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Below is a very informative article about ad spending trends.
A couple of key facts that I find important:
1). Content is king - it is arguable but I believe when it comes to Advertising, both the content of the ad itself and the content of the media context (whether the content is relevant to the brand) are very important. Especially with the popularity of viral marketing nowadays, if you don't have a outstanding content, your commercial will not become viral. As in this article, marketers are shifting their ad dollar from the ad networks to content site.
2). Online video are taking a share away from broadcast TV. Now, it doesn't mean that TV is dying. But it is a fact that as more people using youtube, hulu, and even TV networks own webisites to watch different shows or videos, part of the ad dollar will flow to the internet naturally. However, advertisers still need to figure out a new way fit the ad in the right content and target the right audience.
3). As a vestige of TV advertising, demo targeting IS still the most used. One of the reasons mentioned in this article is because the legacy of TV ad planning is typically geared toward demographics, not behavior. However, with the budget shifting from TV to Internet, marketers need to realize that they can't copy everything from the TV Ad planning. I think when it comes to the Internet, it is possible to obtain all kinds of behavioral information and behavioral metrics are more effective anyways.
Study Shows Marketers Shifting Online Budgets to Content Sites
By Edmund Lee
NEW YORK (AdAge) -- With their ability to cheaply reach eyeballs, online ad networks have commanded more money and attention from marketers in the past few years, thus edging out content sites in the conversation for ad dollars. A recent study, however, claims content is back.
WebMD is cited in the study as an example of a content destination.
A survey of agencies and marketers revealed that 52% of them plan to spend more on content sites this year, whereas only 35% said they were likely to increase budgets for ad networks. As examples of content destinations, the study cited ESPN and WebMD.
"In the last two years ad networks have taken advantage of the recession, but what's missing from that is why advertisers advertise in the first place -- it's all about brand," said Randy Cohen, president of research firm Advertiser Perceptions, which conducted the study. "Content sites may not have efficiencies, but they have more context and more relevance to brands. There's a changing ecosystem for online display advertising."
Video takes TV share
The report also found that online video will take a share away from broadcast TV this year, with 57% of respondents saying they were likely to shift ad dollars in that direction. The reason is similar to the shift that favors content over network. Sites like Hulu.com are enticing marketers with clean, professional content.
"I also see it as part of the rising tide for cable networks versus broadcast -- cable has some of the leading content sites around video," Mr. Cohen said. "And, secondarily, the technology is actually working. The issue now is just how much more you're putting to online."
The study showed that among big ad spenders -- those budgeting $10 million or more -- 70% were likely to move money from TV to online video.
Flight to content
As always, surveys like this reflect intentions of marketers and agencies and is not a necessary indication of actual plans. But respondents pretty consistently said that as recession-bound budgets loosen, they'll be looking to spend more to increase their brands' associations online, something ad networks have not always been able to accurately deliver.
"We still see tremendous growth for ad networks," Mr. Cohen said. "The only thing is, there are a lot of great tools and research but not a whole lot of intelligence about how to make it work. They need to think more about what marketers are trying to do with that information."
One of those tools includes behavioral targeting, widely bandied about as the best way to engage viewers online. Typically, the method involves tracking a user's click stream to determine his likes and dislikes, a practice that some privacy advocacy groups have brought to the attention of Washington.
Demos over behaviors
Whether any political fallout was a factor, 70% of marketers more commonly preferred to target based on demographics, vs. 59% who more commonly used behavioral metrics.
Though Mr. Cohen's research firm did not unearth the reasons for this preference, he suspected it was because of the legacy of TV ad planning, typically geared toward demographics, not behavior. It may be a further signal that people in the industry are either not convinced of this new metric, or don't know how to rejigger ad dollars accordingly.
"It was a somewhat surprising finding," Mr. Cohen said. "So much behavioral information and context and geo-location information out there, and demo targeting is still the most used. It's still a vestige of TV advertising. It's pretty amazing."
Original Post: http://adage.com/digital/article?article_id=143403
By Edmund Lee
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Content is Back - Study Shows Marketers Shifting Online Budgets to Content Sites |
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Nielsen: Facebook's Ads Work Pretty Well |
BATAVIA, Ohio (AdAge.com) -- It pays to have fans on Facebook if you want your ads to work there too, according to the first public study to come out of the collaboration of Nielsen Co. and Facebook.
The study of more than 800,000 Facebook users and ads from 14 brands in a variety of categories shows a marked increase in ad recall, awareness and purchase intent when home-page ads on the social network mention friends of users who've become fans of the brand in the ad.
The impact on awareness and recall is even more pronounced when a home-page ad coincides with what Facebook and Nielsen term "organic" social advocacy, i.e. an item in a user's news feed indicating a friend has become a fan of a brand.
In short, so-called earned media generated when people mention or advocate brands makes the paid media considerably more effective, according to the study. Nielsen and Facebook plan to discuss results of the study in a session at Ad:Tech in San Francisco on Tuesday.
Increased recall
Facebook-home-page ads on average generated a 10% increase in ad recall, a 4% increase in brand awareness and a 2% increase in purchase intent among users who saw them compared with a control group with similar demographics or characteristics who didn't.
