By Karen J. Bannan
ClickForensics last week announced its latest Click Fraud Index research results that clearly demonstrate pay-per-click advertising's Achilles Heel: click fraud is not only alive and well, it continues to grow.
Q3 2007 click fraud rates topped the 16.2 percent mark. Year-over-year that's a 2.4 percent increase. Pay-per-click advertising on content networks is even more fraught with fraud. The average click fraud rate for search engine content networks including Google's AdSense and Yahoo Publisher Network hit the 28.1 percent mark last quarter. Yes, you read that correctly. Between one-quarter and one-third of all clicks on content networks are fraudulent. That number has also risen quickly. Content network fraud rates were 25.6 percent in Q2 2007 and 21.9 percent in Q1 2007.
"Advertisers, publishers, and search engines need to take notice because content networks are becoming the fastest growing source of click fraud," explained Tom Cuthbert, Click Forensics' president and CEO in a statement. "Ensuring their quality is essential for the pay-per-click advertising market to continue its growth."
As an advertiser these numbers are scary and daunting. PPC advertising has always delivered strong return-on-investment. Google and Yahoo! don't agree with these numbers, saying that fraud rates are considerably less. Google, especially says that it ferrets out fraud proactively and refunds advertisers for bad clicks--the advertiser rarely shells out a dime. (Check out an interesting Forbes.com Q&A interview with Google senior product manager Shuman Ghosemajumder here. Click Forensics Cuthbert responded to Ghosemajumder in a Silicon Alley Insider column here.)
Either way you look at it--no matter which company or stats are right--the lesson is the same: as an adveriser, you need to be proactively looking at your PPC traffic making sure you're not seeing multiple clicks from the same IP address, clicks from your known competitors' domains, and simply watching your site's analytics programs for weird traffic. Lots of late-night hits when the bulk of your traffic usually comes in during the day should raise a red flag. And if you're not up to the challenge of watching your own analytics you may want to employ one of the many click fraud detection services and software providers out there.
Have you seen click fraud in your own PPC campaign? Tell us about it in the Comments section.
by Gwen Moran
If you're confused about whether or not mobile marketing is ready for greatness, you're not alone. It's been on the verge of being the Next Big Thing for years now, and all of these false starts have marketers frustrated.
On Friday, eMarketer published an interesting story about the skyrocketing cost of these programs -- up 10x in just two years. Nearly eight in 10 people in a recent survey did not even look at ads.
The potential here his huge -- mobile phones are the most ubiquitous personal device out there. One that is connected. A marekter's dream. But mobile marketing efforts have to center around two key priorities: personalization and ease of use.
I was recently in Northern Virginia. When I travel out of town, I like to find jewelry supply shops to feed my jewelry design hobby. As I pored over the phone book, trying to figure out the distance of towns that were unfamiliar to me, it occurred to me that it would be incredibly useful to be able to send a query for local shops through my mobile phone. Such an application could be fantastic for restaurants, shops, hotels, points of interest -- just about anything. Tie it in with an offer that could be redeemed from my phone, and this blogger would be one happy traveler.
Alas, it's a pipe dream right now, but if mobile marketers are listening, that's my armchair consultant's take on the key challenge. When you give me something that saves me time or money, I'm interested. When you spam my mobile phone, I'm not feeling the love.
What's your prediction or wish for the future of mobile marketing? Share your thoughts in the Comments section.
I think, unfortunately, mobile marketing will become another source of annoyance. Like junk mail and spam, it will add to our list of things we loathe.
By Karen J. Bannan
If you signed up for this blog via RSS feed, you may not read it until Monday--at least if you're one of the companies out there that recently imposed a ban on Friday emails. According to a Wall Street Journal story, U.S. Cellular, Deloitte & Touche, and Intel are among the ever-growing number of companies asking their employees to log out of their email programs on Fridays and weekends. The reason, according to the article, is that companies are trying to encourage more direct communication. It's also being done to help reduce the stress that more than a third of people say comes from a heavy email volume.
