ANA Marketing Maestros

Have You Heard?

By Guest Blogger Lisa Neary

The digital landscape is changing. That was no clearer than after hearing Geoff Ramsey, CEO, Co-Founder eMarketer present at the ANA Digital and Social Media Conference last week. The downturned economy has decreased traditional media spend almost 20%. Marketers are being asked to do more with less and that has meant shifting discretionary dollars to digital initiatives.

With more than 57% of the US population participating in social media, many companies are attempting to leverage this space, but there is still confusion as marketers wonder if it is overrated. That is shocking considering that Geoff did note that only 10% of companies are effectively measuring the success of their social media programs.

While it still may be premature to tell, that fact is this: with a 60/40 split in terms of companies using social media to those not, you are behind the curve if you are at least exploring how to create an authentic dialogue with your audience and more importantly, you are at a severe competitive disadvantage if you are not listening to the buzz about your company, products or services across social media platforms.

With an ever-growing number of tools out there for "listening" to what your customers have to say, there's no excuse to not be taking advantage of this resource.  This valuable information is readily available and more importantly: free. Whether it's listening to what words they use to describe your product or brand or gaining a better understanding about their interests, intentions, real or perceived problems, the insights gained from harvesting this information can have a drastic effect on your messaging, product development and marketing strategy.

If you are still wondering if social media is a fad, watch this video, and make sure you listen.

Who Owns the Information on Your Facebook Page?

By Cara Brooke Schultz

Social media can be defined as "activities, practices, and behaviors among communities of people who gather online to share information, knowledge, and opinions using conversational media," according to The Social Media Bible. Just a few months ago you might have read about Facebook’s privacy transition. With the transition, Facebook users’ names, profile photos, gender, and hometown suddenly became publicly available information, when previously only your name and network were publicly available.

 

Now Canada has slapped Facebook with a class-action suit saying the transition violated Canadian privacy and consumer protection laws. The class-action suit claims that Facebook made money from its customers’ personal data by letting third parties use it for targeted online advertising campaigns.

How do you feel about these new privacy transitions? Do you feel like you own the information on your Facebook page, or does Facebook own that information?

Chime in with your thoughts!

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? 

The FTC Gives Tweens an “Ad-ucation”

By Cara Brooke Schultz

Can a video game be used as an educational tool? The Federal Trade Commission (FTC) would like to think so. They recently developed a new campaign—an educational video game—to educate kids about marketing and advertising. The FTC launched this campaign for three main reasons: to raise awareness of advertising messages among children ages 8 to 12; teach critical thinking skills that will allow tweens to analyze and interpret advertisements; and demonstrate the benefits of being an informed consumer.  

 

The FTC is hoping that not only will this video game help “ad-ucate” young consumers, but that it will help to enhance critical thinking skills.  The campaign’s website gives teachers educational tools to help raise advertising awareness among students. For example, teachers can download a lesson that invites students to explore what advertising is, what ads do, and who’s responsible for the messages being projected in the ads.  

The video game isn’t the most graphically enhanced, and with all the video-entertainment out there for tweens, I’m not sure how this will effectively hold their attention (although I’m sure they will find this video game more enjoyable then any old lesson plan).  However, I think it’s a great concept, tweens should understand advertising and anything that helps to generate critical thinking skills is a plus! Test out your ad-skills at admongo.

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?

 

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?

Is Facebook Making You Frown? Social Media Marketing Is a Ton of Work!

By Cara Brooke Schultz

Social media burst onto the scene, but like any new medium, it has brought with it a slew of questions. Marketers are asking, “How do I deal with…

• Privacy issues in social networking?”
• Data safety—visitors can get hit by identify theft and frauds?”
• Negative or undesirable posts?” 

At last week’s Advertising Law & Public Policy Conference presented by Microsoft several of the speakers weighed in with their opinions. During the presentation by Douglas J. Wood, senior partner, Reed Smith LLP; Christopher Sloan, assistant vice president and senior corporate counsel, Liberty Mutual Group; Divya Narendra, chief executive officer and co-founder, Sumzero.com we learned that in order for a company to actively participate in social media the company must enable conversations, monitor conversations, influence conversations, react to conversations, and monetize conversations—which translates into saying, “no you cannot just set up a Facebook fan page and walk away.” 

Seems like a lot of work huh? Well it is, and it doesn’t just stop there—with your new social media sites your company needs to adopt a social media policy for internal and external communications. A key point to keep in mind as you dive into social media, “don’t ban what you can’t stop.” Social media is not ending anytime soon, in fact recent statistics state the sites are still growing at a rapid rate, “Two yeas ago, 20 percent of survey respondents were using social networks and social media, now that figure is 66 percent,” (Research Report: Harnessing the Power of Never Media Platforms for More Effective Marketing, 2nd Edition. ANA 2009). 

