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.

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? 

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?

 

Marketing for Cooking-Toys Might Need a Few New Ingredients

By Cara Brooke Schultz

Advertisers in the toy industry should pay attention to a new demographic: male ages 2-11. Yes you read that correctly, 2-11.

According to a recent Adweek article, data over a five-month period ending in February showed significant numbers for the Food Network, “The overall male audience for Throwdown with Bobby Flay is 36 percent, but jumps to 47 percent in the 2-11 age bracket; overall male audience for Iron Chef America, also 36 percent, jumps to 45 percent in the 2-11 bracket. And on TLC, the audience for Cake Boss, 30 percent male overall, jumps to 36 percent among those boys.”

It seems as if this large audience is going unnoticed—or maybe not? After taking a quick look through a few Web sites, I noticed more cooking-toys being manufactured in primary colors rather than in pastel pink and lavender. Another subtle difference, boys were being integrated into the advertisements alongside girls for the toy packaging. The Adweek article, “Half Baked” explained, “Today, male celebrity chefs are driving the current food craze and more boys than ever are watching those shows.” 

 

Although most of the toys are still advertised for young girls, keep an eye on how advertisers might soon be changing their ingredients for this stale recipe. 

 

Battles on the TV Screen

By Cara Brooke Schultz

Companies battling it out on the small screen is not new. In fact, Burger King had a slew of commercials in the 1980s taking jabs at McDonald’s.

And who can forget Pepsi’s commercials arguing how it tastes better than Coca-Cola.

Recently you’ve probably watched the public scuffle between AT&T and Verizon Wireless. If not, here are two commercials for your viewing enjoyment: 

With all of these public feuds taking place throughout advertising history, how does it affect you as a consumer? I personally rather hear why the company is better for me as a consumer; I could do without these public punches thrown at each other over the television screen. What do you think—do these commercials waiver your thoughts when making a purchase?  

Census Time!

By Bill Duggan

I mailed back my Census form today.  When the results are fully tallied, it will be exciting and enlightening to see how the demographic profile of the country has changed. Our population has likely reached a tipping point. In 2010, births to Hispanic, Black, and Asian women are projected to account for 50 percent of all births in the nation and that percentage will continue to increase going forward. The Census Bureau estimates that minorities will constitute a majority of the nation’s overall population in about three decades and a majority of Americans under age 18 in only one decade. The implications to marketers are now clearer than ever before—multicultural markets are no longer niche or “add on” segments. Rather, ethnic is the new mainstream and marketing as well as work-force diversity must reflect that.

 

Smart companies such as McDonald’s, General Mills, Coca-Cola, and State Farm are taking note and “leading with ethnic insights” (a line used by the CMO of McDonald’s at a recent ANA conference). It’s hard to believe that there are still companies either ignoring multicultural audiences or targeting these groups with only token spending. Just look at the numbers!  The Hispanic population is projected to grow 20 percent between 2000 and 2020 while the non-Hispanic population will grow just 12 percent. And the median age of Hispanics is almost ten years younger than the non-Hispanic population.  Plus, household sizes are much bigger—Hispanic households have 5+ people versus only 12 percent for non-Hispanics. 

The new Census info should be a game changer. Marketers are encouraged to be prepared rather than surprised by taking a hard look at the demographic data and projections available now. 

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. 

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!

Are You Relevant?

By Adrienne Tallacksen

More marketers are turning to social media as a way to reach consumers, as shown in the recent ANA study “Harnessing the Power of Newer Media Platforms”. In 2007, 20% of survey respondents were using social media. The 2009 survey found that 66% now use social media platforms. Just over half of marketers surveyed are funding newer media spending with dollars shifted from traditional media.

When moving into the newer media space, marketers must continue to remain relevant to consumers. In a presentation at the June Central Region Digital Marketing Meeting, Google’s Jim Lecinski spoke about staying relevant in a presentation titled “Connecting with the Recession Shopper.” Lecinski said marketers must be useful, helpful, and relevant; not interruptive, shocking, or annoying.

If I’m looking for tomorrow’s weather forecast, I am definitely not interested in a candy ad taking up half of my screen. I’m trying to think of a situation where this ad might be relevant, and I’m coming up with nothing. However, an ad for shipping services on a social networking site for business professionals could be useful. I might not have an immediate need to ship something, but the ad is at least in the ballpark of relevancy.

Are Things Looking Up for TV in 2010?

By Susan Burke

According to recently released reports, the Television Bureau of Advertising is predicting an increase in advertising revenue for 2010, as a result of the upcoming Winter Olympics in Vancouver and the U.S. mid-term elections, both of which are expected to lead to an influx of dollars into the TV ad market.  

Additionally, Disney’s CFO, Tom Staggs, announced that they have started to see improvements in ad sales for local markets, as well as among automotive manufacturers on the national stage. Recently, General Motors ventured back into the advertising market with an ad featuring their new chairman, Edward E. Whitacre, Jr. The ad offers customers a full refund (within 60 days of purchase) if they are not happy with their new GM vehicle:

New TV shows, such as The CW’s The Vampire Diaries (yes, I watched it), the network’s biggest series debut to date, are still drawing in viewers during their regularly scheduled time slots, potentially indicating that some ads are surviving the much discussed DVR blitz.

Does all of this point to a recovery? It’s too soon to tell, but it’s certainly better news than what we’ve been hearing for the past few months.