I've been covering email marketing for more than five years. During this time I've seen many, many studies that said one day over another was better for sending email marketing. I always reported the result of each study diligently, but secretly wondered if these reports had any basis. My own opinion: every business and vertical is different. Sure, some companies may have dismal results emailing on a Monday, while others might see open rates soar. How do you figure out which day is best for you? Here are some tips to help you decide.
Test, test, and test again. You're not going to figure out which day is best until you try them all. That said, simple A/B testing where you leave all but one--in this case the send day--will help you see which days provide a lift. Your best bet: split your list in two and send one set on one day this month and the same set on another day next month.
Don't overlook the obvious. National and religious holidays should probably be off-limits. Sending emails on religious holidays in particular can make your recipients angry should they celebrate a specific holiday.
Deliver on your promises. If, when they signed up, you told readers to expect your messages on a Monday (or Tuesday or Wednesday) make sure your messages go out that day. There's something to be said for consistency.
Consider time as well. An email might be very well received at 3 p.m. on a Tuesday when people are getting back to their desks, but get deleted immediately if it hits a prospect's in-box at 9 a.m. when they are rushing to a meeting. Once you decide on a day test different times, too, to make sure you're sending your messages when people want to receive them.
Have you found the perfect time or day to send email correspondence? Do you think time and day don't matter that much? Tell us about it in the Comments section.
By Karen J. Bannan
Microsoft on Wednesday announced it was taking a $240 million equity stake in social networking site Facebook. Even more significant, Facebook signed an exclusive agreement to be Microsoft's third-party advertising platform. Microsoft will provide all the banner advertising on Facebook, reaching an audience of more than nine million people via its Microsoft adCenter platform.
Explained Steve Berkowitz, Microsoft's senior vice president of its Online Services Group: "Our collaboration with Facebook is about joining our cutting-edge advertising technology and sales force with a true innovator in social networking," said Berkowitz in a statement. "We believe that the combination of Microsoft and Facebook strengths will be incredibly attractive to advertisers as they forge more meaningful connections with one of the largest, most engaged audiences on the Internet. The consumer assets brought to bear by this relationship will be very hard to match."
It's an interesting partnership, but what does it mean for you, an advertiser? Blogger Ron Miller doesn't think much of the announcement. But other industry pundits think it could be an incredible partnership. There's a good possibility--should everything go as Microsoft envisions--that advertisers, unlike those who populate Google, Yahoo!, and even MSN, will get ad placement based not on search terms but actual stated preferences and interests. (The Microsoft-Facebook deal promises to deliver targeted ads based on a Facebook user's listed interested and connections.) John Battelle's Searchblog post details the possibilities pretty well, actually.
So what does this mean to you? You may be able to target consumers better in the very near future. At what cost and when? The jury is still out, but it will be interesting to watch how this goes down.
Are you interested in advertising on social networking sites? Do you think this type of targeting will work? Tell us about it in the Comments section.
By Karen J. Bannan
I've always been suspicious of cookies. From the very beginning I cleared my cache often, and complained bitterly when it became apparent that Big Brother advertising was definitely watching me. (Case in point: I did a little shopping once at the American Girl site. Now I see an ad for American Girl on many of the sites I visit including Hotmail.) Still, cookies can be necessary. They keep me from having to input my account numbers and user information, and it is nice to be served with ads that may actually interest me.
This is why I was intrigued when I heard about last week's announcement from TruEffect, a Broomfield, Co.-based advertising company. The day of the cookie, according to the company's press release, may be numbered.
The company introduced two new advertising products that allow for third-party ad serving without the use of third-party cookies. This will, in theory, make consumers feel better about the ads they see. The first technology, called SafeServe, "eliminates reading and writing of browser cookies, and prevent(s) cookie tracking data from being captured in click stream logs," according to the release. Of course, without cookies it's a little difficult for advertisers to track click stream. Still, I think this is something that definitely has promise, at least for me. It would be nice to lose the American Girl ads. I can't really analyze this announcement because the details are pretty sketchy. Even the usual marketing suspects like ClickZ and MarketingVox have done little more than regurgitate the press release.
Do you think this is one of those vaporware announcements? Do you rely on cookies to help you make and track marketing buys? Let us know in the Comments section.
