On Tuesday I wrote about my trip to the WPP Digital Stream conference in early October. One of the most interesting discussions came from an agency and client that will remain nameless. The subject of their discussion was eye tracking software, and how it showed them exactly how little their target consumers looked at the special offers that were presented on the home page of the site. It’s a great reminder of just how difficult it is to get meaningful marketing right.

For those who have not been exposed to the technology, eye tracking is a system that allows you to track what people look at when they come to a website. A special monitor tracks the movement of the research subject’s pupil, and software records the results. Two of the most popular outcomes are a “heat map” style report, like that shown above, and an “order of viewing” report that shows where people looked from first to last. The machines are expensive, but are coming down in price and rising in importance.

The subject of the discussion at Stream was that of a financial services company that had trouble getting its online customers to click on offers for additional services. The agency had just refreshed the home page by making the ad/offer space more prominent. And it created a system that would serve relevant ads to individual customers. For example, a person with a high credit card balance would see an offer for an outstanding interest rate.

Seems smart, right? Even meaningful, perhaps? Unfortunately, the results were horrible. It seemed like customers were not even seeing the great offer staring them in the face in the center of the page. Well, they were right. By using the eye tracking system, they found that people were completely ignoring the offer on the page. Ironically, the screen shot they shared was similar to the above screen shot for Virgin stores, which I found at the SEOmoz blog.

In our discussion, we worked to unearth the problem. As we saw it, the issues were twofold: First, people have learned to simply ignore online advertising. There is so much of it that we have trained ourselves to block it out completely. Second, when people are online, they are often on a mission. At a financial services site, they want to log into their account and get down to business. So no matter how well targeted the ad is, it’s only really relevant if the person is actively looking for a new credit card at the time. This is the reason why Facebook ads don’t work, but Google has created a multibillion-dollar AdWords product.

The solution is tougher to come by. In this case, I think the main answer is for the company to work harder to build a great “shopping center” for credit cards and other financial services. The magic really lies in getting someone who is ready to buy, and offering a brilliant experience. Another solution could be for the company to create a special “smart offer” section on the customer’s home page. Better wording and an explicit comment that the offer is “just for you” or “based on your account history” might have a chance of cutting through people’s expectation that anything in a box is an irrelvant ad.

Nothing is easy in the move from interruption to meaning, and from traditional to digital. But information like eye tracking results helps us get down to the real results, and helps us try the 100th option, which might actually work.

UPDATE: I should have linked to Jakob Nielsen’s post on banner blindness.  It’s super.

I’ve railed against interruptive marketing time after time in this space. The purpose of this blog is to promote the need for us to stop finding new ways to just “get eyeballs” and instead create advertising that people actually find valuable. But to prove the concept, it is important to continually test it. Let’s see if Zappos can pass the test with air-travel advertising.

Air travel is becoming a huge target of brilliant inventors’ attempts to make a buck by bombarding us with more advertising. Air travelers are certainly a great target for their efforts; they have higher incomes and need to make frequent decisions about where they stay or visit. And, most importantly, they are trapped in small places like security lines and airplane seats for hours—with nothing to do but stare at advertisements. As a result, we’ve seen ads arrive on tray tables, overhead storage bins, and even barf bags.  A company called Ad-Air is buying up land near runways to host football-field-sized banner ads.

So it is no surprise that someone has figured out how to turn the lowly security bin into an advertising medium. A company called SecurityPoint Media has been written up in Advertising Age and USA Today for its new, growing service. The company splits the revenue with the host airport, and the bins are approved for TSA use. The company claims that several million people per month see the advertising, and they have received no complaints so far.

Research has proven that airport travelers consist of a highly sought-after demographic that includes early adopters and decision makers.  There is no other airport marketing platform today that ensures your message meets the eye.” — SecurityPoint Media

During a training I was giving this week, someone in the audience mentioned that they had recently seen an ad for the online shoe store Zappos.com in these bins. It was memorable because it included cute copy and seemed extremely relevant (see above image). After all, what better time to talk shoes than when you’re asking someone to take them off and put them into a tray? But let’s test to see whether or not this is meaningful marketing.

Marketing

While we cannot get inside the heads of management, one would suppose that Zappos.com, a releatively new online retailer, has a business objective of driving awareness. The company likely sees tactics like this as a way to make a big impact without spending giant bucks on TV. Zappos says that the program is a success.  According to its senior marketing manager, Andy Kurlander:

We feel that this is a highly targeted venue to promote our brand. Each person getting on a plane is guaranteed to view our message multiple times. Plus, with shoes in hand, it’s the perfect instance to remind them they’ve been meaning to make time to buy a new pair. Why not Zappos?”

Meaning

Here’s where I think the Zappos example breaks down. We believe that meaningful advertising must do two things: First,  people must choose to engage in the ad. The Zappos ads, though, are more interruptive than engaging. The Zappos ad is a kind of “gotcha” surprise ambush. Second, the ad unit itself must add value to people’s lives. This might hold true, but just barely. The Zappos ad offers very light humor with lines such as “Place Shoes Here,” which can be a welcome diversion in the slow death march through the scanner line.

Conclusion

Is the Zappos.com security-bin marketing successful? Probably so. Is it meaningful? Not really. I believe new media opportunities like this tend to have a very short life span. The first ad units surprise us, and if they are clever and relevant (like Zappos), they can even delight us. But companies like SecurityPoint Media are not restricting themselves to clever, relevant advertisers, so those of us who trudge through the aiport each week will see more and more of them until they, too, become just another piece of ignored wallpaper along our journey from City A to City B.