ANA Marketing Maestros

What Can Advertisers Learn from TV?

By Susan Burke

CBS’s hit show How I Met Your Mother is not only funny, but also a great example of how a sitcom has extended its life beyond a 30 minute time slot. Fans of How I Met Your Mother can visit the show’s homepage to access character blogs, trivia games, full episodes, and desktop apps. Many other shows offer this type of content on their homepages, but How I Met Your Mother has raised the bar by also designing separate websites to house the videos “created” by characters from the show (and they make a lot of them!), such as Marshall’s “Best Night Ever” video, Barney’s video resume, or the now expired SlapBet countdown clock.

These videos allow the show to remain a part of viewers’ lives after Monday night has come and gone. They also can be easily forwarded to friends who may not even watch the show. Additionally, NBC’s The Office has gotten into the value-added video game with their new “Subtle Sexuality” music video, featuring characters from the show.

   

These videos help TV shows reach and excite their biggest fans. They also give the people who work on the show a chance to push the envelope beyond what can be shown on TV because of time restraints or content issues. Why aren’t more advertisers doing the same? Value-added, entertaining, online content is a great way to turn a casual consumer into a brand loyalist.

Snapshot of the ANA Annual Conference

By Cara Schultz

Well, I survived my first conference with the ANA and I have to say, it was a great experience. The speakers were extremely insightful and entertaining, from Eric Ryan’s presentation in which he displayed their new commercial (which I have to say is hysterically genius) to David Jones’s speech on his theory: “the new world of marketing is square.” Overall the speakers were amazing, they gave great industry insights. I learned an incredible amount in a short period of time. Stephen Quinn, CMO of Walmart explained that media spending, customer segmentation, an emphasis on multicultural markets and marketing analytics helped to improve the overall in-store experience.  Michael Keller, Chief Brand Officer for Dairy Queen talked about his company’s online presence.  DQ has built an online consumer following with its Blizzard Fan Club, Facebook page, and two unique online games.
 
Not only did I pick up numerous nuggets of information from the top industry gurus, but I also had the opportunity to speak to several attendees at the conference. I asked questions, like what sets their company apart from the competition, how are you battling the recession, and of course how is your company dealing with advertising on multiple platforms (Web, print, mobile, e-books, etc). To watch and listen to what people had to say, check out our original videos. Chime in with comments and suggestions…I plan on continuing our ANA videos, and they will only get better with your feedback!

To Tweet or Not To Tweet…

By Cara Brooke Schultz

It seems as if everyone is tweeting these days. In fact, your boss might even encourage you to write tweets. However, after reading an article on imediaconnection.com, I felt compelled to throw a few tricks of the trade out there. iMediaConnection rounded up a few sceneries when you should refrain from tweeting:

1. Do not tweet when you are in the middle of a crisis. If something terrible happens and you are dealing with a ton of negative feedback from customers, stay calm and try to rectify the situation prior to tweeting. One tweet announcing the change is enough.
2. Try to steer clear of all negativity on your twitter page. There is no reason to make fun of another company, a geographical location, or another person. Although you might think you are being funny, chances are you will offend someone.
3. Do not post everything online for the world to see. Always get the go ahead to broadcast breaking news, new deals or any developments that might come up in the office. Most likely, your boss will want to wait before making the news public.

I also wanted to add a few suggestions to the list:

1. Don’t write negative tweets about your competition. Your customers like you for several reasons, highlight those reasons and leave out the negativity!
2. Think before you tweet. Have well-thought out and spelling-error free tweets before making them live online. Remember, tweets cannot be edited once they go live, so do a thorough edit before posting.

Before writing your next tweet—take these ideas into account—it will help create a positive twitter experience.

Magazine Bleed Charges - Why Do They STILL Exist?