By Gwen Moran
I can remember the two worst presentations I've ever attended like they were yesterday. The first was in college. I had been up late the night before, studying like mad. After trudging through the snow to the warm classroom, the instructor dimmed the lights so that we could watch an instructional video. His instructor's voice droned like a lullaby -- well, if lullabies were about demographic analysis of inner cities. Before I knew it, my eyes were closed and I missed half the film. And, yes, it was on the test.
The other was years after college. I was at an industry group meeting. The speaker at the podium had a bad case of PowerPoint Paralysis -- he couldn't actually form sentences that weren't on the screen. Fortunately, I wasn't being graded on that presentation, so I was free to get up and leave.
But the two situations were similar. Both were deadly boring because the person at the front of the room relied too heavily on bad audio/visual tools.
There's nothing wrong with a little PowerPoint or video to keep things visually interesting and to provide those charts and graphs that are so difficult to draw unless you're Tim Russert with his oh-so-hip white board. But the bottom line is that you are the key to the presentation -- not the gadgets. So, I've rounded up some tips and best practices to make you presentation-ready.
* Don't overload your slides. Really. If I can't read it from the back row, it's useless. Most PowerPoint screens can't handle more than five lines of text before they get wonky.
* Give me something more. Don't just read the text on the slide. I can do that. In fact, just give me the clicker and you can go home. What I really want is for you to be a little bit funny and really know your stuff. It's okay to be nervous. Just deliver good information to me without making me want to grind my teeth.
* Keep the jargon to a minimum. Although my all-time favorite is someone who used "employee-onboarding process" when he meant "interview," there can be quite a lot of corporate-speak in the average presentation. I'd really prefer it if you spoke to me like I'm a third-grader. And most third-graders I know aren't proactive and, at the end of the day, prefer to go outside and play. So don't keep me inside for hours at a time.
* Don't dim the lights. Instead, design your slides so that they can be seen in full light. Turning down the lights tells me that the screen is more important than you are.
* No dancing anything. I hate the dancing alien mortgage ads on my computer screen, and I hate dancing, flashing, and otherwise frenetic slide presentations even more. Not necessary. Just annoying.
* Give me a chance to interact. Whether you're using fancy feedback tools, smart-board technology, or plain old raise-your-hand-and-ask-your-question interactivity, I don't want to stare at a talking head for hours on end. Make sure I can ask a question or give feedback.
One thing to watch out for: Copyright violations are rampant in A/V presentations. Be sure you have proper permission to reproduce photos, music and text, otherwise you could find yourself in hot water.
by Gwen Moran
Almost everyone's talking about the potential for social networking, but finding reliable and quantifiable ROI is tough. Earlier this week, Prospero Technologies issued a news release that was widely picked up. 59 percent of businesses they surveyed said that social networking "met or exceeded marketing objectives" in 2007 and that 88 percent planned to spend more in 2007. That sounds great, until you read a bit closer. The survey only included 50 companies and only 35 percent reported positive ROI -- 41 percent said that the ROI was "unknown."
But spending certainly is up. The whole thing is just mildly reminiscent of the early Web days where we knew something big was here, we just didn't know how to harness its power. So, we spent willy nilly and when the dust settled, some people guessed right and some people guessed wrong.
Some thing seem obvious. You should be on Facebook and probably on MySpace. Storing your video on YouTube can save you money on bandwidth and possibly get you a bigger audience. Second Life, which launched with a huge bang, has some interesting and useful applications, but seems to be fizzling. It's sort of marketing-by-gut-feeling, which is tough to defend in an annual review or client report.
One blog worth reading it Tom Parish's Leveraging Social Media (aside from the fact that using "leverage" as a verb makes my inner grammarian crazy). He does a good job of making a case for social media.
Still, what we lack is that objective voice that is analyzing the data surrounding social media and giving us useful evaluation without a filter that is for or against using it.
What about your company? Are you increasing your spending? And how are you evaluating ROI? Let's discuss in the Comments section.
