Online video advertising spending will grow more than 48% this year, reaching $1.5 billion.
This is good news for brand builders. Nothing can deliver an emotional selling proposition as well as moving pictures with sound.
It will be interesting to see how the metrics police will determine the ROI on video advertising. How do you measure the seeding of a brand idea deep into a consumer’s mind? If there’s no click through, is the ad really working?
Sales based research will grow in importance. Precise targeting of video ads linked to sales data will help marketers understand which ads are selling products. Sales are the ultimate measurement, right?
Also, subjective judgement will re-enter the mix as a valid decision making tool. It’s about time. After all, persuasion is an art, not a science. Not everything can be reduced to bits and bytes.
Designers, like engineers, carefully study and predict behavior.
On your way to work today, you may have stopped at a big red hexagon. You did this not because you felt like it. You stopped because you knew it was a stop sign.
You didn’t have to process the meaning of the sign.
You knew what it meant at first glance.
Sure that’s societal training, but it’s also clear and careful design.
A bold shape, bright color and arresting text. You have to stop.
Now think about the web. How do you “know” to navigate from page to page, or that the big receptive icons mean “click me.”
Designers have determined that users are more likely to look for certain elements in certain locations on a web page.
With the right application of color and importance, they choreograph your attention through their work.
Design is not arbitrary. Design is a product of good research and continuing adaptation to an increasingly interactive world.
But the smart print brands are whistling past the graveyard. They are assessing their content and figuring out new ways to cash in.
Meredith Corporation, the Des Moines based publisher of Family Circle, Better Homes & Gardens and Ladies Home Journal has evolved into a digital licensing giant.
The New Yorker’s Cartoon Bank offers a simple keyword search to help people browse (and buy) cartoons from decades past.
Last week, Gourmet resurrected itself as an app called Gourmet Live.
Media may change, but brands endure. Just as some radio soap operas and dramas segued into television, strong print brands are able to do the Darwinian shuffle.
Several years ago, Rich Silverstein of Goodby, Silverstein and Partners remarked that he and others at his agency were going “back to school” on new media. Rather than milk their award winning traditional campaigns, the agency embraced what the Zen masters call “beginner’s mind.”
Now look at ‘em. They are one of the most prolific and creative agencies working on the web.
Here’s a book I’m sure they are studying today. (And not just because Jeff Goodby wrote a section.) It’s called The Internet Case Study Book. It’s the latest release from Taschen and is edited by Rob Ford, founder of thefwa.com and Julius Wiedemann.
It contains “the stories and statistics behind some of the most successful sites on the web.” Creatives, CMO’s, stats junkies, students…everyone in this business can find inspiration from this book. It’s divided into five sections: Campaigns, E-Commerce, Promotional, Social Media and Corporate. Each section is introduced by an industry leader and these alone are worth reading several times over.
Some favorite quotes:
“The best work isn’t projected, it’s shared.” Ajaz Ahmed of AKQA
“Participation is the power that drives democracies, movements and all organizations.” Freddy Mini of Netvibes
“Do read this book. Don’t let it collect dust.” Rob Ford of thefwa.com
What would the original “Mad Men” make of the world wide interweb?
Here are two quotes, one from David Ogilvy and another from Bill Bernbach. And some thoughts on how their words can be interpreted today.
“Every advertisement should be thought of as a contribution to the complex symbol which is the brand image.” David Ogilvy
The transactional nature of the web has transformed marketing. Click and buy. Send this. Save that. Redeem now. But brands should remember that every consumer experience with a brand is a building block towards something larger and more durable.
“Today’s smartest advertising style is tomorrow’s corn.” Bill Bernbach
Too often, marketers and agencies lean back on yesterday’s case studies. How often have we heard, “Give me an “elf yourself” or “let’s do a viral video”? Creative leaps always go forward.
Great piece by Denise Lee Yohn, a brand consultant, about how marketing is losing its mojo. Marketing execs are pinning their hopes on new tools, especially in the social media space. But without a vivid brand identity and positioning, what good are tactics and metrics? She writes,
“We need to first think “what,” then “how.”
Carpenters don’t study their toolboxes to come up
with ideas for furniture to make. Composers don’t
begin writing symphonies by identifying the
instruments that will play them.”
I love the composer reference. Beethoven would walk for hours in the woods and create symphonies in his head. Then he would figure out the tools.
It all comes back to an enduring truth about marketing. To truly drive growth, a brand needs a relevant and persuasive idea. Something that stands out in people’s minds. Something that is worthy of conversation and action. First create that idea, and then open the toolbox.
