Viacom signs on Intel, Pepsi as mobile advertisers March 29, 2007
Posted by Mark Blei in : Uncategorized , add a commentViacom signs on Intel, Pepsi as mobile advertisers
ORLANDO, Florida (Reuters) – Media conglomerate Viacom Inc. said on Wednesday its MTV Networks signed on Intel Corp. and Pepsi-Cola North America as the first advertising sponsors for its programs delivered on cell phones.
Viacom Chief Executive Philippe Dauman announced the deals at the CTIA wireless showcase in Orlando, Florida.
Wireless and media companies are betting that mobile entertainment will gain momentum among subscribers in 2007, offering advertisers a new way to reach consumers and cell phone companies an additional revenue stream.
“We believe advertising can work on the wireless platform. Indeed we view it as a critical medium,” Dauman said during a keynote speech at the conference.
Viacom sends 1 million video streams to mobile phones every month, Dauman said.
Intel and Pepsi brands will be featured on mobile channels dedicated to MTV’s music and youth programming as well as the content of Comedy Central. Viacom said it was the first time it had offered advertisers the opportunity to link their brands to its mobile programming.
The company said it had also expanded a deal to show its programming on Sprint Nextel wireless service, with 14 live and video-on-demand channels.
MTV aims to launch new mobile Web sites for its Nickelodeon, Spike TV and TV Land channels starting in the second quarter.
Viacom’s Comedy Central will also offer a mobile video game based on its popular “South Park” cartoon series. “South Park 10: The Game” will be available on most major wireless carriers in the United States and Europe in the first week of April, the company said.
Viacom Class B shares fell 42 cents, or 1 percent, to $40.48 in midday trading.
DoubleClick Sale Could Risk Publisher Exodus March 29, 2007
Posted by Mark Blei in : Uncategorized , add a commentDoubleClick Sale Could Risk Publisher Exodus
By Kate Kaye | March 29, 2007
The stale world of online ad serving just got interesting again, as a possible acquisition of ad management firm DoubleClick was floated yesterday. According to the Wall Street Journal, Microsoft or another buyer may grab the ad serving colossus soon. If a deal with Microsoft does become reality, it would boost the firm’s online ad capabilities and make for readymade relationships with advertisers and agencies. However, it could put DoubleClick in hot water with its publisher clients, including AOL, which would be loathe to let the company access user data flowing through DoubleClick’s DART ad serving system, and which compete directly with Microsoft’s MSN for ad dollars. Indeed, AOL could be a potential buyer, some believe.
“It could mean a lot of things,” said Forrester Research Senior Analyst Shar VanBoskirk, “like potentially AOL is going to consider buying DoubleClick, or AOL leaves DoubleClick.” DoubleClick extended its ad management partnership with AOL in April 2005, scoring business across all AOL Media Networks properties including AOL.com, AOL Instant Messenger, Mapquest, Moviefone and CNN. AOL did not respond to a call from ClickZ News for this story.
DoubleClick would not comment on the Wall Street Journal report, a spokesperson for DoubleClick said, adding “They believe it’s speculation and rumor.” Investment bank Morgan Stanley is working with DoubleClick to explore strategic alternatives, according to someone familiar with the situation. While the prospect of an acquisition by a large online publisher like Microsoft appears likely, a DoubleClick IPO may not be.
Since purchasing the company in July 2005, private equity firm Hellman & Friedman trimmed DoubleClick of its e-mail marketing management business, toning the company into a leaner online ad-focused outfit. The company has since homed in on its ad management offerings and its rich media products developed through a relationship with Flash maker Macromedia. It also squelched competition from European ad serving rival Falk by buying it about a year ago.
“The end goal of Hellman & Friedman was to clean up the pieces and make some money off of [DoubleClick],” said VanBoskirk. “If there’s a concern with Microsoft potentially competing with [DoubleClick's publisher clients], that’s a Microsoft concern to figure out before they buy the company,” she continued.
Under a large online ad seller such as AOL, Google, Microsoft or, perhaps less likely, Yahoo, not only might DoubleClick end up competing with current publisher clients for advertisers; those publishers could be threatened by potential access on the part of the new parent to the data gleaned from their sites for ad serving by DoubleClick.
“DoubleClick has cookie data on everyone, everywhere,” said Tim Vanderhook, CEO of ad network Specific Media. He believes the main appeal for any new DoubleClick owner is the data it can tap into.