By Karen J. Bannan
When I sit down to write this blog, there are a few places I go to find stuff worth blogging about. One of the first places: Google News. I'll input a few key search words and phrases, hoping an interesting item or two will pop up. Unfortunately, I may be missing some really good items because the people who created the accompanying press releases or the news outlets that write about what's happening aren't formatting their content correctly, or so says a BusinessWired account posted last week.
The article, called Shorter Headlines Can Lead to Google Juice, explained a recent Google policy that states that headlines "should not exceed 22 words," according to the site. The story went on to say that even a large site such as BusinessWire sometimes sees its press releases end up being omitted from the Google News site based on random criteria such as this. This begs the question, then: If a big company like BusinessWire has problems getting its content posted, what's a smaller company supposed to do?
According to Google's own FAQ, you need to have your press release or news story posted on one of the sites it spiders. The FAQ also says folks can submit their news directly as long as it resides on an outside site; a site that carries more than just *your* news. (You can't toot your own horn on your own site and expect Google to think it's newsworthy!)
The Web is supposed to democratize the way news is disseminated, and it has to some extent. But as big deals such as the August 31 announcement that Google would host content directly from The Associated Press, among other news sources keep coming, it's going to become harder and harder for the little guys to get any play. Not to mention the fact that deals like these hurt smaller publishers' sites. If a story is posted on Google News traffic to other sites will go down, too, as blogger Doug Fisher eloquently explains. The end result: more big companies--companies that can afford BusinessWire and its competitors--getting more ink, while smaller companies fight for an ever-shrinking space at the table.
I wish I had an answer to this problem, a way that anyone could get great placement on Google News, but I don't. How do you get your content out there? Tell us about it in the comments section.
By Karen J. Bannan
Maven Networks on Monday had a busy day. First, the fledgling company announced the launch of a new Internet advertising vehicle, the Maven Internet TV Advertising Platform. The company also separately announced it founded the Internet TV Advertising Forum, an industry group charged with developing and standardizing online video advertising, according to the company's press release.
The Maven Internet TV Advertising Platform, according to the company's statement, is designed to help advertisers transcend today's pre-roll video advertising, which as a consumer and a business viewer I agree is pretty darn annoying. The platform's main component is a dynamic ad insertion engine, which will--based on user viewing behavior--deliver video ads within the context of the Internet video. so, for example, if the system knows that people usually stop watching FunnyorDie.com's The Landlord at the 58 second mark, the ad can be inserted after 30 seconds so the advertiser gets its message out--no matter what. The best part: the user doesn't necessarily need to be completely interrupted. Instead, they might see an ad overlay rather than an intrusive video clip.
I actually think one of the company's other announcements is even more interesting. Maven Networks earlier this year announced the cross-site video syndication platform, which the ads will be inserted in, that helps content providers create and distribute their video via "direct-to-consumer broadband video channels." The platform uses the Adobe Media Player as its end-user video player. Finally, we're getting closer to a standard. Throw in the fact that we've finally got an industry group that says it has picked an online video advertising standard?the Maven Internet TV Advertising Platform--and you've got real news. Especially since the founding members of the Internet TV Advertising Forum reads like a Who's Who of Internet video and advertising royalty including Fox News Digital, Scripps Network, Ogilvy, Digitas, TV Guide, 4Kids TV, Microsoft Corp., DoubleClick and 24/7 Real Media.
Blogger Jeremy Allaire has an interesting take on Monday's announcements, but he and I agree on one thing: the Internet community is asking for DVD-quality video. In fact, we already know they are already watching what's available in droves. Nearly 16 percent of American households who use the Internet watch TV broadcasts online, according to a report published by The Conference Board and TNS. Those viewers say convenience and being able to skip commercials as their main reasons for doing so. Even more interesting: one in five Internet TV viewers say online programming is eroding their traditional TV viewing. So why should you care? Because announcements like this will make it easier for all advertisers to get in on the video programming explosion that's happening today. So even if you're not buying video ad placements today, keep an eye on what comes next.
Are you interested in advertising via Internet video? Let us hear about it in the Comments section.
by Gwen Moran
Last week, eMarketer estimated that, while e-mail advertising spending will grow an eye-popping 82 percent -- from $338 million in 2006 to $616 million in 2011 -- but spending on e-mail will only grow at half the rate of overall online ad spending. But half of e-mail marketing managers get only 20 percent or less of their firms' entire e-mail budgets. Alerts and transactional e-mail get the lion's share of dough at most companies.
