ANA Marketing Maestros

3GTV—The New Advertising Medium?

By Cara Brooke Schultz

How many commercials leave a lasting impression, so much so, that they play out in your head while you are shopping at your local grocery store? Soon those commercials maybe viewable while you are doing your shopping. According to a recent article by The New York Times a company called, “Automated Media Services has been working on a system that would deliver television in retail environments in a way that would allow media agencies to plan and buy commercial time in stores just as they do on the networks.” The product is deemed 3GTV and will give advertisers an environment similar to what they had in the days of only three television networks—an effective way to reach audiences without distractions.

© The New York Times

Stephen Grubbs, a media guru who held positions at agencies owned by the Omnicom Group said, “The presence of the 3GTV screens near or in front of the products advertised in the commercials represents an advantage, compared with existing systems in stores that use TV screen at or above check-out counters, after purchase decisions have already been made.” As an advertiser, what type of commercials would your company broadcast on 3GTV? Would they be 10-second catchy commercials or a 30 second spot? 

Facebook (And Other Websites) Banned from Pakistan

By Cara Brooke Schultz

Social media is popular in Pakistan with about 25 million people regular Internet users, however those 25 million people will need to live without Facebook and other social networking sites for an indefinite amount of time.

According to an article on CNN.com, “Pakistan is blocking access to Facebook in response to an online group calling on people to draw the Prophet Mohammed.”  The telecommunication authority in Pakistan said the site has been blocked for an indefinite amount of time.  The group could be considered offensive to devout Muslims—they consider it disrespectful to depict Mohammed.

Originally the creator of the Facebook group established the group as a means of protest. She was quoted in the CNN.com article as saying, “This is something I have felt strongly about for a long time: bullying by certain Muslim groups will not be tolerated in a free country.”

Facebook responded by saying that although the group may be considered objectionable to some people it does not violate Facebook policies.  Currently Facebook is looking into the situation.

From a marketing standpoint, how do you think Facebook should deal with the current situation and any future situations that may arise?  Share your thoughts!

Procure This!

By Bill Duggan

ANA’s Advertising Financial Management runs Sunday-Wednesday in Florida. For the first time ever, this annual event is sold out. 400+ people will be in attendance and many of these attendees will be client procurement/sourcing people.

One of the conference sessions is entitled, “Procurement: The Good, The Bad, and the Ugly” and will debut results of a survey among (a) client procurement; (b) client marketing; and (c) agencies on the state of marketing procurement.  We can’t reveal the juicy stuff until the conference, but in the meantime, here are the survey findings that cover information such as the background/level of experience of procurement professionals and reporting structure.

• Marketing procurement has been in existence, on average, for 10 years. 
• Meanwhile, a marketing procurement professional has an average of 7 years in marketing procurement and 12 years total experience as procurement professional.

A common critique is that many procurement professionals lack proper marketing training—but the numbers above show that marketing procurement is still in its infancy (at many companies) and the fact that there is 7 years average experience in marketing procurement versus 10 years average existence for the department is impressive.

The backgrounds of marketing procurement people are pretty equally divided:

• 43% were previously in another procurement role, non-marketing
• 38% were previously in a marketing or agency role

A debate we’ve heard – “Is it better to have a procurement person go into marketing procurement or a marketing person go into procurement?"  There is no clear answer but it’s an interesting debate. 

Finally, here’s where procurement reports: (percentages add to greater than 100% due to multiple reporting structures):
    Supply Chain Management or Strategic Sourcing: 38%
    Finance or Accounting: 30%
    Stand-Alone Purchasing or Procurement Group: 20%
    Advertising, Marketing and/or Marketing Communications: 12%
    Operations: 8%
    Corporate Services: 7%
    Other Groups: 3%

Stay tuned as there’s more to come!

Your Tweets Have a New Home...Welcome to The Library of Congress

By Cara Brooke Schultz

Did you think the tweet you wrote publicly pronouncing your love for a new product would stay in “twitterspace” forever? The idea that tweets would slowly dissolve into Internet space is no longer! Twitter and the Library of Congress announced that every public tweet posted since the birth of Twitter in 2006 will be digitally archived.

According to the Library of Congress’ Web site, “The Twitter digital archive has extraordinary potential for research into our contemporary way of life. This information provides detailed evidence about how technology based social networks form and evolve over time. The collection also documents a remarkable range of social trends,” said Librarian of Congress James H. Billington.

 

Only public tweets will be archived, and even Google is getting in on the action. Google is planning on creating an interactive archive. People can search tweets at any point in time and ‘replay’ what people were tweeting about at that very moment! Think historical moments like Barack Obama’s inauguration or the devastating earthquake in Haiti.

Would you use the Twitter archive? If so, what chatter would you like to look-up?

 

From Thanksgiving Turkey to Springtime Favorite

By Duke Fanelli

I maybe a bit late to the party, but I was thinking about Tiger Woods and the hype surrounding his decision to play at the Masters Tournament. I have to admit, for all intents and purpose he played masterly…yeah some bad shots and he was highly critical of his own play, but he finished Sunday tied for fourth (-11 under par). Not bad after being out of commission for more than five months, dealing with personal and family issues.

Most striking throughout the four-day Tigerfest, was the media and gallery’s acceptance of Tiger. If you had spent the past five months living in a cave, you’d never have known how nasty things got. The #1 player in the world was back and he and his fans were basking in the glow. (Not to take anything away from Phil Mickelson’s win, which was spectacular, well deserved and a milestone in his career.) The Sports, marketing and armchair pundits, who earlier this year wanted to see Tiger’s head impaled on a fairway wood, were nowhere to be seen. Except for an errant Tiger-detractor, who paid to have a small plane fly over Augusta National—with a not so obvious reference to Tiger’s apology speech—the crowd loved watching his come back.

So where does this all leave us? American’s have notoriously short memories when it comes to celebrity misdeeds and we are certainly as forgiving when it comes to the idiotic behavior of our star athletes. So the question is: will Tiger get some of his old endorsements back? I’m guessing the answer is no. But a more intriguing question may be are new endorsements right around the corner? And, who is first in line?  Anyone want to weigh in with a guess?

By the way, Tiger’s comeback at the Masters gave ESPN the highest U.S. audience ever for a golf event on cable TV, as nearly 5 million people tuned in to watch Thursday’s first round. As the millions viewing the Master’s can attest, Tiger’s back, his fan base is strong and shooting 11 under par last week, is a clear indication that he is capable (which some doubted) of topping the list of golf’s superstars for some time to come. Is this a Rod Tidwell and Jerry McGuire moment?

Excuse Me Ma’am, It’s $65 Extra For Oxygen….

By Cara Brooke Schultz

Recently two airlines have been in the hot seat with passengers—Spirit Airlines and Ryanair—for charging what most people deem ridiculous extra fees. Spirit Airlines announced on Tuesday that it will now be charging customers for carry-on baggage. According to a CNN.com article, “The charge for carry-on bags varies from $30 to $45 depending on whether passengers are members of Spirit’s ultra-low fare club and whether they ‘pre-reserve’ their carry-on bag in advance.” Airline officials hope this will spiral into a bring less; pay less policy. They also said, “it will improve inflight safety and efficiency by speeding up the boarding and deplaning process.”

The question is: will other airlines start charging for carry-on bags? Which in all likelihood could be the case—Spirit Airlines originally started charging customers for checked bags, and other airlines followed soon thereafter.

Ryanair, based in Dublin, Ireland is thinking about enacting a fee for the use of the bathroom on flights shorter than one hour. The fee would be minimal, one Euro—about $1.33. They said the idea stemmed from trying to encourage people to use restrooms in airport terminals before boarding. Another part of the plan, suggested eliminating one of the bathrooms to free up space for extra seats.

Personally I rather just spend more money on my ticket, rather than pay all of these extra fees for checked and carry-on baggage. How do you feel about all of the additional fees?

I also find myself wondering how other modes of transportation are faring with the airlines tacking on so many additional fees—is the rail system benefiting from this?

 

New Plans for Local Ratings Unfair to Advertisers

By Bill Duggan

Nielsen, last week, formally announced its plans to eliminate the reporting of live-only local TV ratings to advertisers and its local station clients. Now, advertisers and local stations will only have overnight access to data for three different data streams: live program plus same day time-shifting of programming, live plus three day time-shifting, and live plus seven day time-shifting. Going forward, live-only data will only be available in custom reports, on a delayed basis.

Advertisers and agencies are disappointed. Nielsen has made it clear since this issue arose in 2009 that it could make three data streams available. Advertisers and agencies have been consistently adamant regarding the need for the live-only stream and have been willing to concede to the local stations the choice for the other two streams.  But now all available streams for local TV ratings will be “plus” and therefore include time-shifting.

