ran across an ad in the local arts paper that I thought was a gag. The headline said "Reckless pizza ordering is an offense. If you've been the victim of recklessly bad pizza ordering, contact us! Warwick-Law.com" I scoured the paper for notice of a fake-ad contest, but could find none. I tore out the page with the intent to visit the website next time I was online.

The website for Warwick-Seltz is intentionally poorly designed. It looks like it was made with a lame Microsoft Front Page template. You quickly meet Attorney Royce W. Warwick. Warwick is a David Letterman look-a-like, and member of PLIS (pizza-law institution of specialists), PLAA (pizza-law association of America) and serves on the board of NAPLL (the national association for pizza law litigation). After visiting his "free live consultation" using the now oh-so-familiar interface to interact with Warwick in a "live" consultation -- it's easy to spot as a "Subservient Chicken" knock-off.

Although the execution still qualifies as 'creat-IVE', I think they stopped 'creat-ING' too soon. Here are a few features I'd like to see the ad agency add to the campaign in order to improve upon the concept and increase the effective message reach through Word Of Mouth:
1. Blog Banners
Why no Warwick-Law ad banners that people could add to their own blogs and websites? That paid placement mock-ad the advertising agency used in Columbus Alive captured my attention enough to save it until I could get in front of a computer. Why not let the public get in on the joke and add make it easy to add a Warwick-Law banner to their personal webpages. By providing cut-and-paste code, the agency could offer additional tracking and stats to their client.

2. Join the Class Action Lawsuit
Inviting people to join the "Class Action Suit" against mediocre pizza by providing their email address (and rewarding them with a coupon from the client) would allow the client to build a marketing database and provide tangible results from the campaign. There IS a "milestone settlement offer" buried a couple links deep into the site, but it's not easy to find and the offer is for only a dollar-off the regular price of the pizza. Why not give away a free personal-sized pizza?

3. Warwick-Seltz Worked For Me
Although there is a link to watch tv ads for their lawfirm (excellent parodies of those horrible ambulance-chasing ads we've all seen on television), there is no obvious way (nor invitation) to post these ads on your own website.

With the huge influx of consumer-generated advertising and the availability of a website like YouTube.com -- why aren't the Warwick-Seltz ads ON YouTube.com?? And why no invite to have people submit their own "I suffered from someone neglectfully ordering mediocre pizza and Warwick-Seltz got me a settlement" style commercials that could also be posted (and spread virally) through YouTube.com? Encouraging these video submissions by providing folks with a free pizza or sub seems an extremely easy thing to do.

4. Report An Offender
Why no 'tell-a-friend' feature? It could have been built into the masquerade by allowing people to report offenders of the mediocre pizza laws, referring other litigants for the class action suit, etc. The agency has provided no obvious way to share the link with friends (other than me physically copying the address and emailing it myself.)

5. Tales of Suffering
We've all had crappy pizza. Why is there no place to collect these testimonials of pizza-pain and suffering? A simple message board to collect the comments and war stories from site visitors would have added an additional level of interaction.

6. Cease & Desist Letters
Royce Warwick himself (during my free consultation) sported a "cease and desist" fridge magnet he created for an Aunt guilty of ordering bad pizza. Why no auto-generated lawyer letter that can be emailed to a friend or coworker? Even McDonald's on their barely less-than-lame McMornings website allows the creation of a late-to-work excuse created by the "Excuse Generator 3000." Something similar could have added an interactive and viral component sorely missing from the Warwick-Law website.

My conclusion?
In an obvious effort to create an ad campaign that the agency hopes to spread virally, they have left off every obvious avenue to help people spread the word.

Perhaps Warwick-Seltz needs to bring on another partner to specialize in mediocre ad campaigns?

Welcome to Radio Caffeine

2006-05-27T12:52:00.000-05:00

...It's like adding a triple shot of Espresso to your radio broadcasting efforts...