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Lucy Nixon

Lucy Nixon

The State of Online Video Advertising

What do media, publishing, and marketing executives think about the world of online advertising in 2013? What are the biggest opportunities and challenges?

These are just a few questions answered during the Video Ad Effectiveness Summit. Will Richmond of VideNuze sat in on the day’s sessions and published an excellent summary of the key points discussed on the VideoNuze blog.

Richmond found three themes that carried through all discussions and among all executives, which he shared on VideoNuze. You can follow the link above to get all of the details, but to briefly recap, Richmond identified the following three themes from the discussions:

  • It’s still difficult to measure ad effectiveness across multiple screens.
  • CMOs value the security of television advertising and still want measurable proof that online video advertising is effective.
  • Experimentation is critical to learning more about online video advertising.

I thought these insights were particularly interesting given the findings in the comScore study about online display advertising that I wrote about on Corporate Eye earlier in the week. That study revealed that more than half of display ads aren’t viewed at all. For increased viewability, video advertising was suggested as a viable alternative to increase viewability.

All of these studies and discussions can be summed up briefly as follows: Everyone is interested in online advertising but no method is close to perfect. Just as advertisers can’t truly measure the results of most television ads, they can’t always truly message the results of many display ads and video ads online. The tools have evolved and consumers have more screens to view branded messages, but tracking isn’t completely accurate for any medium.

What’s a marketer to do? Refrain from online advertising? Keep investing in television advertising because it’s the safer investment (i.e., everyone is familiar and accepting of its ROI limitations)?

For executives, the problem comes down to a weighing of risks versus rewards. No executive wants to be the one who makes the decision to shift advertising investments in great amounts to newer opportunities like online video. They’re excited about it but quick to cover themselves by saying it’s not proven and they’re not going to make any bold decisions related to it.

This failure to act spells opportunity for smaller companies that are more willing to take big risks and make leaps of faith to drive needed results. Online video is growing rapidly and brands that move too slowly will need to catch up eventually.

What do you think? Leave a comment below and share your thoughts about online video advertising.

Image: stock.xchng

Half of Online Display Ads Don’t Appear

stopwatchA recent study from comScore found that 54% of display ads were not seen, which as you can imagine, is bad news for advertisers trying to get their brands in front of online audiences. In fact, the results could be much worse for advertisers. The comScore study recorded any ad that was at least 50% on screen and visible on screen for at least one second. How many advertisers would be happy if consumers saw their ads for one second?

World News Publishing Focus reports that many advertisers are now requiring online publishers to include viewability clauses in their ad contracts to ensure that advertisers get the brand exposure they’re expecting.

The problem in low viewability for display ads happens for a few reasons. For example, both technical issues and human error could cause an ad not to render properly. Intentional publisher negligence could also cause ads to go unviewed. However, the statistics from the comScore report only tell part of the story. In reality, many of those ads that were reported as going unseen were actually included on publisher websites per the advertising agreement. However, for many reasons, including a visitor scrolling quickly past an ad as they scroll down the page, these ads were visible to visitors’ for less than one second.

As World News Publishing Focus reports, advertisers have to find ways to ensure that their ads are seen. New ad units are helping advertisers get noticed online, but the more intrusive display ads become, the more negative brand backlash they can create. Moving some ad budget dollars to online video advertising is another option that advertisers can take, but video advertising is also far from perfect.

At the very least, advertisers may start paying premium prices for online ad placement that not only ensures ads are seen but that those ads are seen for more than one second each. Native advertising is an alternative that recent research has shown to be very effective for advertisers, but investing in sponsored content has problems of its own.

How are you ensuring your online display ads are seen? Have you shifted any of your marketing budget away from display advertising due to lack of viewability? Leave a comment and share your thoughts on display ads, viewability clauses, and native advertising.

Image: Jean Scheijen

Mid-2013 Global Brand Rankings Revealed

2013 mid-year BrandIndex rankingsYouGov has released its BrandIndex Mid 2013 Global Rankings. The brand ranking is developed using a daily measurement process which includes thousands of brands evaluated across 16 individual metrics. Brands are ranked based on the positive and negative “Brand Buzz” that they receive.

The mid-year 2013 list shows technology, car manufacturer, and supermarket chain brands ranking high for global brand buzz. For example, Samsung appears in the top 10 brand buzz list in 11 out of 14 countries measured. This is the second year that Samsung has ranked as the strongest international performing brand overall. Part of that brand buzz came from the company’s June release of a variety of new products. Beauty brands and chocolate brands also ranked high globally.

However, global brands weren’t the only ones to perform well in the global rankings. “Homegrown” brands, particularly domestic supermarket chains, frequently appear in national top 10 lists. You can see that in the list of top U.K. Buzz Rankings below where Marks & Spencer, Waitrose, and Sainsbury’s all appear in the top 10.