By Bill Duggan

I’d like to share a letter I wrote to the editor of Ad Age, printed in the September 28th issue:

 

Publishers should cut ‘bleed’ fees

Regarding "Condé Nast Execs to make Big Cuts, Insiders Say" (AdAge.com, Sept. 14): It would be terrific if McKinsey's analysis went beyond cost controls and also included a review of Condé Nast's pricing policies to ensure those policies are in alignment with marketplace realities. One such policy under scrutiny from   advertisers is charging an incremental fee for bleed ads. Once upon a time, publishers may have had real costs associated with the production of bleed ads. But today's printing and production technologies no longer require the press stoppages and plate changes that resulted int hose real costs. Condé Nast is one of the few remaining major publishers (Hearst is another) that has not eliminated these obsolete bleed charges, and ANA strongly suggests that the time has come to do so (end of letter to the editor).

 

More on bleed charges in the one page white paper – Are Magazine Bleed Charges Legitimate? ANA and 4A’s have reached out to Condé Nast on this issue numerous times since we published this white paper in January and all those requests have been completely ignored. Not even the courtesy of any response or acknowledgment. Meanwhile, Hearst’s response has been, “At the advice of our counsel, we will not discuss pricing policies in a group setting. So, we will take a pass on this.” 

 

We encourage advertisers and their agencies to discuss bleed charges with these respective publishers (and any others that have such fees). Not only are bleed charges no longer justified, but they actually cost advertisers additional money as sometimes two versions of creative are prepared (bleed and non-bleed) and the agency time and resources spent developing that extra creative and negotiating reduction/elimination of the bleed fees leads to higher agency compensation costs to advertisers. Finally, if publishers have a legitimate reason to charge for bleed, let’s hear it—after all this is a blog and the dialogue would be appreciated.

Getting the Most Out of Your Social Media Campaigns

By Irina Skaya

A recent ANA/BtoB Magazine/Mktg survey reported that 66 percent of marketers utilized social media in 2009 compared to 20 percent in 2007.  In order to fund their new media efforts, 55 percent of marketers have already shifted funds from their traditional media budgets. In 2009 Web site ownership, search engine marketing and display advertising are among the new media platforms that received the most funding. And in 2010, blogs, mobile and video are supposed to be at the top of the list.

According to the survey, The top concerns for marketers when considering newer media platforms are the inability to prove ROI (45 percent) and having metrics to properly allocate the mix of traditional and digital media (43 percent).  Social media analytics is young and most marketers do not know where to start.  First thing is first: know what your objective is, what you are trying to measure. Do you want to know what people are saying about your brands? Do you want to see how people are interacting with your brands on specific social networks? Or do you just simply want to know upcoming social media trends or maybe what your competitors are doing in the social media space?

As the social media guru of the ANA, I always look for new measuring and monitoring social media tools. I came up with a social media metrics superlist-my favorite online tools that will help marketers get started with social media analytics.

PS. They are all free!

• Twitalyzer: measures brands' and individuals' impact and success on Twitter by reporting on relative influence, signal-to-noise ratio, generosity, velocity, clout.
• Keotag: monitors mentions of your brands across dozens of Web sites, including Technorati, Blog Pulse, Google Blog, del.icio.us, Blinklist, Twitter, Bluedot, Newsvine, Digg, Blog Lines, YouTube, and more.
• Trackur: a 14-day free trial allows you to monitor your brands' online reputation and your competitors', and track your campaign's effectiveness.
• Social Networking Media ROI Calculator
• Blog Metrics

The ANA Marketing Insights Center has a great number of resources for marketers who would like to utilize social media to learn more about their customers and engage them directly and involve them in their brands.  In the ANA Today newsletter, "How Social Media Transforms Marketing," and "Skittles: Follow the Rainbow on Twitter" are the top-read articles. The above articles are available for ANA members only. If you are not an ANA member, browse through our 101 library where we have an abundant amount of social media resources, including "Marketing with Twitter."

If you use other social media tracking tools, please feel free to share them with us. We'd love to hear from you! Leave a comment or email me at Irina@ana.net.