But the increase in recall jumped to 16% when ads included mentions of friends who were brand fans, and 30% when the ads coincided with a similar mention in users' news feeds. Brand awareness saw similar bumps: up 2% from just a home-page ad, 8% with a "social ad" bearing mentions of friends who were brand fans and up 13% when a home-page ad appeared along with a mention of friends who were brand fans in the users' news feeds.
Purchase intent was 2% higher among viewers of home-page ads vs. nonviewers, but got a four-times-bigger bump, up 8% either from social ads or when ads appeared alongside organic mentions of the brand in the news feed.
Earned and paid media
One major takeaway from the research is that paid and earned media work together in ways that could have implications well beyond Facebook, said Jon Gibbs, VP-media analytics at Nielsen. "The market has been talking very much about how to buy paid media and earn earned media, but there's been very little attention to the types of hybrid impressions and hybrid experience that blends these two," Mr. Gibbs said.
While Facebook's social ads present a fairly unique way of blending the paid and earned impressions, Mr. Gibbs noted that it's not a totally isolated example. He cited rich-media vendors that allow for Twitter feeds, social commentary or other kinds of consumer input within their ads. But he said having specific friends linked to a brand, as Facebook does, appears to have more impact than just incorporating social commentary broadly.
The recall levels for home-page ads on Facebook appear "slightly higher than standard norms we've done on other projects," Mr. Gibbs said. "What we've seen in both social ads and organic [mentions] are much higher than we've seen in other campaigns along these lines."
Results 'unremarkable'
Rex Briggs, CEO of the analytics firm Marketing Evolution, which has conducted numerous online advertising effectiveness studies, called results for Facebook's regular home-page ads "unremarkable and in line with banner ads [generally]," but he added that the results for social ads and the impact of organic mentions make for "a really interesting story."
Nielsen appeared to employ a good methodology used since the first online ad effectiveness studies in the mid 1990s, Mr. Briggs said.
"It does what Facebook wanted to do, which is legitimize the advertising and business model of Facebook," he said. "What it doesn't do is give the cross-media understanding of how does this piece fit into overall marketing plans."
What Facebook also hasn't done, he said, is open its doors and data to a variety of research companies as others, such as Microsoft, Yahoo or AOL have done. That its internal data remain largely under wraps, and its template for creating fan pages remains relatively limited compared to what marketers can do with their own sites or other networks may also be limiting revenue for Facebook, he said.
Paid media cheaper
In all, Nielsen projects around 18 million Facebook users saw ads measured as part of the study,of which around a million also saw organic mentions of their friends in social ads. Roughly another million saw organic mentions of the brands featured in the study without seeing the ads. Based on those numbers, it's still a lot easier -- if not necessarily cheaper -- to buy scale on Facebook than earn it by winning fans. It's also an indication to Mr. Gibbs that marketers need to focus on winning Facebook fans over the long haul if they want to improve their odds of success when advertising there.
Of the 18 million users exposed to the ads, only around 130,000, or less than 1%, "engaged" with them by clicking on them. But around 40,000, or around 4%, of users who saw organic mentions of their friends become brand fans clicked on those news items. The higher click-through on organic impressions is another indication of the power of earned media on Facebook, Mr. Gibbs said.
"I do think it requires a level of ongoing investment in social media," Mr. Gibbs said, as opposed to a series of short-term projects. He also said marketers who have large e-mail databases should probably be encouraging consumers in e-mail programs to join their Facebook pages. Mr. Gibbs said he doesn't believe Facebook's plans to move from "become a fan" to the more click-prone "like" as a means of joining brand pages would have much impact on the numbers in the study. And he believes, though it wasn't part of the survey, that users by now have been exposed to enough of Facebook's social ads to realize that when they become fans of a brand, they may also become endorsers in that brand's Facebook ads.
The Nielsen BrandLift polls used to survey Facebook users was a "lightweight" poll, generally with only two questions, aimed at maximizing response rates.
Nielsen didn't incorporate actual purchases, as opposed to purchase intent, "because this is the first generation of this research," Mr. Gibbs said. "We wanted to stick to branding because it's language the market is very comfortable with. In next generations, I would assume we will start incorporating offline purchase and other transactional data as part of the analysis."
by Jack Neff
Original Post: http://adage.com/digital/article?article_id=143381
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Jesse Schell: When games invade real life |
I should feel excited for this, but i have to admit it is pretty disturbing to imagine this kind of future where branding and gaming are everywhere.
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BBC News - Microsoft debuts 'social' phone |
Ok, I'll have to play with this phone first because to me, it's really not convincing at all by saying "The phone works with popular social network sites such as Facebook, Twitter and MySpace." Isn't it a fact that most smart phones nowadays have apps to all the social network sites already?
Plus, I always think phones that target at younger users such as teens are risky because most young users are still in their family plan and it's not up to them to get what kind of phones. If I'm a parent, I wouldn't get my kids a phone that I know for sure will distract them more from school work.
BBC News - Microsoft debuts 'social' phone