The report made a decent case for e-mail marketing, and why it should get a bigger share of the pie. Its most compelling argument actually sprang from a report by MarketingSherpa that says that dollars spent on e-mail marketing are returning better ROI than most other areas of online marketing. Forty percent of B-to-C e-mail marketers and almost 36 percent of B-to-B e-mail marketers surveyed said that the impact of e-mail is increasing significantly, in spite of spam issues (The report also found that e-mail people want to receive at work is mistakenly filtered as spam up to 40 percent of the time.)
So, does your company need to spend more on e-mail marketing? Or is it so cost-effective that you can do a lot with a little? And what ARE you doing with your campaigns that's working? Share your stories in the comments section.
By Gwen Moran
Unless you've been living in a cave -- one that doesn't have wifi, that is -- you've probably seen the new Dove film "Onslaught," that was released on YouTube last week. It's the follow-up to the campaign's film, "Evolution." Advertising columnist Bob Garfield heralded it as a "triumph," in spite of the hypocrisy that the company touting "natural" beauty is a subsidiary of Unilever, which also owns Axe and Slimfast. But that's an issue that would take us too far off topic.
There's no question that YouTube has become a force in everything from Presidential debates to creating instant fame. Could it do the same for your company?
One company that has had phenomenal success on YouTube is Blendtec, the creators of the hilarious Will It Blend? series of films. (Don't try to replicate them at home.) The films take everything from golf balls to the ubiquitous iPhone and blend them into tiny shards in the company's durable mixing machines. They're great demonstrations of their products' ability to blend just about anything.
A few months ago, I had occasion to speak with Michael Miller, the author of YouTube 4 You. He said that the key for small to mid-sized businesses using YouTube effectively is to create a video that people want to see. It could be a funny video related to your product, an amazing demonstration, or an instructional video. Within the clip, include your company?s web site so people can find you easily.
Don?t just post and run. You need to promote the video, just as you would anything else. E-mail your customers and ask them to pass the word along. Post a link to the video on your web site. Discuss the video in relevant blog comments. Use tags on your video that are relevant to your content.
Miller also advises not going crazy on production value. YouTube is not great cinema and the broadcast quality isn?t fantastic. So, save some bucks by going lower-end on production. You?re also not going to need complex scenery, since videos are replayed in tiny windows.
Ready to get started? This Work.com profile is pretty comprehensive, covering everything from production to how to use tags and groups to promote the video.
One other bonus: YouTube assumes all of the storage and bandwidth costs. Miller says, ?In the off-chance that you have a video that a million people come to see, YouTube can handle that and you don?t have to shut down your web site.?
Got a YouTube success story or tip? Broadcast it in our comments section.
By Karen J. Bannan
You always have to be careful when you align your brand with another. Companies do it, though, especially with their partners and customers?usually when there?s a logical connection. Something along the lines of IBM touting the fact that it?s got Intel inside or the huge summer co-branding effort between 7-11 and The Simpsons.
In fact, there?s never been a time when there have been more co-branding or alliances, according to a McKinseyQuarterly report. The number of corporate alliances are up 20 percent per year over the past two decades, according to the report, and at many companies a quarter or more of all revenues come from alliances.
The Branding Strategy Insider dissects this sometimes-touchy practice in a recent post, citing the fact that co-branding works because consumers only see the good when it comes to such efforts. The positive attributes of both companies spill over onto each other.
With that in mind, I was intrigued when I read a report on CNNMoney.com about a new advertising revenue sharing tool called Blinkx AdHoc. The premise is simple. Web site owners or bloggers can make money every time they share a video on your site providing that they allow an ad to be inserted in that video.
The program uses widgets, which allow Web site owners to add advertising to the videos they have on their sites. The ads are contextually relevant--if the blog is talking about email advertising, the corresponding ad will have something to do with the topic.
Blinkx says the minimum ad buy is $1, and a click-through costs $.05. Today, ads are text-based. In the future, according to the company's FAQ, you'll be able to place graphical banners and video as well. It almost seems like a no-brainer. Social networking and user-generated content is king right now, according to Nielson/NetRatings. The top ten social networking sites have seen a nearly 50 percent growth this year. What's not to love about putting your ad where the people are?
Which brings us back to the whole co-branding discussion. You can't granularly control where Blinkx puts your ad; it's all about context, after all. Are you willing to let someone else pick your co-branding partner? (After all, blogs have brands; so do Web sites.) Tell us what you think in the Comments section.
By Gwen Moran
Last month, online experience management firm Tealeaf released survey results which revealed that 42 percent of online shoppers abandon a site or switch to another e-tailer after experiencing online transaction issues. That number matches up pretty well with a Doubleclick Performics survey released in May that says that 41 percent of online shoppers surveyed reported that poor service was their biggest deterrent to staying loyal to a web site.
At the heart of the issue is the ease of transaction. How easy do you make it for your customers to buy from you? Is your site clean and well-organized with a solid search function? Are your shopping cart and check-out functions simple and easy to navigate? Do you follow-up on the order via e-mail and offer tracking options? Do you offer easy-to-access off-line customer service options for those who are having trouble online?
They may seem like blast-of-the-obvious basics, but it?s surprising how many world-class companies get it wrong. Blogger Kelly Mooney does a really good job of calling out some of the best and worst of retail interactions, both online and off. That?s a good place to start to get ideas about would could possibly be improved on your own e-commerce site. Some companies area even calling in online mystery shoppers to check out everything from their prices to their service.
Beyond the basics, the Performics study found that customers who participate in rewards programs are less likely to be focused on price and that free shipping is a powerful incentive for customers to buy. Online shoe retailer Zappos.com gets an A+ on this front ? the company overnights its shoes for free AND offer free return shipping.
Have you found good ways to retain online customers, increase conversions, or reduce abandoned carts? Share them in the comments section.
By Karen J. Bannan
How important is your home page? Important, right? But, according to a research study by interactive agency Avenue A/ Razorfish, maybe not as important as you'd probably think.
The Seattle-based interactive agency surveyed nearly 500 consumers and the resulting 104 page report has some very interesting things to say about the proverbial company Web site, long thought to be the end-all, and be-all of online advertising. One finding: the large corporate Web site is "bloated," and weighed down by too much content, navigation, and functionality. Web sites, according to the report, need to go on a diet.
Avenue A /Razorfish's report suggests streamlining sites, worrying more about brand values than individual products. Ford Motor Co's site is a good example of this type of presentation. The company's home page tells consumers why they should by Ford cars, and pushes them towards sub-brand sites for more information. It follows one of the report's core suggestions: show what you're great at on the home page.
Another thing people are still getting wrong: the employment, press room, and investor information areas of the Web site. As a journalist, I can attest to this. For every one company that makes it easy for me to find a press relations phone number and contact name, another does it all wrong, making me fill out a form online (uggg) or even worse, doesn't have any contact information listed.
And one final nugget: people aren't shopping the way they used to: coming to their favorite retailer's site, and searching that site for what they're looking for. Increasingly, consumers are bypassing their tried-and-true online stores and hitting the search engines. The take-away for this one: you can't sit back and wait for customers to come to you. They need to find you, which means if you're not paying someone to make sure your site pops up on the first page--preferably within the first five or so links--you'd better be doing lots of optimization. Search Engine Guide's Stoney deGeyter has a nice check list you can use to get started.
There's plenty more in the report (you should definitely check it out). Which corporate sites out there do you think are the best and why? Which are the worst? Let us know in the Comments section.
By Gwen Moran
Yesterday, writer Karen E. Klein wrote about sponsoring blog posts in her column in the LA Times. Here's the gist: Marketers, especially small to mid-sized businesses, can pay bloggers to write about them--pretty much the same disclosure as advertorials.