For more information about the conference, visit our Web site. 

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?

A Fight on the Value of Television Advertising

By Bill Duggan

A fight broke out at the recent ANA TV & Everything Video Forum. The “contestants” were David Cooperstein, Vice President, Research Director at Forrester Research and David Poltrack, Chief Research Officer at CBS. 

David Cooperstein had just finished presenting research from a joint ANA/Forrester survey that asked national advertisers about their attitudes towards television and video advertising. Highlights of that presentation included advertiser responses that spending in television was down and that the medium had become less effective. But the research also pointed to opportunities in areas including branded entertainment, addressable TV, and online video. ANA members can get the full survey report here.

In the Q&A session that followed, David Poltrack commented, “The frustration is just great. Essentially all morning long we heard about all the great things we're doing with advertisers to create new and exciting ways to use television (comment: those presentations were from Subway, Kraft, Cisco, and Pepsi), and then we get this report that is totally contradictory and inconsistent with what we know.”

ANA tries very hard to program events with a fair and balanced perspective. So allow me to provide some observations about television.

Television viewing is at an all time high. The average U.S. viewer watches 4 hours and 49 minutes of television per day—up 20 percent from a decade ago, according to Nielsen.

Television provides advertisers the opportunity to build mass reach quickly (arguably better than any other medium). Super Bowl XLIV (this year’s game!)  was the most watched television program of all-time with 106.5 million average viewers.

However, the abundance of television viewing options has greatly fragmented the audience. American Idol was the top rated program of the 2008/2009 broadcast season with an average household rating of 15.1.  Ten years ago, ER was the top rated program of the 1998/1999 broadcast season with an average household rating of 17.8. Twenty years ago, The Cosby Show was the top ranked program of the 1988/1989 broadcast season with an average household rating of 25.3. Marketers can target audiences more narrowly given all the options, but audiences are generally smaller than ever before. 

Consumers are increasingly multitasking when the television is on. A generation ago we’d simply watch Happy Days or Dallas. But today, kids are on the computer and other mobile devices, which are distractions from viewing, although there has been some recent buzz in the industry that some social media can complement viewing. Remember that Nielsen reports “opportunity to see” and not engagement or true viewership of individual commercials.

Sixty-two percent of the marketers in our survey believe that television is becoming less effective. Only seven percent stated that television is becoming more effective while the remainder believe that it’s no more or less effective. So advertisers, and a lot of them, have the perception that television’s effectiveness is declining.

And then there’s the issue of spending on television—which was part of the “David versus David” debate.  Per MAGNA, total television ad spending has declined from $55.6 billion in 2008 to $48 billion in 2009—that’s almost a 14 percent drop. In the defense of television, however, other most other media had even steeper declines in 2009 so television share of spend actually increased. In 2010, television spending is expected to rebound somewhat to $50.5 billion but that’s still well below 2008 levels.

 
Meanwhile, opportunities for television indentified in our survey include:

• Eighty percent of advertisers agree that branded entertainment will play much more of a role in television advertising.
• Seventy-eight percent of advertisers are interested in addressable television to target consumers more precisely.
• Forty-six percent of advertisers plan to spend more on ads in online video/online television shows in 2010.

Plus, television is increasingly available via the web “on-demand” and on mobile devices providing consumers more options to watch.

Television is alive and well and the current times are both exciting and challenging for the medium. This is a blog so your comments are not only welcome but appreciated. David and David—anyone else—please jump in!

Cisco Redefines Speaking in Person

By Cara Brooke Schultz

At last week’s 2010 ANA TV & Everything Video Forum Presented by YouTube, Cisco wowed the crowd by executing a virtual presentation. Now this wasn’t just any presentation where a talking head appeared on a TV screen—instead Cisco brought in a vertical life-size screen, which sat in the middle of the stage. Carlos Dominguez, Senior Vice President of Cisco Systems was walking around the stage talking to the audience about the importance of video when all of a sudden the lights dimmed and a life-size image of Marilyn Mersereau, Senior Vice President, Corporate Marketing, appeared standing on stage. You heard a few “ah’s” radiate from the audience and then Marilyn asked a question that required audience participation. Members in the audience raised their hands and she responded. Not only did it seem as if she was standing on the stage in New York City (not in sunny California), but she could also interact with everyone as if she was in New York City. Watch a short clip of what people experienced firsthand at the conference: