Archive for the ‘Media’ Category

How Magazines Are Becoming More Meaningful

Tuesday, February 9th, 2010

magazine

A little more than a week ago, I spoke as guest of Better Homes and Gardens to a group of marketers and media planners in New York City. For the weeks leading up to this presentation I had been collecting examples of how magazine publishers are adapting to the new world of digital content and meaningful advertising. What I discovered is that despite the predictions that the magazine business is fading, there actually is an incredible rebirth of the medium going on.

First let me call out that this breakfast at Better Homes and Gardens is itself an outstanding example of Marketing with Meaning. Along with my speech, the magazine brought in Robert Levy, who shared insights from his group’s most recent study of consumer habits and attitudes around new products. The magazine provided valuable, free content to the marketers that it works with—in a way, investing in their careers, rather than just giving them cheaper ad space. This is a lesson in B2B marketing that I wrote about several months ago here.

One of the most remarkable examples I discovered was the December 2009 issue of Food Network Magazine. As described in this article at Talk Back Media, much of the advertising in this issue offers added value content. For example, an ad for Hillshire Farm and Hamilton Beach had tear-out recipe cards, and an insert from Viva paper towels included tips for keeping the home clean. These are great examples of Meaningful Solutions.

I also dug into the archive for an example in which Wired magazine partnered with Xerox to create a limited number of magazines with actual subscribers’ faces on the covers. The experience was tied to an issue focused on digital personalization, and allowed Xerox to feature its new small-batch printing equipment. While it was a great opportunity for those who got their own covers, there were a lot of people like me who were disappointed because of the limited number Xerox made.

One of the great lessons here is that some of the best magazine marketing occurs when an advertiser dedicates a significant portion of their budget with the specific title and builds ideas together. This flies in the face of the traditional media approach, in which agencies come up with the ideas, and media buyers seek out many titles and the lowest possible ad rates. With a partnership, the magazines can bring much more creativity into the marketer’s business.

It reminds me of when I was launching the Mr. Clean AutoDry Car Wash business for P&G in 2003. I met with the leadership team of Motor Trend and we put together a deal in which we agreed to a year of back cover ads at a reasonable fee. In return, our product was used and reviewed by its editors, and received a “Motor Trend Approved” endorsement that we used on our package. This helped us get over the main barrier to purchase—that car guys would not believe our product actually allowed a car to dry without spots. I recall many discussion boards around the time of our marketing launch where guys said, “If the people at Motor Trend say it works, then I believe it.”

In the future, smart magazine publishers would be wise to insist that their advertisers be more meaningful, and consult with them to help them succeed. The reason is that the ads are part of the reading experience, and the more valuable the entire reading experience is, the more people will subscribe. It will take a publisher to show some guts for this to happen, though.

Although these examples show that meaningful marketing can find a home in magazines, it is interesting to wonder whether or not market shifts could make advertising a lot less important to content makers like this. Overall, advertising is a “necessary evil” to publishers. Their desire is to make a magazine that people love and choose to subscribe to. Advertising makes up for the difference between subscriptions and the cost to publish the magazine. But what if new devices such as Kindle and the iPad, and new payment schemes that allow a cost-per-article revenue model, end up making the quality of the content the driver of business? Imagine if magazine publishers could get rid of the advertising sales department and just make great content? It might seem like a long way off, but if I were starting a magazine today, I would try to figure out how to build a business that doesn’t even require an advertising model.

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Posted in B2B, Media | 4 Comments »

Don’t Fear the “Splintered Web”

Tuesday, February 2nd, 2010

Apple-iPad-001

It didn’t take long for Apple’s iPad announcement to be co-opted by industries that worry about how the iPad will upend their legacy businesses. You might assume this to be the book publishers, who might fear lower margins on e-books, or newspapers, who are struggling to figure out how to profit from companies that make it easier to enjoy their content at no cost. But actually the biggest voice against the iPad so far is my very own industry: Digital Advertising.

Late last week two of the leading voices of digital marketing emerged with very public warnings for the advertising world if “walled gardens” continue to proliferate. In his blog, Randall Rothenberg, President and CEO of the Interactive Advertising Bureau, claimed that the iPad is a “threat to advertising.” And Forrester’s Josh Bernoff, the co-author of Groundswell, wrote in Advertising Age and his blog about how this new technology and others “means the end of the Web’s golden age.” When these two people quickly jump to pull the fire alarm, we all should probably listen.