If branded experiences are the new advertising, how does a brand play the Super Bowl? You get 30 seconds to engage 90 million viewers in the flashiest, noisiest television event of the year. Do you join the tired parade of tricky animals, slapstick, bimbos and cute babies? Or do you engage people with a simple, elegant experience that makes them feel your brand?
Google got it right.
The promise of the brand comes alive in a sans serif love story. Google, more than anyone, understands the power of metrics and marketing science. But they also understand the emotional space that a brand must occupy. They understand that stories about people are far more interesting than anything else a brand could possibly say. Their spot felt like something Apple would do if they were in the search business.
Companies that utilize a public and/or a private Web site for information sharing are constantly under new security threats. And, the problem is getting worse due to automated tools that can distribute their infestations via botnets. In particular, many individuals and companies are seeing increasing attacks through social network sites because the audiences—at these social media sites—are more vulnerable and less knowledgeable on phishing and malware attacks.
As a result of these automated security threats, there has been an increase in password theft and cross-exposure where credentials for one application—like a social media account—are getting discovered and then utilized for access to banking, business, and more confidential types of accounts. So… what can companies do to help them be more secure?
It is especially important that organizations adhere to some kind of “best practice” for security. For example, the ISO 27002 document provides excellent recommendations for information security management best practices. While this document covers many considerations, we believe that the password security policies section is a good place to start for employee password guidance. Below, please find a helpful checklist regarding the ISO 27002 recommendations and policies to share with your employees:
Keep passwords confidential
Avoid keeping a record (e.g. paper, software file or hand-held device) of passwords, unless this can be stored securely and the method of storing has been approved
Change passwords whenever there is any indication of possible system or password compromise
Select quality passwords with sufficient minimum length (typically 8 characters or greater) which are:
Easy to remember
Not based on anything somebody else could easily guess or obtain using person related information, e.g. names, telephone numbers, and dates of birth etc.
Not vulnerable to dictionary attacks (i.e. do not consist of words included in dictionaries)
Free of consecutive identical, all-numeric or all-alphabetic characters
Change passwords at regular intervals or based on the number of accesses (passwords for privileged accounts should be changed more frequently than normal passwords), and avoid re-using or cycling old passwords
Change temporary passwords at the first log-on
Not include passwords in any automated log-on process, e.g. stored in a macro or function key
Not share individual user passwords
Not use the same password for business and non-business purposes
If users need to access multiple services, systems or platforms, and are required to maintain multiple separate passwords, they should be advised that they may use a single, quality password (see d) above) for all services where the user is assured that a reasonable level of protection has been established for the storage of the password within each service, system or platform
Management of the help desk system dealing with lost or forgotten passwords needs special care as this may also be a means of attack to the password system (by fictitious callers, data hacking, etc.)
Make sure that any authentication attempt is being made though a legitimate logon screen utilizing an encrypted connection (i.e. SSL, etc.)
While many of these recommendations may seem obvious, I am quite certain that most users reading this blog have either violated one of these best practices and/or know someone who has…
Organizations actively seeking to tighten security can start by reinforcing the password policy checklist identified above and reminding personnel periodically about the importance of basic password security measures.
I worked at Ogilvy in the 1980’s and knew a media planner named Kristy. She had a sign in her office that read, “media is creative.”
Kristy steered clients to MTV before it took off. She predicted what new shows would be hits and what would bomb. Kristy had a feel for people and the media they consume.
Although she was not in the creative department, Kristy was one of the most creative thinkers in the agency.
If Kristy is still in the business—and I hope she is—she’s probably advising clients on how to use Facebook groups, pre-roll video, event marketing, etc.
If a client is selling microwaveable lunches, she’s probably telling them to advertise on screens in office elevators at lunchtime.
If a banking client wants to advertise mortgages, she’s probably convincing them to use search engine marketing instead of television commercials. If that same bank is offering free checking, she’ll tell them to use television commercials.
Creative media thinkers like Kristy always start with a few basic questions. What problem am I trying to solve? Where and how does my target audience spend their time? What’s an interesting way to engage them?
It takes creative thinking to answer these fundamental questions. Now more than ever, media is creative.
Digital Agencies and SEO marketers are constantly challenged to keep up with the latest techniques and trends for online search engine marketing (SEM).
One simple way to stay informed and become more knowledgeable on the leading search engines is to sign up for the following three webmaster tools:
Before any SEO efforts can produce successful results, it is extremely important to make sure that a web domain’s URL structure is working properly and that all the pages have been properly indexed/scored into the search engine’s catalog. These search engine SEO centers can help you understand what’s happening with Google, Bing, and Yahoo search crawlers and spiders. Check them out and please let me know if you agree or found this blog helpful?