The trouble is that there are often some walls between the folks who produce advertorials and the folks who produce editorial at reputable publications. While it's tempting--I mean everyone wants their blog to pay off like a Dooce or BoingBoing, I think that bloggers who engage in this kind of behavior are going to seriously erode their credibility. It's hard enough for bloggers to remain objective when they have BlogAds or Google Adsense streaming in the margins, and they have little, if any, control over what appears there.
Think about it: You read your favorite blog that says that Wonder Widget is being introduced to the marketplace with great fanfare. Oh, by the way, this is a paid message. So, a few weeks later, your blogger writes about Wonder Widget in a favorable way. Aren't you going to doubt the objectivity? I would. It's like a pharma company's new products being endorsed and approved by doctors it is paying. Oh, wait. Maybe that's a bad example?
The point is that sponsored blog posts hurt both the blogger's credibility and how readers view future coverage of the business, product or service in respected blogs. One never wants to say that something is never a good idea, but I'd tread carefully here.
What do you think? Do you think bloggers should refrain from sponsored posts or doesn?t it matter? Share your thoughts in the comments section.
By Karen J. Bannan
I have a friend who recently started a new business. A network and information security solutions provider called Netaris. He's going to a big conference tomorrow. He'll be one of possibly hundreds of other folks who are all peddling the same services. Getting noticed, it would seem, might be impossible unless he had lots of $100 bills to hand out or a really cool gimmick much like the one that landed in my in-box today.
A Huntington Beach, Calif.-based company called My-iButton introduced this week what it calls the world's first MP4 promotional badge. The badge, which the company says is programmable and lightweight, has a small, two-inch color display and onboard capabilities to stream both audio and video. Hang it around your neck or pin it to your jacket and you're good to go--a walking, talking, playing version of an online ad.
The $79.99 My-iButton works like this: you hook it up to your PC via a USB port and download any MP4 file--slideshows, presentations, press kits, even your latest online banner ad. With a battery life of eight hours and a customizable bezel, you could theoretically walk an entire conference expounding the benefits of your new company along the way.
"I always noticed large political pins with pictures on them. The
buttons are used for one event and tossed in box or thrown away. I thought, 'Why not create a pin that can be used over and over,
changed at anytime, and can display a variety of different interactive images and messages,'" said My-iButton CEO Richard Quintana in his company's press release.
So should my friend go out and spend $80 on a walking lapel billboard? In theory, it's a great premise. On the tradeshow floor, however, I'm not so sure. It's a little too hokey for me; a little too desperate. It's like a life-size pop-up ad without the benefit of a pop-up blocker. Still, there's a reason that people still buy pop-up ads: they garner attention and provide a decent ROI. So while I'll be skipping the My-iButton, and I hope my friend does, too, I have a feeling we'll be seeing a lot of these in the coming months. At the very least they'll probably show up in the consumer market. Can you imagine the possibilities in a retirement home? Every resident can broadcast a video of their latest grandchild. My-iButton, indeed!
By Gwen Moran
Am I the only one who's tired of marketers taking something obvious, re-naming it, and trying to make it a trend or demographic segment?
The latest is the unveiling of "passionistas" by Yahoo! and MediaVests. This is a segment of consumers that are passionate about a certain issues. Some of the "breakthrough" findings about these folks include:
"They are much more likely than typical consumers to create and share content online about their passions." Really? You mean if you're enthusiastic about something, you're going to seek out online venues to find out more? Fascinating.
"Passionistas search online for information about their passion 184% more than typical users and conduct more than 100 related searches having to do with their passion per year." So, translated, you're telling me that if I'm interested in something, I'm going to do more Internet searches than someone who's not interested in it? Holy keyword, Batman! There's a marketing opportunity there!
I know it makes for good copy and certainly makes a hard-working freelancer's job easier. But for goodness' sake ? give me some meat!
For more substantive trends, I respect Trendwatching.com . They do a good job of drilling down and documenting their assertions, instead of just putting some ethereal numbers from random surveys out there. This month's briefing about trend watching tips is basic, but a useful read for those whose sense has been overcome by percentages. The information found in market research firm Iconoculture's newsletter is pretty good, too. Trend Hunter is a good collection of varied information and quirky facts, but doesn't do as good a job at documentation as Trendwatching.com does about documenting the trends.