Their overall argument is that the rise of new devices with proprietary software such as the iPad, Kindle, Android, iPhone, Facebook, and TiVo is ushering in an era of a “closed” Web. Bernoff calls this “The Splinternet” to suggest that we are splintering off into many sub-Webs with their own rules and access privileges. Rothenberg calls these “attempts to semi-privatize the Internet.” What both men fear is that this will make the jobs of marketers and advertisers much, much more difficult because of the additional work needed to adapt advertising to multiple relationships, creative units, and measurement standards—among other limits to “scale.”

From the leader of the biggest representative of the digital advertising industry, Rothenberg’s words carry a lot of weight. He is fearful of how this proliferation of semi-private Web devices will significantly weaken his members’ businesses:

“Put simply, a company’s opportunity to create, sell and use advertising effectively and profitably will depend on its ability to deliver it seamlessly across multiple devices…. …The creative agencies on the IAB Agency Advisory Board have said categorically that their single greatest obstacle to advertising effectiveness and growth is their inability to deliver the same rich-media ads to tens of millions of households across multiple sites because, as they put it, ‘the rich media toolkit differs too much from site to site.’”

As a former client-side digital marketer and current leader of a digital advertising agency, I certainly appreciate Rothenberg’s representation and passionate focus on protecting and improving our industry. However, I humbly disagree that this “splintering” of the Web will kill digital advertising. It might kill mass, interruptive banner advertising, but it is already ushering in incredible new forms of meaningful marketing.

First, the reality of economics is that you often have to get some level of privatization for market economics to take hold. Apple has created a great deal of privatization in the music industry through the iPod. This has led to a real, thriving marketplace in which Apple has an incentive and ability to continually improve the user experience. The better it makes iTunes, the more music it sells. Further, consumers like that Apple is protecting them from porn and malware. Many real, thriving businesses and happy consumers have been spawned by Apple’s efforts so far. The old music industry (like the old advertising industry) did not like how this market opened up, but it was their own fault for not accepting the change and figuring out how to win.

Google has also privatized the Web in a way, too. It has a search engine that sets rules about the content that it crawls and ranks, filtering out the “open” Internet into a closed ranking system that it alone fully controls. Its algorithm treats some content better than others, and the company even decides which countries’ laws it does and doesn’t want to obey. The result: A fairly well-organized tool that has made consumers’ lives much better, and created billions in value for both shareholders and advertisers. Again, this has taken money away from old advertising players such as traditional agencies and the Yellow Pages. Sorry, guys.

At the end of the day, marketers were not put in their jobs to ensure that the mass banner-ad market keeps running well. Marketers want to sell their products and services. Interruptive advertising spread across many digital properties at once is but only one of many ways to achieve this goal. In fact, it is a marketing strategy that is looking worse and worse—both in the online and offline world—whether standardization exists or not. People pay decreasing attention and trust to the growing number of interruptive ads that we experience in our lives each day.

On the other hand, tools such as Google and the iPhone are allowing marketers to find and forge meaningful connections with their customers and add value to their lives. Tools such as Nike+ or Kraft’s iFood app are not “easy” for marketers to execute with the push of a single ad unit. But they are taking marketing to a much higher level both in terms of the impact on customers’ lives and the company’s bottom lines. Standardized banner ads are the absolute least interesting way to win in this exciting digital world. I think leaders such as Rothenberg and Bernoff can take the bar much higher by helping us adjust to where the marketplace—and society—wants us to go.

I believe it will be impossible for the advertising tail to wag the device/technology dog. One might argue that profit incentives will press device manufacturers such as Apple and Amazon to embrace standardized ad units. But frankly there is probably not enough incentive for them to do so. First, why adjust everything to make $.01 per viewer (or less) in ad revenue when the same viewer will pay $.99 (or more) for apps? The economic pressure is to dump the ad sales force and hire more software designers to keep upgrading the devices. Second, by embracing standardized units these companies are selling out their superior user experiences to the lowest-common CPM. Making all media and devices equal devalues the difference of an iPad.

As a digital advertising industry, we need to force ourselves to stop trying to dumb down our work to standardized banners and counting impressions. We must become more focused on making digital marketing work—especially in a way that has a positive impact on people’s lives. Instead of holding up a sword against the horde of change, our industry needs leaders who will help marketers understand the reality of societal change and start building what works next.

As I wrote in a guest post on the 1to1 Media blog recently, mass, interruptive scale might die—but meaningful, personal connections between marketers and their customers will rise.

