"This research demonstrates that social video significantly increases brand attention," claims London-based Unruly Media. Unruly offers a global platform for social video advertising, has three US offices, and delivered such video campaigns as Old Spice’s “Man Your Man Could Smell Like” campaign and Coke’s “Happiness” series. Unruly commissioned research firm Decipher to study results across such consumer brands as Heineken, Coca-Cola and Energizer Batteries. The survey among 18-34 year olds investigated the impact of recommendation on brand metrics to determine social ad effectiveness.
Among the findings:
- Viewers are more likely to enjoy a video when it has been recommended than when encountered through browsing (14% higher enjoyment)
- Viewers are more likely to recall a brand name when the social video has been recommended than when encountered through browsing (7% higher recall)
- Viewers are more likely to engage with an ad’s messages when the social has been recommended than when encountered through browsing (10% higher brand association)
Who does the recommending? Certainly, peers in social media environments, but also authoritative bloggers and and news sources who covering advertiser content editorially: consider that all of that Super Bowl ad coverage by the news media (e.g., by CNN, which reported on Honda’s leaking its Ferris Beueller-themed ad).
Of course, what viewers do next after a recommendation is of key importance to advertisers. Decipher found that within three days of viewing social video—
- 49% purchased the advertised product
- 38% spoke to someone in person about the video
- 9% searched for the brand
- 4% searched for products of that type
If this sounds easy, recall that these results are based on videos that the viewers enjoyed, and which were recommended to the viewer. The source of brand awareness and purchasing influence is not on YouTube, rather, it rests where it always has: in an ad agency's creative department.
“The Economist” Banks that China Section Will Draw Readers, Advertisers
Beginning with this week’s issue, The Economist will run a section devoted entirely to China. This is only the third time in 170 years that the magazine has created a country-specific section. But as Editor in Chief John Micklethwait told Audience Development, “China is getting so large that trying to constrain it in a section like geo-politics was difficult.”
China is a broadly-interesting topic, Micklethwait believes, affecting the magazine’s entire global readership. The British-born magazine took the same stance during WWII with its still-existing U.S. section.
Circulation of The Economist within China is a miniscule 3,740, and Micklethwait is not counting on it growing; rather, he is counting on it increasing readership long-term in the U.S., among “That group [that] wants to know more about China than what they’re being told.”
In addition to mainstream business and politics, The Economist has reporters on the ground to cover rural life, social changes and emerging trends.
The Economist claims a 2011 circulation of 1,486,838, and a modest year-over-year growth of 3.03%. But Omniture clocked the digital edition with a swift 7,610,593 unique visitors in December 2011, and 34,124,539 page views.
Upfront Digital: Sundance on YouTube | Jeep Crashes Funeral | H&M’s Facebook Furor
- Twitter will launch its enhanced brand ads on February 1, according to Business Insider. The Facebook-like functionality has been available to a few select brands, including Coca-Cola, but now will be generally available—at a pricetag of $25,000.
- ESPN and Jeep caught heat from Digiday, which named the network and automaker in its Bad Ad of the Week.”ESPN covered the memorial service of former Penn State head football Joe Paterno. A rich-media ad for Jeep had a Jeep Wrangler “crash through” the computer screen, as well as Paterno’s casket, which sat dead center.
- The Sundance Film Festival and YouTube have cut a deal to rent out Sundance titles, reports Streaming Media. Most Sundance titles will rent for $2.99 to $3.99 for a 48-hour rental--$1 or more cheaper than from Comcast. The Sundance Film Festival wrapped over the weekend.
- Consumer-goods maker Procter & Gamble will “throw caution to the digital wind,” reports AdExchanger. Chairman and CEO Bob McDonald in an earnings conference call said the company would eliminate 1,600 non-manufacturing jobs, and invest heavily in its digital marketing. "In the digital space, with things like Facebook and Google and others, we find that return on investment of the advertising when properly designed, when the big idea is there, can be much more efficient."
- Angry consumers used Facebook to storm the gates of clothing retailer H&M last week. They accused the company of lifting a designer’s ad idea, reports Adweek. The company has begun marketing goods with the simple tagline “You look nice today,” with a red heart shape. Atlanta artist Tori LaConsay created the tagline—complete with red heart—for a sign in her neighborhood, in 2008. She was unpaid for the sign. Supporters have since deluged H&M’s Facebook site with hate messages. H&M at first attempted to dismiss the similarities as a “coincidence,” but is now seeking a resolution with LaConsay.