On the national level, the evolution from program ratings to average commercial ratings has been a positive step and C3 takes into consideration three day time-shifting. But it is important to point out that on the local level program ratings continue to be used. Therefore, all the “plus” streams do not take into consideration commercial skipping in DVR playback. As a result, local commercial viewing would clearly be overstated—some agencies estimate that this change will result in an instant 7 percent viewership boost to local TV stations. Overstated rating could then lead to overstated ad rates.

 

This situation is unfair and unfortunate. Again, there are three local ratings streams available. One of those streams should be live-only as the majority of agencies and advertisers have consistently told Nielsen as well as the local stations. Remember, it’s those advertising dollars that ultimately fund the local stations and well as Nielsen’s ratings services. Why has the opinion of advertisers and agencies been disregarded?

Socially Responsible Companies Can Make a Difference

By Susan Burke

According to a March 17, 2010, New York Times article, The Body Shop, a pioneer in corporate social responsibility, has taken up a new cause—sex trafficking. Over 1.2 million children become victims of the global sex trade each year and human trafficking is the fastest growing criminal industry in the world. 

The goals of the campaign, which utilizes online, in-store, social media, sponsored screenings of the documentary “Playground: The Child Sex Trade in America,” and out-of-home, are to raise awareness about the issue, collect funds to help the victims of this crime, and encourage legislative action in this area.

 

On their website, The Body Shop, which is part of L’Oreal, encourages consumers to take the following actions to help fight sex trafficking:

1. Tell friends and family about the campaign.

2. Buy The Body Shop’s Soft Hands Kind Heart Hand Cream, or make a donation to ECPAT.

3. Report a suspected incidence of child trafficking by writing to [email protected]

4. Learn more about the issue by reading a full report on Global Child Trafficking for sexual purposes. or the summary report.

5. Learn more about The Body’s Shop’s Progress Cards which have been developed to support future phases of this campaign.

So far, $1.5 million has been raised to support this cause by consumers of The Body Shop in Canada, the U.S., and Mexico. For more information on how your brand can become more socially responsible, visit www.ana.net/mic. 

And The Winner Is....Social Media!

By Cara Brooke Schultz

Who will be watching the Oscars on Sunday night? Okay…you can put your hand down now, and continue reading.

I’ll be watching the Oscars for two main reasons:

1. To see what all the actresses will be wearing—so I can then pour over the images on the Internet Monday morning and discuss the magnificent fashion hits as well as the misfortunate tragedies. 
2. To find out what movie will win best picture, which actor will win best actor, and which actress will win best actress.

So technically you could consider that four reasons, but for the purpose of this Blog post we’ll continue to count that as two. After the Oscars, when I discuss the fashion statements with my friends, am I going to be calling them to chat? No way! Who has time for that?! 
 
Instead, I’ll be online via Blogs, Web sites, forums, and of course social media—and advertisers are very much aware of this. For example, a USA Today, article talked about how several Oscar advertisers are making a push in their social media efforts this year, “’It's no longer smart just to buy on the Academy Awards,’ says consultant Charlene Li. ‘You have to tie into social media so that people talk about you.”’

According to the article, we can expect to see a social media push from the following companies: J.C. Penney, Samsung, Hyundai, and Cottonelle, just to name a few. If you plan on watching the Oscars, where will your water-cooler conversations be taking place?

Whales, Babies, and Hotels from Hell Can Only Mean One Thing…Super Bowl Commercials!

By Cara Brooke Schultz

The day after the Super Bowl, the second most popular water-cooler topic would have to be the multi-million dollar commercials. Here are just a few of my top favorites:  

Bridgestone’s ‘Whale of a Tale’ commercial reminded me of the movie ‘Hangover,’ with the outlandish aftermath of a bachelor party gone-wrong.

HomeAway.com’s ‘Hotel Hell Vacation’ advertisement brought me back to a similar experience I had at a hotel in Israel. Needless to say, I found the commercial to be more than entertaining.

Although we all expected the E*Trade baby to make another appearance, the ‘Milkaholic Girlfriend’ commercial got a ton of laughs from my Super Bowl party.

Budweiser’s 'Clydesdale Befriends Cow' commercial received a cohesive exclamation of “Awww” from the females at my Super Bowl party.

Cars.com’s advertisement led us through the entertaining life of Timothy Richmond.  We watched as little Timothy put out a stove fire, neutralized a jelly fish sting, delivered a baby Bengal Tiger, and saved a cheerleading squad from a killer tornado. Although Timothy Richmond seems closer to Superman than your average Joe, he still needs help making his next automobile purchase—don’t we all?

Chime in—what were some of your favorite Super Bowl commercials?