Social Networks

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To Twitter or not to Twitter, that is the question…

By Barry Garbarino 

As a former employee of AOL and a few other hi-tech companies, I have always felt the need to be on top of whatever new technology that comes my way.  It could be said that I wanted to be an early adopter from an early age (well, as early as I could get, considering that I typed my last senior high school English paper on an IBM Selectric typewriter, but I digress.)  Social media and user generated content seems to be all the rage now.  I will fully admit that I do the occasional status update on Facebook and give a peak (to my friends) on what is happening in my life at that point in time.  From time to time I will also post the lyrics to certain songs (or YouTube videos) that I know will get stuck in people’s heads – it’s a public service that a few of us started a few years back and believe me, there are some whoppers that will take weeks to get out of your head.

For example the following was posted some time back on my Facebook page.  See if it gets stuck in your head (you got to love digital technology!)

That brings me to Twitter.  Some people absolutely love it and others have no idea why people would want to share all this information.  Many companies are jumping on the Twitter band wagon and are utilizing this tool to inform, entertain and connect to their consumers.  Consumers are utilizing Twitter to stay informed and to connect with a larger audience then they may have on other social media sites like Facebook and MySpace.

I came across the following videos on YouTube and thought that anyone who has an opinion about Twitter would get a kick out of them.  Let us know what you think!

Meatball "Mon"dae - Embracing New Media

By: Irina Skaya

Last Thursday, I attended Seth Godin’s presentation at NYU based on his latest book called, “Meatball Sundae Is Your Marketing Out of Sync?”  I always knew that the owner of the world’s most popular marketing blog site and the best-seller author of nine marketing books is smart, but hearing from him in person was invaluable, inspirational and enlightening.

What’s a meatball sundae?

“[The combination of] meatballs and sundae are meant to be disgusting. If you use new marketing, the topping [the fudge, the cherry] just as a spin, you will fail,” Seth said as he slammed out one sound bite after another.

The Meatballs represent the 100 year-old marketing model which means interrupting the market and selling average products made for average people. The fudge and the cherries of the sundae are the toppings, which represent new marketing: blogs, YouTube, Google, Facebook, Wikis, widgets, etc. Meatballs and sundae are two things that don't mix, like just like new marketing and old marketing.

Seth raised some thought-provoking questions:

In the 1980’s, TV Guide sold for more money than ABC, CBS and NBC were worth all together. Today, how come when I go online to look for video - I go to YouTube and not TV Guide?

In the 1990’s America Online became popular because of e-mails and chatrooms, how come when I go online to find friends I don’t go on aolbook?

He then cited Josiah Wedgwood, an English potter who built an efficient factory organization during the Industrial Revolution, to emphasize if you change the media, and the organizations will change too.

Lessons learned:
• To drive sales revenue, marketers must restructure the marketing organization from top to bottom. 
• Embrace the medium, [referring to SEOs] NOT fight the medium.
• If you can own a variety of choices - you win. For example, iTunes get their reveunue from titles that cannot be purchased at any record store.
• Marketers need to establish a direct communication between themselves and the consumers-the more the consumer interacts, the better the company does.
• Authentic stories matter! Stories that work spread, stories that spread are true; stories that are true are authentic.
• If a marketer is trying to solve a problem people do not have, they are INVISIBLE. You cannot spam yourself to success!
• In the Internet Age, it doesn’t matter how many viewers will see your ads, but who the viewers are.

Got Meatballs?

Technorati tags: Seth Godin new media meatball Sundae

How-to's Video Hyperlink Advertising...The Next Consumer Hot-Button

By: Irina Skaya

Have you ever wondered how to prevent a double-chin or redeye when you are being photographed for your executive portrait? Or wondered how street performers earn their living from the coins and bills dropped in their hats or instrument cases?

Instructional videos are nothing new, but online video hyperlink advertising in the how-to space presents a new and exciting opportunity for advertisers. In a consumer-centric world where consumers have the ability to skips ads and time-shift content, advertisers are forced to come up with unique ways to engage them more effectively. Some advertisers heavily depend on word-of-mouth marketing and others are turning to in-game advertising as affective ways to captivate the consumers’ attention. Video hyperlink advertising embodies the benefits of both: it features brands as experts in the field (builds trust) and since the consumers already chose to view this content, they do not see ads as intrusive. Imagine how persuasive and effective an ad that's advertising a whitening teeth product to a consumer who is looking at How To Whiten Your Teeth video would be.