Bleacher Report Listens to Advertisers, Detractors, Hires Professional Writers
Online sports media giant Bleacher Report has since 2008 relied upon citizen journalists. But it will hire twenty professional sports writers, reports paidContent, to complement the content by “rabid fans [who] churn out buckets of barstool-style sports chatter.”
A Bleacher Report spokesman described its typical writer as “a guy who works by day and is a 49ers fan by night.” That may have created a tailgate-party appeal to sports fans, but it alienated some top advertisers. CBS Interactive chose not to renew a year-long contract, reported AdAge, supposedly turned off by such content as photos of scantily-clad women, and “insensitive editorial pieces.” CEO Brian Grey at the time pledged to clean up Bleacher Report’s act, and these new hires are part of that effort. Bleacher Report contributors are unpaid, like CNN iReporters, which fosters a few bits of superior journalism among a lot of silliness.
These newly-hired writers will be dedicated to specific fields (e.g. hockey and basketball), and will be in charge of filtering content and guiding contributors toward better content.
Even with its rough reputation, Bleacher Report attracts brands like TiVo’s Premiere Elite DVR, And Starz “Spartacus Vengeance.” Bleacher Report lists its demographics as:
- 71% Male
- 69% 18-49, 40% 18-34, 83% 21+
- 45% household income of $75k+, and 26% at $100k+
- The 5th most-visited digital sports property, with 9.0 million monthly unique visitors per comScore stats
New Guidelines for Food Marketing to Kids | Charlie Sheen to Star in New Sitcom
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The Children's Food and Beverage Advertising Initiative (CFBAI) last week unveiled its new guidelines for food marketing to kids, which it says will require food companies to reformulate approximately a third of the products they advertise to kids if they want to continue to do so. For example, canned pastas will have to have 600 mg of sodium or less to be advertised in kids shows, rather than the current CFBAI standard of 750, according to Broadcasting & Cable.
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FX has picked up 13 episodes of American Horror Story, from 20th Century Fox TV, for a fall 2011 and Halloween premiere, writes Deadline Hollywood. American Horror Story has supernatural elements -- for example, the housekeeper is perceived differently by the two spouses -- and also explores other forms of horror in society, inspired by classic1970s horror movies, including Rosemary's Baby, Don't Look Now and The Shining.
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Charlie Sheen will star in Anger Management, a new sitcom based on Revolution Studios' 2003 film of the same name. The sitcom will be produced by Lionsgate, headed by Television Group President Kevin Beggs and COO Sandra Stern; Revolution Studios, headed by Joe Roth and Vince Totino; Evolution Management, the production company of Sheen's manager, Mark Burg; and Robert Maron. It will be distributed by Lionsgate's Debmar-Mercury, which is headed by co-presidents Mort Marcus and Ira Bernstein. Sheen will retain a significant ownership stake in the series, reports Broadcasting & Cable.
Radio
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Giving up the terrestrial broadcast will transform a $17 billion business into an $8 billion business, according to Radio Insights. Counter to what radio critics and new-media enthusiasts suggest, if radio shuts down its transmitters and broadcast competes head to head with pure-play Internet services, radio revenue will plummet. The rough estimation suggests that every spot that runs on the Internet rather than over-the-air will generate one third the revenue. Something like $9 billion in spot revenue will vanish if radio turns off transmitters.
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According to Steve Lanzano, TVB President, local media only gets some 10% of the federal/military recruitment dollars, as well as those from census efforts, Job Corps, the US Postal Service, Health and Human Services, Department of Transportation, national parks and Veterans Administration; however, it’s actually cheaper now in almost all day parts to buy media on a local level vs. a national level, according to TVB analysis. The insights have made influence on the FCC big report in the information needs of communities, reports RBR-TVBR.
Chart: Top 10 Least Effective Ads, Q2 2011
About this chart: Source: Ace Metrix, “Quarterly Top 10 National Ads,” July 2011. Definition: Ace Score is the measure of ad creative effectiveness based on viewer reaction to national TV ads. Respondents are randomly selected and representative of the U.S. TV viewing audience. The results are presented on a scale of 0-950, which represents scoring on creative attributes such as relevance, persuasion, watchability, information, attention, and others.
