Making fun of the ad business, brush up your french!
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Viewing entries tagged
advertising
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You have the luxury of not knowing what I know!
Wihaaa!
Spotzer offers an online video library with which you can quickly produce video spots, at a low price. The system is integrated with a media distribution system allowing you to launch your spot on a number of sites.
It sounds like a "Long Tail" idea, allowing SME's to step into video advertising, but to me it sounds way too much like old markting on new media. But it guess there still a market for old skool advertising today.
Read about it on Emerce (in Dutch)
eMarketer publishes the results of a survey by ZenithOptimedia about the evolution of add spendings by channel. The title is "Online Ad Spending to Outpace Overall Ad Market Growth" and the subtitle too talks about a overproportional growth for online advertising. All good news for the evangelists of online advertising, but I found the numbers for online to rather low. Now, let's have a look at them in another perspective.
In 2006 online add spending is supposed to end at a 5,8% share, knowing that people spend largely over 20% of their media-time online. In three years time the online advertising share will, according to this study, be at 8,6%. But how much time will people spend online by then? Let's make a few assumptions:
1. "The Web" & stuff
Pure internet use as we know it today will grow, and let's assume it grows to the same level as time spent watching TV, about 30%. Considering the emergence of video on the web, this sounds logical. By this logic, the growth of online advertising as predicted by ZenithOptimedia simply follows the growth of the medium itself: about 50% in two years time. I don't believe this.
Online advertising is still in an infant stage. All players (advertisers, media, media planners & creative agencies) are working hard to find the right model, to become more professional and to grasp the real potential of the web. This must result in a disproportionate growth. So 8,6% in 2009? Make that 14% or so (gut feel).
2. What is TV?
How is TV defined in this context? IP TV, Internet TV, interactive TV through cable, etc. The traditional broadcast model is being challenged thanks to new technology which allow for interaction. Viewers become participants. This again requires new communication strategies which are much closer to what today is called online advertising then to traditional broadcast TV commercials. It would be an interresting exercise to try and quantify this evolution too in a survey.
3. And how mobile and games?
What about the third screen, and the game console? Playstation and Microsoft are stepping up their efforts in in-game advertising. Mobile devices, especially phones, are probably more important in time spent by the consumer then TV. Advertising on these devices is still developing, but in three years time a lot can happen.
In my opinion the 8,6% share for online in 2009 may reflect the share of 'traditional' online advertising, meaning banners of all kind. But we'll for sure add the same amount in new channels and new ways of using interactive media for marketing purposes. The world is to the creative and innovative, the revolution is on!
The famous "red button" of interactive TV that allows you to interact with a commercial is finding it's way to adverting agencies in Belgium. But there is one thing that gets on my nerves. Although the medium is very new, the oldfashioned thinking and lack of respect for the people watching TV is striking. Let me explain ...
Interactive TV spots have to be scheduled at the END of a commercial block. Logic: If somebody decides to interact with the commercial, they would miss the rest of the adds and other advertisers would not appreciate that.
Now, people with a lot of experience in traditional advertising told me I shouldn't worry. In fact, the first adds in a block are apparently also not the best choice. Reason is that very few people see these adds as this is the time when everybody runs of to get a drink (or get rid of drink what they drunk). Not a big surprise, but interresting to hear this is commonly accepted in the traditional media industry.
So, voluntarily interacting with a good commercial (let's assume) rather then sitting through 3 more boring tooth paste commercials is not allowed by the media moguls, but missing the second part of your favourite TV show is not an issue. Sigh! Conclusion: these people are making TV for the advertisers, not for the consumers. Talking about disrespecting your audience.
I bet you the next research that's published on interactive TV will say that these new advertising ideas (you know, inviting people to interact with brand) are not a big succes.
I've always be kinda sceptical about viral marketing. The reason being that it's always been much too dependant on a cool or freaky idea. If it was nog sexy, funny, controversial or voyeuristic, nobody would send it on to friends. And the people that would send it mostly fitted in the target groups "advertising professionals" or "people with an internet connection at work and no boss looking over their shoulder". Not really the kind of targetting everybody was dreaming about when the internet was discovered by advertisers.
But the world is changing (of course). The online crowd is growing so our target group expands in all directions. YouTube and Google Video let us forward links to online movies without congesting the mailservers. And broadband overcapacity lets us play freely with all kinds of interactive viral applications.
So what's happening now ...
"Viral" has simply become another way of distributing advertising. It can be video, which offers new challanges to TV-spot creators: no rules, no limitations. Or it can be an interactive application, a challange for interactive marketeers. But in any case, the consumer is the judge. If it's uninterresting, not compelling and not targeted at a target group with which I feel connected, it won't work.
Surprise, surprise: bringing a relevant message in an compelling way to the correct target group is what communcation has always been about.
In fact, good viral marketing comes down to simply good advertising. So we can stop making up lists of reasons WHETHER to use viral marketing, but work on a vision about WHEN to use this channel. This is my first attempt:
1. Objective: It works for branding, more then for selling or activating.
2. Target group: If your target group consists of (a) clearly defined community(ies), which you can reach in some way.
3. Timing: Being in a hurry doesn't work, there is no guarantee when the virus wil spread.
Feel free to add your ideas ...
To close this post, here is a great example of something that works:
Wanna work in advertising
Why?:
1. It makes me feel this brand has something to offer me.
2. Me = an advertising professional = part of a community that communicates a lot amoung each other.