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Posted in Concept, Media, Organizational Behavior | 2 Comments »

Consumers Rejecting Targeted Ads

Wednesday, October 21st, 2009

targeted ads unwanted

One of the promises of digital marketing that has kept our industry excited and optimistic for the past 10-plus years has been the opportunity to learn about individual consumers and serve them relevant advertisements. The hypothesis is that more relevant interruptions will be more engaging, incite positive action, and reduce waste. Aside from behavioral targeting, which uses cookies to help websites personalize banner ads for individual site visitors, social-media services such as Facebook have promised to open up further opportunities by reading into what people are posting about themselves. Even cable companies are experimenting with personally addressable TV commercials.

But despite all of the hope and hype, targeted ads have not become the revolution that we digital marketers have longed for. Not only are people ignoring highly targeted ads just as much as they do all other banners, but new research suggests that many consumers are outright rejecting the idea of personalized marketing.

I’m a few weeks late in catching the results of a new survey by professors at the University of Pennsylvania and the University of California, Berkeley in which represents one of the first pieces of research not done by digital marketers (who have an understandable bias). In their telephone survey of 1,000 adults nationwide, they asked: Do you want websites you visit to show you ads, discounts, or news tailored to your interests? Before getting to the results, let me first say that this is an excellent way to word the question. It does not introduce the idea of cookies or other privacy third-rails. If anything, this question format seems to emphasize the positive aspects of advertising and content targeting.

Even as a hardened digital marketer I was surprised at the results: 67% of Americans do not want advertisements that are tailored to their interests. A further 51% reject personalized discounts and 58% don’t even want tailored news. Again, this is without seeding survey respondents with doubt and questions about how their personal information is captured and turned into tailored ads. This is a very, very bad sign for the digital advertising industry and website content creators.

What’s worse, when the researchers started describing how their information was tracked, even more people rejected the idea of personalization. From The New York Times:

“The respondents’ aversion to tailored ads increased once they learned about targeting methods. In addition to the original 66 percent that said tailored ads were ‘not O.K.,’ an additional 7 percent said such ads were not O.K. when they were tracked on the site. An additional 18 percent said it was not O.K. when they were tracked via other Web sites, and an additional 20 percent said it was not O.K. when they were tracked offline.”

Some believe that this data has little impact on the industry; sure, people will always say that they hate advertising, they say. Others add that people will protest ads until they learn that it’s the only way they will get free content. The problem is that the government is getting very close to stepping in and regulating targeted advertising. David Vladeck, the new head of the Bureau of Consumer Protection at the Federal Trade Commission, has promised to look closely at such online ad targeting, and has already publicly called some tactics “Orwellian.”

Here’s the problem for marketers: No one is going to stand up and tell the FTC to back off us. We advertisers as an industry have punished consumers for years with meaningless messages pressed against their eyeballs by the thousands each day. Because we can, we have hit them with ads everywhere from their email inboxes to elevators and gas pumps. Our level of society respect lies with used-car salesmen. Who is going to protest in favor of more advertising, even when we threaten that we’ll take away our free content?

With data like this study, Vladeck and the FTC essentially have a mandate to act against personalized targeting. It gives them impartial proof that the people don’t value personalized offers, and their job is to, well, do what the people want. Lawmakers and the FTC can also recall how the National Do Not Call Registry unanimously sailed through Congress and home phone numbers have been registered by more than 70% of Americans. The Direct Marketing PACs could do nothing to stop that legislation and there is little hope that we can stop this, either.

Look, I’m an executive at a digital marketing agency and I will feel the pain like anyone else in this business if this legislation goes through. But I also realize that you can’t force people to view or accept your advertising. This is why I am so passionate about the concept of Marketing with Meaning. I fundamentally believe that the only thing we can do to survive in this business is to create marketing that people choose to engage with and advertising that adds value to people’s lives.

So, people don’t like and genuinely fear personalized advertising. I take that as a sign that we’ve got move on to something that they do value. That is why I believe in creating content that people choose to view, read, or listen to. That is why I believe the future of digital, and marketing overall, lies much more in creating services and positive social movements. So while my company and I still make a lot of banner ads, we are also driving ourselves and our clients to create more meaningful marketing.

Isn’t it time we as an industry stop trying to fight against public opinion and do everything we can to make the public embrace our brands?

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Posted in Banners, Government, Marketing Without Meaning, Media, Movement, Personalization, culture | 2 Comments »

End the GRP; Embrace Engagement

Monday, August 24th, 2009

I was extremely disheartened last week to read an article by Geoff Ramsey, CEO of eMarketer, who announced that he was finally coming around to the belief that digital marketing must submit to be measured and compared according to Gross Ratings Points (GRPs), which is a way of counting the number of people who are exposed to an advertisement. Although he stopped short of calling GRPs the only way to measure, his comment signals a step back in both digital in particular and marketing overall. It’s a sign that more and more new media leaders are giving up on the medium’s potential to change the marketing rules, and have succumbed to the traditional, interruptive model in hopes of speeding the move of dollars to digital. But I’m not about to cave in, and instead would like to promote the cause of a new marketing measure: engagement.