Report: Coca-Cola’s “Shape” Ranks First for Q2 TV Ads
Coca-Cola’s “Shape” spot that featured its new bottle design was the most effective television advertisement for the second quarter ending June 30, 2011 according to Ace Metrix’s, “Quarterly Top 10 National Ads,” a guide for television advertising effectiveness.
The ad, which was Coke’s highest scoring ad of the last three years and the second-highest scoring ad out of more than 500 beverage ads in the Ace Metrix database, received an Ace Score of 670 compared to the Beverage category norm of 551.
The second quarter top ten list was dominated by new products and packaging enhancements across several different categories. Oreo launched its Fudge Creme line extension with a new spot featuring a family’s “indescribably good” reaction to the new cookie.
Other product launch and packaging enhancement ads include Google’s Chrome browser, Subway’s new salads, M&M’s “design your own M&Ms,” Magnum Ice Creams’ U.S. market launch, Wendy’s new sea salt French fries, Orville Redenbacher’s new popcorn bag, and the iPad 2.
The third highest-scoring ad, Google’s “Dear Sophie,” narrates a little girl’s life through the eyes of her father using a Gmail “diary” that demonstrates the capabilities of Google Chrome.
Google +1 Adds Publishing Partners | Some Ask ICANN .why? | Microsoft-Nielsen Target Web-to-TV
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Google has 19 new media partners worldwide who are implementing Google’s +1 button their news articles and pages, including The Telegraph, Independent.co.uk, NME and Last.fm, reports Paid Content. Google has been working with publishers to introduce the button, many of whom expressed concern about how much access they would have to data collected by Google from readers who “+1” content.
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ICANN’s recently unveiled plans to sell new .brand domain names for about $185,000 apiece has some considering the what-for, according to BtoB Online. Esther Dyson, a digital entrepreneur and former chairwoman of ICANN, expressed doubts: “I think it's kind of a useless market; and, if I had $185,000, I'd spend it on something else.”
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Microsoft's advertising division is collaborating with Nielsen to measure how effectively online advertising for TV programming leads desired viewers to actually watch the program. The Television Online Effect pilot program will begin some time in July, and use aggregate profile data from Nielsen's TV/Internet Fusion panel, an integrated database of more than 250,000 people. From that data, Microsoft will create a target audience, and then run a campaign across multiple Microsoft properties, reports MultiChannel News.
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Monster Worldwide, the parent company of job search site, Monster, has launched BeKnown, a professional networking Facebook app designed to enable users to establish a professional network and search for jobs, writes BtoB Online. BeKnown is available in 19 different languages, and aims to give Facebook users a separate, more professional place to collect work-related content.
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Vancouver, B.C.-based gaming studio Silicon Sisters, female creators of content targeting the girl-gamer audience, is gearing up to release their second girl game. The studio released its well-received first game, School 26, in April, and the next School 26 game -- Summer of Secrets – is due in July, writes Media Shift.
Chart: Purchase Funnel Results, Online Ads
About this chart: Source: AOL/IPG Media Lab, June 2011. "A Comprehensive Review: The IAB Portrait Ad Unit." The research surveyed 1,200 internet users with a test cell design of samples of 300 per control, 300x250 unit, 300x600 unit, and IAB Portrait unit. Each 300 person cell was divided equally between three advertisers for a total of 12 unique cells, and two scenarios of forced exposure.
Report: Performance of IAB Portrait Ad
AOL and the IPG Media Lab released the results of a study on the effectiveness and earned attention of IAB Portrait ad units versus traditional display advertising. The six-week long study focused on the effectiveness of IAB Portrait ad unit in the purchase funnel vs. standard ad units. Overall, the result indicated that the Portrait ad unit attracts attention twice as fast a standard units and views were looking at the ad four times longer.
Other findings include:
- Portrait units attract attention 35 percent faster than competing units, 81 percent more attention, and 95 percent more time in length of fixation.
- Live media metrics showed interaction rates rose between 4.5x – 7x.
- Influence rose dramatically: ◦ Users that indicated they would recommend the brand or product to Friends/Family rose 46 percent.
- Users that indicated they would visit the Brand site/Facebook Fan page increased 49 percent.
- Purchase intent rose 263 percent.