“The bigger publishers are very sensitive when it comes to their data,” said Nils Winkler, managing director of AdTech, a European ad management firm that’s recently entered the U.S. market and is aiming to go head to head against DoubleClick for publisher clients.
Because of the potential conflict over data, Winkler is pleased at the prospect of wooing publishers away from DoubleClick if a large ad seller snaps it up. “It might cause a number of customers to reconsider,” Winkler said. “Microsoft would want to utilize that knowledge and let others benefit as little as possible,” he added.
Forrester’s VanBoskirk isn’t so sure data is the draw. Instead, she thinks an acquisition by Microsoft would allow for “one more set of tools for them to create a holistic capability in the online space.” Indeed, the online ad market is at the point where big online ad sellers are moving at breakneck pace to be the end all be all for advertisers, even beyond the Web.
The threat of total domination by Google could be enough for a competitor to eye a DoubleClick buy. “Google has an ad server, and I think they will continue to build more capabilities about where can use that,” said VanBoskirk. “A lot of Microsoft’s decisions have to do with what Google’s doing and what they can do first.”
In order for Google to truly be a force to be reckoned with when it comes to selling to big brand advertisers, however, the firm must allow advertisers and agencies to deliver and track ads using third party management firms like DoubleClick and competitors, aQuantive’s Atlas and ValueClick’s Mediaplex. This has some speculating Google could also be interested in a DoubleClick grab.
Either way, if the company is sold, many agree the time is right. “The timing is great for this sale,” said VanBoskirk, noting the bright outlook and steady growth for the online advertising market. Hellman & Friedman reportedly wants $2 billion for DoubleClick. That would nearly double what the equity firm paid for it two years ago, even before selling off its e-mail business for around $90 million.
Does View-Thru Tracking Reward the Wrong Behavior? March 29, 2007
Posted by Mark Blei in : Uncategorized , add a comment| Does View-Thru Tracking Reward the Wrong Behavior? | |
| by Dave Morgan, Thursday, Mar 29, 2007 2:30 PM ET | |
| Three times in the past two weeks, I have been asked my opinion on the current state of “view-thru” conversion tracking. It seems that lots of people these days are concerned that view-thru tracking has gotten a bit out of control and is distorting the connection between the actual effectiveness of individual media properties and their “apparent” contribution to driving conversions for advertisers. What is view-thru conversion tracking? Simply put, it is a technique designed to quantify the downstream value of online ad impressions. As we know, many people don’t click on banners. However, many of those same people eventually surf to promoted sites on their own and convert. View-thru tracking associates the delivery of ad impressions to specific browsers, with eventual conversions by those users on the advertisers’ Web sites. Thus, when agencies and advertisers evaluate which of their ad impressions were most effective, they can track conversions back to the Web sites or networks that delivered the ads, whether or not there was an initial click. Typically agencies and advertisers establish specific rules as to who and how they will give credit to view-thru conversions. The complicating factor is that most sites and networks have overlapping audiences, so someone who eventually converts on a marketer’s site is likely to have seen ads on several different sites or networks. Who gets the credit in the case of a view-thru? Some will give credit to everybody that served ads to the converting person within a certain amount of time, such as in the last week. However, the industry standard (established by the third-party ad servers) is to give credit only to the last site that served an ad to the user, thus nullifying the value contribution of all of the other ads served to that person. In addition, there is concern that crediting only the last site rewards media and media practices that can drive great view-thrus, but maybe don’t deliver much real advertising value. Sites and networks can get the credit for any of their visitors’ ultimate conversions whether or not the ads are in places where they can actually get noticed, or whether or not the content that they are embedded in is even conducive to ad viewing (like on instant messengers where lots of users show up). This means that a bottom-of-the-page ad — stuck below even the sites’ text ads or a rotating ad in an instant messenger, which was the last thing that users closed out when packing up their laptop for home — will get credit for users’ subsequent conversion even if another site had just delivered three rich media, above-the-fold ads to the user only minutes before. Is there a better way? I’m very interested in your ideas and opinions to help solve this problem, but here are some of mine to start the ball rolling:
What do you think?
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Marketers Warm Up to Social Media March 29, 2007
Posted by Mark Blei in : Uncategorized , add a commentMarketers Warm Up to Social Media
March 28, 2007
By Brian Morrissey
NEW YORK Advertisers are increasingly willing to try social marketing, with growing plans to tap user-generated content, blogs and social networks.