In his article, Ramsey claims that his mind was changed after interviews with numerous smart people in the media buying and measurement field. Examples include:

  • “At the end of the day, we ultimately need a standard…. We need a metric that will allow marketers to mix and match and to allocate dollars across whatever the platform is….” —Pam Horan, CEO of the Online Publishers Association
  • “…If you don’t have [GRPs], I don’t see how you can really understand the intricacies of your media plan or compare it across media.” —Gian Fulgoni, Chairman of comScore

Ramsey claims that marketers want two questions answered: First, “How successfully and efficiently did I reach my target audience?” He calls the GRP, a measure of reach and frequency, something that can answer this. The second question is tougher: Did my advertising influence the intended target’s attitudes, perceptions, or behaviors associated with the brand?” The GRP doesn’t address this.

I agree with the overall points of these experts: Marketers do need a standard measurement across media, and we do need to know how successfully and efficiently they reached their target audience. But measuring eyeball impressions is no longer good enough for any form of marketing. In a world of 3,000 ad messages a day and technology that allows unprecedented ad skipping, the “impression” is less and less able to sway purchase habits. It is failing to answer Question #1, above, and has decreasing impact on Question #2.

Ironically, while the digerati are giving in to the call for GRP measures, at least one big traditional media buyer is heading in the opposite direction. In a recent Ad Age article that suggests the recession is leading marketers to “hit the reset button” on where they put their dollars, Phil Cowdell, head of WPP media agency Mindshare, says:

I feel we could be facing an inflection point in our industry. The often contradictory forces of procurement-driven cost reductions and the marketing departments’ calls for more, smarter and better [approaches] will create an increasingly uncomfortable and potentially less effective operating zone for agencies. The only viable way forward is to shift from the procurement-oriented benchmarks of input measures such as CPMs [or cost per 1,000 viewers] to more output-oriented measures such as cost per hand-raiser and cost per lead. We need to move away from pure cost to a more-considered value equation.”

Meanwhile, data continues to show that the only way to successfully sell product is to get people to willingly engage with marketing. Instead of capitulating to the old-world measure of impressions, we must measure digital—and all marketing choices—according to the higher standard of engagement. Reach and impressions represent the wallpaper of a consumer’s day. But engagement is your welcome foot in the door of the consumer’s mind.

While there is no firm consensus among new media gurus on the definition of “engagement,” most sources point to a common theme: When people willingly direct their attention to your marketing, you have achieved engagement. There are many types of engagement and some can be more meaningful than others, for example:

  • Reading text (consciously)
  • Watching video (consciously)
  • Playing games
  • Forwarding/sharing
  • Voting
  • Commenting
  • Creating text/graphics/audio/video

Every item on this list requires the consumer to choose to pay attention to your marketing.

While admittedly imperfect, engagement is the closest thing we have to the next holy grail of marketing measurement. It fits with a common-sense belief that when people get more personally involved in your marketing, they are likely to develop a more favorable impression of your brand and learn something important about your product or service. Engagement is extremely measurable thanks to digital tools that can gauge everything from time on site to number of video views. And engagement is versatile enough to work across all forms of media. For example, Facebook apps can read how many people are using the code, and TiVo and Nielsen are now reporting which TV commercials are skipped and which are replayed.

Finally, changes in consumer media habits suggest that engagement will become even more important going forward. We are spending more of our media time in “lean-forward” mode. According to a Forrester report that called engagement “marketing’s new key metric”:

…Passive consumption of media is waning. Individuals dismiss or ignore marketing messages in lieu of information available from an ever-increasing number of resources, such as product review sites, message boards, and online video.”

The biggest downside to engagement is that it requires thought and processing, rather than just counting eyeballs. Engagement is multidimensional, and marketers and their media agencies must work together to define the right measures for each program up-front. And while it is important, engagement is merely the beginning of a robust measurement program. From this starting point, brands must build metrics to ensure that this foot-in-the-door leads to closing a sale.

It’s not easy for Ramsey and other digital-marketing leaders to change the media measuring and buying habits of thousands of marketers, but it is the right thing to do for our clients, our businesses, and the people who buy our products and services. Who’s with me?

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Posted in Engagement, Marketing Without Meaning, Media, Organizational Behavior | 5 Comments »