Of course, it's always best to do your own digging. Check with your industry association and, if you run a regional business, your state and local economic development offices. Notice what your customers are doing. Just be careful of widely accepted assumptions that may derail your research. (My favorite example of conventional-wisdom-gone-bad is a piece by my friend and colleague, Alison Wellner, who wrote this piece about the myth that Americans are more mobile than ever.)
Where do you get reliable information about trends that affect your business? Have you found web sites or resources that are particularly useful? Cast your vote in the comments section.
By Karen J. Bannan
With the dawn of the Internet, smaller companies can compete right next to larger ones, but despite its power, advertising titans still had an edge when it came to more traditional advertising media--until recently, that is. Last year the people who brought us the Firefly Network and PeoplePC, (which were acquired by Microsoft and EarthLink, respectively) turned their sights on offline media launching Spot Runner, a company designed to bring television advertising to the masses.
The idea is pretty simple. TV advertising is expensive. Even a one-day shoot can cost tens if not hundreds of thousands. You've got a camera crew, production people, the talent, it all adds up. Spot Runner, which calls itself the "first Internet-based ad agency," removes the production barriers completely. The company created a searchable database of thousands of generic-yet-customizable television ads, which are viewable online. There are 18 different categories, and the company just added a political campaign option so even politicians can sell themselves online. So now one-location jewelry stores, doctors, or service providers, for example, can go online, pick a commercial, customize it, and even purchase the placement without ever leaving their desk. Once the spot is running they can track it and analyze viewer demographic information. The cost: as low as $500 for the actual spot including a custom voiceover that highlights your firm or company. Crazy, right? Or so crazy it's got to work?
I've seen some of the sample ads. You can check them out, too. They're not bad. They won't be debuting during Super Bowl any time soon, but they are absolutely perfect for companies that want to make a television buy but were stymied in the past by cost or complexity.
Will they work? Time will tell, but just the fact that Spot Runner is handling the ad buys and letting its customers pick the exact demographics they are targeting definitely gives users a leg-up.
Have you run a local television ad? If so, how much did it cost, and did it pay off? Would you consider a service like Spot Runner? Tell us about it in the Comments section.
By Gwen Moran
Free phone calls sound good, right?
Well, what if you had to let someone listen in to get them? Last week, Pudding Media, a San Jose, Calif. start-up, announced that it is launching an Internet-based phone service (similar to that will focus on "displaying fun, entertaining and valuable information and offers on any computer or handset screen or inbox based on relevant keywords spoken in a phone call."
Here's how it works: Advertisers purchase keywords. When you mention any of those words in your conversation, the relevant (purchased) message is displayed on screen. You can sample some Pudding by going to www.thepudding.com and entering a phone number. You'll be able to dial anywhere in North America for free. But you call may be monitored for appropriate advertising messages.
If this sounds like Big Brother in action, well?yeah. But it's not like we haven't seen this type of scan already. Spam filters scan your messages to determine what's garbage. Google's Gmail already gives your messages a once-over to deliver relevant advertising.
So, is there a difference between that and listening in on your phone calls? I don't have illusions about privacy. Heck, based on my shopping habits, frequent buyer cards, and payment preferences, everyone from the supermarket CEO to the customer service department at AmEx knows when I purchase a roll of toilet paper. But there's something about having my phone calls scanned that feels different. I can think of a number of phone calls that I wouldn't want scanned or noted for any reason at all.
What about you? Would you give up your monthly phone bill in exchange for advertiser access to your phone calls? Let us know what you think in the comments section.
I had new one (at least new to me) the IRS refund scheme.
When you click it give you a page asking for SS Nbr Credit Card Nbr and PIN.
Below is the note:
After the last annual calculations of your fiscal activity we have determined that you are eligible to receive a tax refund of $93.60. Please submit the tax refund request and allow us 6-9 days in order to process it.
A refund can be delayed for a variety of reasons. For example submitting invalid records or applying after the deadline.
To access your tax refund online, please click here
Regards,
Internal Revenue Service
? Copyright 2007, Internal Revenue Service U.S.A. All rights reserved..