Forrester Research, in a survey of over 90 marketers, found social media is gaining broader acceptance, though it still trails far behind Web mainstays like e-mails, search marketing and display ads.
Many marketers are waiting for concrete proof these channels work before diving into them, Forrester found. Of those not using social media channels, “proof of use” was the No. 1 factor that would encourage trial.
“Consumers are moving so quickly into emerging media that marketers can’t keep up,” Forrester analyst Brian Haven concluded in the report. “We bet marketers calling for ‘proof of use’ really need to increase their own familiarity with the medium and its application for their customers.”
Despite the hesitancy from a sizeable percentage of marketers, the research firm reported a large increase in use and plans for emerging media compared to a year ago. For instance, 13 percent of respondents reported active blog programs in 2006, which rose to 34 percent this year. By the end of the year, over half of the marketers expect to have blog initiatives up and running.
Social networks should see a larger jump. While just over 20 percent of marketers are using social networks now, nearly 60 plan to do so by the end of the year. In 2006, just 13 percent of respondents said they were using social networks.
The user-generated story is similar. About 22 percent said they have initiatives in place, while over 65 percent plan to by the end of the year.
Other emerging media tactics, like RSS and podcasts, are also expected to gain widespread adoption by the end of the year, with more than two out of three respondents planning to use them.
Forrester found that not all emerging channels are catching on as quickly.
Despite much hype, marketers are still wary to jump into mobile marketing and gaming. Just 13 percent reported using text messaging for marketing and 11 percent have mobile Web sites. Virtual worlds were used by just 7 percent of respondents, with about 25 percent expecting a presence in 2007.
Do TV Ads Work Better Online? March 28, 2007
Posted by Mark Blei in : Uncategorized , add a commentDo TV Ads Work Better Online?
MARCH 29, 2007
Maybe. TV spots shown during Web programs click better with viewers than the same 30-second ads on TV, according to a new study by Millward Brown. Web spots increased the viewer attention rate by 53%, awareness by 52%, consideration by 27% and favorability by 26%. Prompted recall of brand advertising was four times higher for Web viewers. What’s going on here? “You’re looking at a 30-second ad, not a four-minute pod,” said Mike Ripka of Millward Brown. “You’ll sit around for 30 seconds, so you’re highly engaged with the advertising.” Audiences are less likely to get up during those 30 seconds than during TV ad pods. So is this the data that finally tells us all to abandon TV ads in favor of the Web? No. The study focused solely on 30-second spots produced originally for television, excluding shorter, edgier ads that often run on the Web. In other words, there’s still a need to produce original creative for Web programming. When 30-second spots run on the Web, they also play an average of three times per episode, which limits the life of ads. Television and the Internet complement each other in several ways. eMarketer Senior Analyst David Hallerman says that the trick is to play to their strengths. “The Internet is a lean-forward medium,” says Mr. Hallerman, “with an actively engaged audience ready to click and type and move around quickly, while television is the proverbial lean-back medium, with the typified image of couch potatoes letting sounds and images wash over them.” Those couch potatoes are also the larger audience — something stressed in the Millward Brown study — so combining Internet video targeting with mass reach for certain campaign elements can be more effective than focusing solely on one medium. Find out more about Web ads by reading the eMarketer Internet Video: Advertising Experiments and Exploding Content report.
Media Life Web Shorts March 28, 2007
Posted by Mark Blei in : Uncategorized , add a commentStudy: Viewers show greater recall of web TV ads
Advertisers who want to get the most money out of their TV spots might be better served putting them on the internet. A new study by the Millward Brown research firm shows that television ads shown during web programs are much better received than the same 30-second ads on TV. Online viewers were 53 percent more likely to pay attention to commercial web spots compared with live TV, and brand advertising recall was four times higher for web viewers. The study, which included some 3,000 viewers, looked at primetime network TV, time-shifted via digital video recorder, and web programming, and it attributed the more positive response to web ads to a more attentive audience. But TV ads on top shows still reach a much larger, if less attentive, audience. Foxs American Idol averages 32 million total viewers per week. ABC.com attracted 9 million viewers last month, according to Nielsen//NetRatings.
Vonage reassures users: We’ll fight patent ruling
Despite a federal judges ruling that would bar Vonage from using technology patented by Verizon Communications Inc., the internet phone company is assuring customers that nothing will change. During what Vonage predicted yesterday will be a long legal battle between the two communications companies, the voice over internet protocol phone services 2.2 million customers are still going to get a dial tone. U.S. District Judge Claude Hilton delayed signing an injunction against Vonage until April 6. If the judge enters a permanent injunction at the time, Vonage will request a stay pending its appeal of the ruling. The injunction followed a jurys findings that Vonage infringed on three patents owned by Verizon. The jury found that Vonage must pay Verizon $58 million plus 5.5 percent royalties on future sales. Vonage also plans to appeal the March 8 jury verdict.
Cricket World Cup wants video yanked from YouTube
The Cricket World Cup is going to bat for copyright infringement. YouTube is in the process of removing hundreds of Cricket World Cup clips from its site following copyright infringement claims by the International Cricket Council. The council and Global Cricket Corp. went after the video-sharing web site to protect the commercial broadcast rights of its mobile and broadcast partners. The online rights protection agency NetResult, which is representing the council, says that because broadcasters buy highlights as well as live coverage and mobile rights that clips are protected. Those clips include anything that is rebroadcast from TV footage and even fan devices such as cell phones. NetResult protects the online rights for other sports including Australian Open Tennis, Formula One and the Football League. YouTube has reached agreements with sports leagues such as the NBA and NHL, as well as the NCAA, to show copyrighted clips on special channels.
CBS and Sprint offering mobile TV shows and clips
Heres one way to draw more attention to shows with sagging ratings: Make them available on cell phones. CBS Evening News with Katie Couric and Jericho, whose ratings have both dipped since September, will soon be available that way, coming days after NBC made a similar deal. CBS and Sprint will begin offering live mobilecasts in April. Also available will be video clips from the hit CSI franchise, Survivor, NCIS and NUMB3RS. In addition, plans call for making clips from the Late Show with David Letterman, The Late Late Show with Craig Ferguson and Entertainment Tonight tonight available. And for those who miss their Brady Bunch or I Love Lucy reruns, those will be available as well thanks to the agreement with Sprint that will allow CBS to sell brief commercials on Sprint TV that will air before and during programming.
Study: U.S. is the No. 1 exporter of computer fraud
The world’s No. 1 superpower is also No. 1 in computer fraud. The U.S. tops the charts in spam, phishing, and viruses, according to a new report from computer security firm Symantec, which found that a third of worldwide computer security violations originated in the U.S. in the second half of last year. China came in second at generating fraud, at 10 percent, and Germany was next at 7 percent. The U.S. also took first in “bot network activity.” That’s when hackers control others computers remotely, working together to disseminate spam. And the prevalence of spam is growing. It made up 59 percent of all emails monitored by Symantec in the second half of last year, up from 54 percent in the prior six months. Need more to be worried about? Symantec’s Internet Security Threat Report said that fraudsters can buy your credit card numbers as cheaply as $1 and can get their hands on a full identity for $14. That includes date of birth, bank account number, credit card and drivers license numbers.
At BetUS.com, lay odds on Lord Black’s looting trial
You can bet on whether Hillary Clinton will become president, you can bet on when the next earthquake will occur in California, and now you can bet on whether disgraced former newspaper mogul Lord Conrad Black is headed to the slammer after his current trial in Chicago for using his company as a personal piggy bank. The company, Hollinger International, owned newspapers around the world, including the Chicago Sun-Times, and his trial began this week. The web site BetUS.com puts the odds at 25 to 1 against Black going to prison and 5 to 1 against him getting divorced by 2008. The odds are 3-1 in favor of him being found guilty of some charges, but 10-1 against him being found guilty of all charges. The odds are even as to whether he would serve more or less than five years if he does end up in prison, and 3-1 in favor of him going to the pokey in Canada if he does have to serve jail time. And the odds are 5-1 in favor of him regaining his Canadian citizenship, though hell lose his lordship.
CBS gets into hot high school sports with MaxPreps
High school sports used to be the stuff of local sports pages and nothing else. These days, however, with kids jumping to the pros after just a year or two of college and teams often featured on national television, high school sports are becoming a hotter commodity. CBS is the latest to jump on the high school sports bandwagon, acquiring online high school sports network MaxPreps yesterday. It will be folding MaxPreps into its College Sports Television. MaxPreps.com follows more than 500,000 high school basketball and 80,000 high school football games per year. This comes as other traditional sports outlets are paying more attention to high school as well. Last year, Sports Illustrated, which has expanded its print high school sports coverage, entered a partnership with Takkle.com, a high school sports social networking site, and expanded coverage of high school sports at si.com as well.
Calling all aspiring anchors: Katie needs an intern
Want to intern for Katie Couric? The application process has begun online at CBSNews.com and CSTV’s U-Wire (www.uwire.com). College students who want to apply can do so by submitting a 1200 word essay or a 2.5-minute video report. The subject matter must be either global warming or profiling an Iraq war veteran from the local community or a local “social entrepreneur”– someone who is bringing a new creative solution to a community problem. Aspiring journalists can view sample essays and video reporting on the web site as well. Applications will be accepted through April 6 for the for-credit only internship, and a winner will be announced on April 30.
Many Americans see little point to Web: survey March 28, 2007
Posted by Mark Blei in : Uncategorized , add a commentMany Americans see little point to Web: survey
MOUNTAIN VIEW, California (Reuters) – A little under one-third of U.S. households have no Internet access and do not plan to get it, with most of the holdouts seeing little use for it in their lives, according to a survey released on Friday.
Park Associates, a Dallas-based technology market research firm, said 29 percent of U.S. households, or 31 million homes, do not have Internet access and do not intend to subscribe to an Internet service over the next 12 months.
The second annual National Technology Scan conducted by Park found the main reason potential customers say they do not subscribe to the Internet is because of the low value to their daily lives they perceive rather than concerns over cost.
Forty-four percent of these households say they are not interested in anything on the Internet, versus just 22 percent who say they cannot afford a computer or the cost of Internet service, the survey showed.
The answer “I’m not sure how to use the Internet” came from 17 percent of participants who do not subscribe. The response “I do all my e-commerce shopping and YouTube-watching at work” was cited by 14 percent of Internet-access refuseniks. Three percent said the Internet doesn’t reach their homes.
The study found U.S. broadband adoption grew to 52 percent over 2006, up from 42 percent in 2005. Roughly half of new subscribers converted from slower-speed, dial-up Internet access while the other half of households had no prior access.
“The industry continues to chip away at the core of nonsubscribers, but has a ways to go,” said John Barrett, director of research at Parks Associates.
“Entertainment applications will be the key. If anything will pull in the holdouts, it’s going to be applications that make the Internet more akin to pay TV,” he predicted.
Video Gets Star Billing As Time Inc. Shows Off Digital Assets March 28, 2007
Posted by Mark Blei in : Uncategorized , add a comment| Video Gets Star Billing As Time Inc. Shows Off Digital Assets | |
| by Laurie Petersen, Tuesday, Mar 27, 2007 6:00 AM ET | |
| VIDEO WILL PLAY A STARRING role in Time Inc.’s digital future, and the company sees itself in an ideal position to compete directly with networks by creating compelling original stories that arise from the voices of its strong publishing brands. Executive Vice President John Squires repeatedly touted the video promise during a 90-minute Digital Outlook briefing for the media at Time Inc. headquarters Monday. “I am very bullish on Time Inc. TV,” he said in describing the new Time Inc. Studios formed last November to develop video content. “We can now compete with television for ad dollars, and [the video] is built into our existing Web infrastructure.” Squires opened the briefing with a nod to the passing once again of Life, the print magazine–but promised the brand will endure in a more compelling way as a Web property making a digitized version of its 12 million photographs that can be used and manipulated by consumers. He said two other partners are involved in the project, which will be ready for full disclosure in about four months. Squires hinted at how Life may be reborn as he described future products enabling consumers to create personal pages encapsulating significant moments in their personal histories. Squires said the Web should contribute 18% to the total 2007 profit of the Sports Illustrated brand, and 17% to the CNN/Money franchise. He said if Web-based revenues can grow to 25% of each print title within a few years, “we won’t have any trouble growing our business.” Citing syndicated data from comScore Media Metrix, Squires said Time Inc. brands ranked 14th in February engagement, averaging 20.4 minutes per visitor to its sites. He celebrated People.com for becoming “the stickiest site in entertainment journalism” in just four months. Among the “next generation” success stories in the new Time Inc. online arsenal are elements such as the Entertainment Weekly “What to Watch” widget pushing television listings onto Google. Redesigns of both SI.com and CNNMoney.com all rely heavily on aggregating outside content and pushing information out to consumers rather than requiring repeated page loads. And yes, there is video everywhere. Chris Peacock, editor of CNNMoney.com, said for the first time the site created video to accompany its “Best Places to Live” feature. A Business 2.0 series on the “101 Dumbest Business Moves” engaged the services of a comedian to crack wise about such items as Radio Shack firing its employees by email. The redesign of SI.com moved the featured video from the bottom of the page to a prime above-the-fold position. The switch resulted in a 25% increase in video streams, said Managing Editor Paul Fichtenbaum. Paul Speaker, president of the new Time Inc. Studios, described his first project–bringing to life through video a promotion already set for Essence magazine filming six men using hidden cameras as they proposed to their fiancés on Christmas Eve and Christmas Day. The “Will You Marry Me?” videos then played on the Essence Web site. Traffic quadrupled and 10 million votes were cast for the couple to win a honeymoon in South Africa. (All six were eventually awarded a prize.) The event, conceived by Essence’s editor, was sponsored by Tiffany and generated $250,000 in revenue for the magazine. Two more projects are in the works for the title, including a “30 Dates in 30 Days” reality dating series in which readers will tell the daters where to go and what to do. The strategy, Squires said, will be to continue to use the huge print audiences to promote and steer readers to such new online content as the personalized My SI and CNN/Money.com cookie-based portfolio mashup streaming real-time quotes and news on the 10 stocks you most recently checked.
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WSJ Hosts Blog and Microsite for UPS March 28, 2007
Posted by Mark Blei in : Uncategorized , add a commentWSJ Hosts Blog and Microsite for UPS
By Matthew G Nelson | March 27, 2007
Recently the Wall Street Journal Online quietly rolled out a new advertising campaign in partnership with United Parcel Service (UPS), one of its large ad customers. But in a split with the publisher’s previous approach to Web ads, clicking the UPS banners scattered across WSJ.com won’t take viewers to UPS’s company site, but to a branded microsite hosted by the Wall Street Journal and revolving around business content focused on the shipping business.
It’s the latest example of online publishers working directly with advertisers to create advertising content associated with the publisher, but still wholly separate from the publisher’s own creative systems. And it’s a trend that’s growing, according to Brian Quinn, VP of advertising sales and marketing, Dow Jones Online, which operates WSJ Online.
“The real creatives are publishers. Media is the creative now. How you execute with the media is where people are getting excited, and that’s where we see ourselves moving,” said Quinn.
Dow Jones Online worked with UPS and agency of record The Martin Agency to create the “UPS – Delivering Digital Insight” microsite which will be available until the end of June 2007. The site focuses on topics like globalization and maintaining agile logistics systems and provides not only links to relevant WSJ content, but video of Wharton Business School professors and blogs where visitors can comment on their logistical efforts.
By having the site hosted by WSJ Online and Dow Jones, UPS is able to provide a more relevant creative aspect associated with its services than could be found by linking directly to UPS itself, said Eddie Austin, VP/Associate Media Director for The Martin Agency.
“Part of it is giving people a chance to interact outside of the walls of the corporation. The creative is very inviting, it’s a one-to-one discussion. The fact that that they are utilizing the Dow Jones blog is very positive,” said Austin. “The creative is hitting the right core with the consumer. It’s a learning process as well, and we’re three months in and learning how to make it better.”
Although WSJ Online content is linked directly from the microsite, Quinn says that Dow Jones makes it clear that the site is advertising, that it can only be reached through clicking an advertising link, and that the WSJ Online editorial staff has no direct contact with the site. At the same time, it behooves Dow Jones to help create a site that has compelling content for users and is not just touting an advertiser’s agenda.
“When a user comes to the WSJ site, they are not planning on going to this UPS thing, they were planning on something else and they have to be engaged in some way,” said Quinn. “We really try to be very objective about the process we take on it. We don’t want to create something that just meets an advertisers needs. If we do something and we then took away the advertising, we still want it to be good content. If you see this video of a Wharton professor, that’s still good content.”
Hosting an advertising customer’s microsite also creates an additional level of operational need for Dow Jones itself, according to Quinn. As the site needs to be refreshed with additional information and updates from Wharton or WSJ Online for instance, Dow Jones has personnel in its Dow Jones Integrated Services division responsible for maintaining the content.
