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Top Ad Publishers Announce Plan to Fight Bad Ads

StopBadware logoGoogle, AOL, Facebook, Twitter, and the Interactive Advertising Bureau (IAB) have joined together to form the Ads Integrity Alliance with a mission fight bad ads. Those bad ads are the ones that promote malware (such as viruses, malicious downloads, and phishing sites), illegal goods and counterfeit goods, or try to scam people in any way.

Of course, the reason for the new alliance is partially self-serving. Bad ads could ultimately hurt the lucrative online advertising businesses that Google, Facebook, AOL, and Twitter depend on. As reported in AdWeek, online advertising revenue during the first quarter of 2012 increased by 15% over the prior year and reached a record high of $8.4 billion.

The new Ads Integrity Alliance will partner with StopBadware, a nonprofit organization dedicated to fighting bad ads online, to police online ads and reduce bad ads. In a post on the Google Public Policy Blog, Google Global Public Policy Director Eric Davis explains that the partnership represents the next phase of Google’s own policing efforts against bad ads. He explains that in 2011 Google disabled more than 130 million ads and 800,000 advertisers that violated Google’s policies.

According to Davis’ article, the Ads Integrity Alliance will work together to:

  1. Develop and share definitions, industry policy recommendations, and best practices.
  2. Serve as a platform for sharing information about bad actors.
  3. Share relevant trends with policymakers and law enforcement agencies.

Bottom-line, bad ads reduce consumers’ trust in online advertising and damage the online advertising ecosystem for all parties involved — good advertisers, consumers, and ad publishers. Let’s hope that the Ads Integrity Alliance can make a difference in the future of online advertising.

Image: StopBadware

Only 1 out of 4 B2B Companies Track and Follow up on Consumer Social Media Comments

The good news is that B2C companies are catching on to the importance of tracking and following up on consumer conversations about their brands across the social web. The bad news is that not enough of them are doing it yet. The worse news is that the numbers are even lower for B2B companies.

In a recent survey of 1,000 B2B and B2C companies, eMarketer reports that Satmetrix learned 17% of B2C companies don’t track what consumers say about their brands on the social web, nor do they follow up on that feedback. Of B2B companies, 47% do not track or follow up on social media comments about their brands.

Following are some specific statistics from the study:

  • Track and follow up: B2C = 53%; B2B = 27%
  • Track only: B2C = 25%; B2B = 22%
  • Follow up only: B2C = 4%; B2B = 5%
  • None: B2C = 17%; B2B = 47%

Of companies that do track and follow up on social media content and conversations about their brands, nearly 1 out of 2 have dedicated teams in place to monitor and follow up on that feedback.

Overall, companies in the United States are tracking and following up on social media content more frequently than companies in other parts of the world. Just 31% of U.S.-based companies do not track or follow up on social media feedback from consumers. According to the study, U.K.-based companies are least likely to track or follow up on social media feedback with 38% indicating that they do neither.

Specific results by geographic region follow:

  • North America = 31% of companies do not track or follow up on social media
  • Asia = 36% of companies do not track or follow up on social media
  • Latin America = 36% of companies do not track or follow up on social media
  • Europe, Middle East, Africa = 37% do not track or follow up on social media

Given that study after study reports consumers are actively discussing brands online (both positively and negatively) and those conversations influence consumer purchasing decisions, it’s surprising that so many companies aren’t tracking and following up on social media content and conversations. Processes should already be in place, but as the Satmetrix study reveals, those processes aren’t in place yet — particularly not in B2B companies.

Are you surprised by these statistics? Leave a comment and share your thoughts.

Image: jainapoory

2 in 5 Online Adults Recommend Brands They Like or Follow

socialogue ipsosAround the world, adults who spend time online are actively liking, following, talking about, and recommending brands. A study by Ipsos Open Thinking Exchange (Ipsos OTX) and Ipsos Global @dvisor puts some numbers to those activities.

According to the June 2012 Socialogue report from Ipsos, nearly two in five online adults worldwide (38%) have recommended a brand that they liked or followed on a social networking site like Facebook, Twitter, and so on. In the United States, 35% of online adults have recommended a brand that they liked or followed on a social networking site.