So now you found that consumer whose interest is relevant to your product, what about reach? Relevance and reach are equally important. With statistics like an average person spends 1.4 hrs/per day on the Web compared to 4.4 hrs/per day watching television, who has time to dedicate all of their spare time to watching online videos? Well me! But for the rest of the population, to be a successful video sharing website, you need to offer your content across multiple platforms.

So who is doing it? Howto.TV is an instructional video website that contains video hyperlink advertising, but they have not yet offered consumers the ability to watch their content in different formats. Howcast.com, on the other hand, a recently launched website that encompasses both user-generated content and the quality of professional video studio, offers its content via online, broadcast and mobile. If the two would combine the idea of video hyperlink advertising and the high quality videos that available across various mediums, how-to video advertising has a high potential of becoming the next consumer hot-button. The variety of topics such as the practical “How To Dress For A Job Interview” video or the bizarre “How To Deal With A Smelly Coworker” offer advertisers who may have thought that their product did not fit into the social media space a chance to taste buzz marketing.  With a similar production and business model (in terms of producing cost-effective videos) to Current TV, Howcast.com will succeed in the advertising space. I am excited to see what their advertising model will be and how the ads will impact the website.

Check out one of my favorite Howcast.com videos, "How-To Public Speak:"

The Future of Sports

By Bill Duggan

It’s March madness time and sports is everywhere.  Not just college basketball.  We are coming off the most watched Super Bowl of all-time. The baseball season is right around the corner. And all eyes are on China as the country prepares for the summer Olympics.

At the recent ANA TV & Everything Video Forum, we used polling devices to survey the audience of advertisers, agencies, media companies, and various consultants and some of the questions focused on sports.  Here’s what we found.

What’s the Score?
Overwhelmingly, respondents first go to the internet for sports news and scores.  TV is second, while newspapers and radio are far behind.  Who hasn’t gotten up in the middle of the night or logged onto to the internet first thing in the morning to catch a score?   And the internet’s dominance is only expected to increase in years to come.

Sports Highlights on the Internet
While the internet is the “go to” place for sports scores and news, it is still gaining traction as a destination for sports highlights.  Only half of the respondents in our survey currently go to the internet for sports highlights.  But as internet video overall increases in popularity, so will internet video viewing of sports highlights.

Is it live or TiVoed?
Sports still very much remains a live viewing experience as only 8% of respondents often TiVo a live sports event and watch it at a later time.  However, new technologies do provide us all with the option to TiVo sports and lots of us occasionally do that.

Who would have dreamed, as recently as ten years ago that, (a) there would be a new place to get sports news and scores – the internet and (b) there would be a new place to watch sports highlights – the internet?  And while the option of taping your favorite show, including sports, has been around for a while via the VCR, digital video recorders like TiVo now provide a better way of doing that. 

How has technology changed your sports experience?

My Departure and a Quick Review

By Will Waugh

This will be my last post for this blog. I am moving back to the ANA member side and joining SAS Institute in Raleigh, NC. I love New York but it is time to take my accrued skills and knowledge to a locale that is more tempered to my Southern sensibilities. I look forward to utilizing the vast resources of the ANA as marketers, from the client side in particular, continue to be challenged by this evolving landscape.

I do want to make a brief mention of David Verklin's new book (which he co-authored with Bernice Kanner, ANA author of The Super Bowl of Advertising). Watch This, Listen Up, Click Here was written for the masses and may be too "general" for this sophisticated media audience, but is an excellent summer read on what is going on with the media and marketing world. Due to my new role in the business intelligence field, I was engaged with the chapter titled Data Mining: Why Your TV May Think You're Gay where the authors talk about how the "datasphere" will help companies predict behavior on a grand scale. "What-if modeling" will allow marketers to make even smarter decisions based on data mining and the various tools available. I feel relatively versed in the media business, but was engaged with this book's foresight in to the transformations taking place around us.

This blog has been a blast and a tremendous personal learning experience. I look forward to following all the great minds and community leaders I have met in this space in my new role. Cheers blogosphere.