Publishers creating microsites for customers will also not work well in every instance, as “These microsites have big tickets attached to them, so it’s not for everybody,” said Quinn. He also said that publishers need a good relationship with the marketers and clients, and that the kind of discussions a microsite provides must be right for the company.
“If there is no core central idea, then we walk away from the customization and just let them buy advertising, which is not a bad idea either,” said Quinn.
While the hosted UPS microsite is the most in-depth sponsorship Dow Jones Online has done, the company has also worked with MIT Sloan Management Review to create “Business Insights” which is sponsored by IBM but is wholly within WSJ’s editorial control.
Separately, Wall Street Journal Online has also launched 10 new editorial blogs as freely available advertising supported content. Topics addressed by the blogs include a “Deal Journal” blog, as well as a Law Blog, an Energy Roundup blog and other topics.
Are Marketers Dying on Second Life? March 28, 2007
Posted by Mark Blei in : Uncategorized , add a commentAre Marketers Dying on Second Life?
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March 27, 2007
By Constantine von Hoffman
BOSTON — Thanks in large part to media hype, marketers continue to rush to the virtual world of Second Life despite increasing evidence they don’t really know what to do when they get there. Last week Coldwell Banker hung out a shingle on the site as “the first national real estate company to sell homes within the community.” The real estate firm is in good company. H&R Block, adidas, IBM, Reebok, American Apparel, Toyota, Leo Burnett and Bartle Bogle Hegarty are among the dozens of firms already there.
So far all this collective marketing savvy hasn’t much impressed the actual Second Lifers. More than 70% of the site’s users say they are disappointed with the marketing that goes on in SL, according to a new survey by Komjuniti, a Hamburg, Germany, research firm. This could be because companies are approaching the site like a traditional marketing channel.
“The brand sites on Second Life currently look like they’re being treated in pretty much the same way as [traditional] advertising campaigns,” said Dr. Nils Andres, managing director of Komjuniti. They have been “placed with the hope of getting high visitor frequency and good PR scores.”
While some companies have done innovative work, there are a lot of places on SL where companies have put something up and then clearly never returned. Because of this, Second Lifers have become skeptical of marketing on the site. “They expect more creativity, more inspiration, and not vertical influence the old and traditional way of the 60-second spot,” said Andres. In addition to not liking the marketing they saw, 42% of all respondents doubted companies’ would actually put much follow-up effort into the site.
Linden Labs, the site’s creator, said this survey supports what they’ve been telling companies. “The most successful business people in Second Life have taken a look at the commercial landscape and determined where needs exist,” said Catherine Smith, Linden Labs’ director of marketing. “If you are not authentic and do not offer anything to the community, you are likely to be ignored.”
Their attitude makes sense to Paula Drum, vp-marketing at H&R Block, which opened up shop in Second Life two weeks ago. “The big difference between Second Life and other marketing channels is you can’t go in with a short-term mindset,” she said.
While Drum couldn’t say what the company’s long term activities on the site will be, so far it is offering free tax advice for two hours a week from now until tax day. Users also can get a preview of the company’s new product called Tango, some virtual scooters to ride around the company’s part of Second Life, Tango-related virtual apparel and a chance to win virtual money by placing H&R Block ads in the user’s part of SL.
One of the reasons that marketers may not stick around the site is because the actual number of regular users is far lower than what they had expected. Linden Labs and the media have made much of the site’s three million users. However the number of people who use the site regularly are probably a tenth of that total, according to analysts.
Linden Lab’s Smith said that’s not that far off what her company has found. “About 10% of registered residents have logged-in in the past week, and about 25% have logged-in in the past month,” she said. “We’ve found consistent usership to be in the 15% range.”
“Marketers are just following the hype without thinking about the proportion of investments and alternatives in the market,” said Nils. He said Second Life’s numbers pale when compared to those of something like the online game World of Warcraft. “If you compare WoW and Second Life, the ratio and effectiveness of marketing communication is way better in WoW than in SL.”
WoW has more than 7.5 million people who pay for subscriptions to the site. While Second Life does have more than 40,000 paid subscribers, most users use free accounts. Instead Linden Labs makes most of its money from companies that lease space on the site.
So why go there? Drum it’s less about the total number of users than the impression that being there can make. She hopes that the move into Second Life along with the company’s new presence on YouTube will boost Block’s reputation as an innovative company. “We’re willing to test and try these new methods,” she said. “We want to be seen as an innovator and not just as a fast follower.”