The most buzzed about brands in the U.S. and U.K. according to the Mid-2013 BrandIndex Buzz Rankings are:

Top U.S. Buzz Rankings Mid-2013

  1. Ford
  2. Amazon.com
  3. Subway
  4. History Channel
  5. Lowe’s
  6. V8
  7. Walgreen’s
  8. YouTube
  9. Kindle
  10. Cheerios

Top U.K. Buzz Rankings Mid-2013

  1. BBC iPlayer
  2. Samsung
  3. John Lewis
  4. MoneySavingExpert.com
  5. Dyson
  6. BBC.co.uk
  7. YouTube
  8. Marks & Spencer
  9. Waitrose
  10. Sainsbury’s

The most improved brands in the U.S. and U.K. according to the Mid-2013 BrandIndex Buzz Rankings are:

Top U.S. Buzz Improvers Mid-2013

  1. Goldman Sachs
  2. Bank of America
  3. J.P. Morgan
  4. American Airlines
  5. BlackBerry
  6. Galaxy
  7. Morgan Stanley
  8. Kodak
  9. Bing
  10. Starbucks DoubleShot Energy+ Coffee

Top U.K. Buzz Improvers Mid-2013

  1. London Underground
  2. Royal Mail
  3. La Senza
  4. Santander
  5. Sky
  6. Samsung
  7. Goldman Sachs
  8. Little Chef
  9. Network Rail
  10. Ryanair

If you compare the Mid-2013 Brand Buzz rankings to the Mid-2012 Brand Buzz rankings, you won’t see a big change in the U.S. or U.K. lists. Noticeably absent from both lists is Google, which had already dropped significantly in the rankings in mid-year 2012 and at the end of 2011. Overall, Google performed well, making it onto the top 10 list for five countries. However, it fell off of the list in other countries (e.g., Sweden). On the other hand, Amazon.com continues to stay consistently strong in the brand buzz ranking year after year.

What do you think of the Brand Buzz Index? Any brands noticeably absent or surprising in their appearance on the list? Leave a comment and share your thoughts below.

Be sure to follow the link at the beginning of this article to get all of the details about the Mid-2013 Global BrandIndex, including lists by country, category, and more.

Image: BrandIndex.com

Starbucks Tests the Brand Extension Waters with Soft Drinks

starbucks handcrafted sodasThe success of Starbucks over the years has been driven by consumers’ emotional involvement in the brand. In 2011, Starbucks reached the epitome of logo recognition success when it dropped the “Starbucks” name from its logo entirely. However, Starbucks is still known as a one trick pony.

The company’s extreme brand focus served it very well for a long time, but in recent years, the company has struggled. Prices went up, stores changed, menus and products came and went, and loyal Starbucks customers continued to seek their caffeine fixes regardless of those ancillary offerings. The truth of the matter was simple. Loyal customers were coming for coffee. Starbucks needed to find a way to attract new customers and possibly convince existing customers to break out of their coffee habits and try something different.

For the non-coffee drinker or the Dunkin’ Donuts coffee loyalist, a trip to Starbucks isn’t going to happen. If a friend wants to stop at Starbucks, that non-coffee drinker is likely to leave empty-handed while their friend enjoys their Starbucks flavor of choice. That’s a huge missed opportunity for Starbucks.

Now, it appears that Starbucks is making an effort to turn those anti-Starbucks customers into willing-Starbucks customers by offering brand extensions like the Refreshers energy drinks launched last year (new flavors have been introduced for the 2013 summer season) and more recently, testing handcrafted sodas in a few markets.

As USA Today reports, the carbonated beverages industry is a $77 billion category, and although the category as a whole has been declining in recent years, it’s still the second biggest category in the United States. It makes sense that Starbucks would try to carve out a niche in that market by offering its own premium (i.e., “handcrafted”) sodas in its brick-and-mortar stores. If they taste good, some of those people who step into a Starbucks location with a friend who needs his coffee might just shift from saying, “I don’t like anything at Starbucks,” to “I don’t like Starbucks coffee but I definitely want one of their Spiced Root Beers.”

Sounds like a win for Starbucks if the product is good enough to motivate people to travel to a Starbucks location to get it and pay the higher price ($2.45 or $3.45 in Atlanta according to USA Today) attached to it.

What do you think? Leave a comment and share your thoughts below.

Image: Starbucks

Email Marketing Opportunities and Challenges

email marketing keyboardEmail marketing has been regaining popularity in recent years as marketers realize that an email opt-in is often more valuable than a social media connection. However, email marketing doesn’t just offer opportunities to connect with pre-qualified audiences. It also has some real challenges for brand marketers.