These online recommendations are important to brands. The Ipsos study reports that nearly one in four people (22%) said that they have purchased a brand because a friend recommended or followed that brand online. Of course, consumers in different parts of the world are more likely to follow, like, and recommend brands online than others. Online adults in Latin America are the most likely to recommend a brand they like or follow on a social network. The Ipsos survey found the following percentages of online adults that have already recommended a brand they like or follow on a social network:

  1. Latin America = 53%
  2. Middle East and Africa = 49%
  3. BRIC nations (Brazil, Russia, India, and China) = 46%
  4. Asia-Pacific = 37%
  5. Europe = 32%
  6. North America = 31% (United States = 35% and Canada = 27%)

As you’d expect, not only does geography play a part in how likely people are to like, follow, and recommend brands on social networks but age, gender, and income level have an effect as well. Of the American online adult popultion, Ipsos found the following:

  • Gender: Women are more likely to recommend a brand that they like or follow online than men (41% vs. 29%).
  • Age: The younger online adult audience (35 years old and under) are more likely to make brand recommendations via social networks than the older online audience (both 36-49 year olds and 50-64 year olds). (48% vs. 37% vs. 20%)
  • Income: Online adults with higher incomes are  more likely to recommend brands they like or follow on social networks than people in lower income brackets (high income = 36% vs. medium income = 38% vs. low income = 20%).
  • Marital Status: Married people are more likely than unmarried people to recommend a brand they like or follow on a social network (38% vs. 32%).
  • Occupation: Senior decision-makers are more likely to recommend brands they like or follow on social networks than lower-level employees (44% vs. 34%).

Regardless of the industry a brand operates in or its target audience, there are people online around the world who are willing to like, follow, talk about, and recommend that brand. The key is to create content and conversations that lead to brand relationships and emotional involvement with consumers, which lead to recommendations and word-of-mouth marketing. The proof that people are willing to follow and recommend brands online is in the numbers above.

Image: Ipsos

Creative Brand Cross-Promotion – Toyota iQ and Google Street View

toyota iq google street viewGoogle Street View is a handy tool that lets you explore places around the world through 360-degree street-level imagery. But when Google Street View debuted in Belgium last year, there was a problem. Many streets in Belgium are too small for a car to navigate. Therefore, Google Street View had gaping holes of missing content in Belgium. Google needed to fill those gaps.

Toyota iQ is a tiny car as you can see in the above image. The Happiness Brussels agency saw an opportunity to promote the Toyota iQ while solving Google’s problem at the same time. Toyota iQs were fitted with 360-degree cameras and equipment to record the narrow streets that Google’s cars couldn’t.

A special iQ Street View website launched where consumers were asked to add streets that hadn’t been captured by Google Street View yet, and the Toyota iQ would go out and capture them. People could also view tagged streets on the iQ Street View site and sign up to test drive the Toyota iQ. The site also includes a video that shows the Google Street View and Toyota iQ story. You can watch it below.

But that’s not all. People who live on the narrow streets tagged on the iQ Street View website will be mailed special offers for the Toyota iQ. There is no doubt that the people who live on those streets are a perfectly targeted audience for the iQ.

This is a great example of out-of-the-box creative thinking that brings two strong brands together for a cross-promotional opportunity that benefits both of the participating brands and consumers. What do you think? Leave a comment and share your thoughts on the Google Street View and Toyota iQ cross-promotion initiative.

Image: Toyota

Brands Take Notice – American Moms Are Active and Influential Online

women-brandsAmerican mothers are very active online, and they’re also very influential. They’re reading, writing, and sharing product reviews and opinions across social networks with family, friends, and strangers. Brands are often part of the online conversations happening between people around the world, but did you know how popular social media really is for American moms? A great infographic from Nielsen puts a lot of the data into perspective. Here are some highlights.

Social Networking for American Moms:

  • 3 out of 4 American moms visited Facebook during March 2012.
  • Moms are 38% more likely to follow a brand or become a fan of a brand online than the average online audience, and moms who blog are twice as likely to do so.
  • Facebook is the top social network for moms (72.5% of U.S. moms who went online visited Facebook during March 2012) vs. 14.1% of U.S. moms who went online and visited Twitter.
  • American moms are 61% more likely to visit Pinterest than the average American.
  • During March 2012, 5 million American moms visited Pinterest, which equates to one-third of the site’s unique visitors from home computers that month.

Blogging for American Moms:

  • 1 in 3 bloggers are moms.
  • Moms visit blogs more frequently than the average online population.
  • 52% of bloggers are parents with kids under 18 in the household.

E-commerce for American Moms:

  • Moms are 59% more likely to buy toys, 35% more likely to buy clothes, and 23% more likely to buy ebooks online than the average online population.

Mobile for American Moms:

  • Half of moms use social media via mobile devices vs. 37% of the online population.
  • 54% of moms own smartphones (of U.S. mobile subscribers).

Here’s what brands need to understand about American moms, and moms around much of the world. They’re spending a great deal of time online and much of that time is spent discussing and analyzing brands and products. Why wouldn’t your brand be a part of those conversations? Why shouldn’t your brand be part of those conversations? It’s hard to come up with valid arguments against spending time where your target audience clearly spends a great deal of time. Don’t you think? Next time an executive tells you that your female target audience isn’t digitally-savvy and social media or online marketing in general shouldn’t be a priority, show him or her this data and ask those two questions. The responses are likely to be very weak.

Image: Hilde Vanstraelen