Emarketer reports that research from Ascend2 and Research Underwriters conducted in June 2013 identified the most effective email marketing tactics and challenges according to B2B and B2C marketers. Survey participants were given nine email marketing tactics and asked to identify the most effective and the most challenging overall. Interestingly, the same tactic landed on the top of both lists. Both B2B and B2C marketers said that creating relevant and compelling content is the most effective and the most challenging email marketing tactic.

Following is the breakdown of the most effective tactics to achieve email marketing objectives as identified by both B2B and B2C marketers around the world:

  1. Creating relevant and compelling content: 71% B2B, 65% B2C
  2. Segmenting email database: 42% B2B, 36% B2C
  3. Integrating email with other tactics: 37% B2B, 31% B2C
  4. Personalizing email messaging: 36% B2B, 28% B2C
  5. Testing and optimizing email messaging: 31% B2B, 47% B2C
  6. Testing and optimizing landing pages: 16% B2B, 22% B2C
  7. Delivering autoresponse and drip campaigns: 16% B2B, 17% B2C
  8. Optimizing email for smartphones: 12% B2B, 16% B2C
  9. Engaging subscribers via social media: 5% B2B, 10% B2C

I’m actually very surprised to see optimizing email for smartphones so low on the list of effective tactics for achieving email marketing objectives given the fact that in 2013, one out of two U.S. consumers make mobile purchases and two out of three U.K. smartphone owners are mobile shoppers. Perhaps the respondents to this study survey weren’t using mobile marketing yet (or enough) and skewed the results. Participants included B2B and B2C marketers around the world, so the statistics are intended to be representative of a global sample.

Participants ranked the most challenging email marketing tactics to execute as follows:

  1. Creating relevant and compelling content: 52% B2B, 55% B2C
  2. Testing and optimizing email messaging: 29% B2B, 40% B2C
  3. Segmenting email database: 29% B2B, 25% B2C
  4. Engaging subscribers via social media: 26% B2B, 22% B2C
  5. Integrating email with other tactics: 25% B2B, 27% B2C
  6. Delivering autoresponse and drip campaigns: 23% B2B, 22% B2C
  7. Personalizing email messaging: 19% B2B, 17% B2C
  8. Testing and optimizing landing pages: 17% B2B, 12% B2C
  9. Optimizing email for smartphones: 13% B2B, 20% B2C

Do you agree with the rankings above? Again, optimizing email for smartphones comes in low on the list, and I have to question if the reason is simply that the benefits of optimizing mobile email marketing messages simply isn’t a current priority for brand marketers.

Leave an opinion in the comments below and share your thoughts on email marketing tactics and challenges.

Image: T. Al Nakib

Gap Year Interns: The New Graduates?

gap-year-internThe gap year is a relatively new phenomenon and, despite a few strange years during the transition to the new tuition fee regimes, it’s certainly still the minority of students who take the opportunity to have a year off before going to university. For many students, the idea of a gap year consists of eight months bar-tending in the local pub and two bar-crawling in Australia. However, the reality is very much different and there are plenty of willing and extremely able school-leavers looking not just to make some cash, but to pick up some serious experience in a top company before they go to university.

However, the market for gap-year internships is incredibly competitive, not just because of the high demand for the top positions, but because of the low supply of serious placements available. Yet, a gap-year intern could make a massive difference not just to your long-term recruitment prospects but also could really contribute to your short-term business presence. Tempted? You should be…

Bright, Fresh and Flexible
Most gap-year students have no expectations, no experience and a lot of ambition. If you want to shape a particular role for someone in the short-term, it’s a perfect opportunity to take someone in, train them in the right skills and then there’s a fixed leaving date. Gap year interns see things from a new perspective that graduates just don’t and this can be a massive help on a short contract deal.

Happy to Chip In
Gap year students will expect to do their fair share of photocopying, tea making and number crunching and, provide you combine this workload with a healthy dose of productive and genuinely important work, you can really take the admin load off your existing staff. Those with a Masters degree in Business Finance may be less inclined to run off to the printers for an afternoon.

Ready Made IT Experts
It’s not too much of a generalisation to say that anyone born after around 1995 is going to be pretty savvy when it comes to Facebook, Twitter and social media, and almost all interns will be very comfortable. Their demographic and experience may well offer you some great ideas and a fresh perspective on your social media.

A Marketing Tool in Itself
Taking on gap-year interns shows not only to other businesses but to graduates that you’re serious about your workforce planning. Most gap year students will end up as graduates and, if the experience is positive, they will tell all of their colleagues about the great firm they’re going to work for. Nothing is stronger than word of mouth recommendations like that.

Undoubtedly there are risks involved in taking on gap year students, many of which can be mitigated by a strict interview process and ensuring you have very high selection standards. It might take your intern some time to adjust to the 9-5, but invest time and effort and you could be surprisingly rewarded.