The Super Bowl is known to be an event that features not only the year's best in professional football, but also the year's best in television advertising.
Many football fans and non-football-fans alike watch the Super Bowl for the sake of seeing the commercials just as much as - or more than - for the sake of watching the actual football game. And this year, I don't think those viewers were disappointed. Most of the commercials were very well done; many were funny; a few were slightly disturbing. And the football game was exciting, too.
But what impressed me most about Super Bowl XLIV was the number of brands that integrated their television commercials with free bonus content on the Web.
Several companies allowed web users to see "sneak peeks" of their Super Bowl spots during the week before the game. Many of these offers tied into a reciprocity technique - after watching the short clip, users were encouraged to follow the brand on Twitter, or to use a promotional code to receive a discount at the brand's online store. And after the game, some brands then emailed links for the full versions of their ads to users who opted in to their mailing list.
Also this year, all of the Super Bowl commercials were made publicly available to users after the spots aired during the game. Viewers can watch all 71 commercials at www.youtube.com/adblitz, and between now and February 14, can vote for their favorite.
Of these Web-integrated Super Bowl campaigns, my personal favorite is the HomeAway ad:
This ad is actually a trailer for a new short film, available for viewing pleasure at HomeAway.com. Clark and Ellen Griswold return in "Hotel Hell Vacation," much to the delight of this particular National Lampoon fan. Visitors to the site can also watch other short videos, play the Griswold Getaway game, read (and vote for their favorite) user-submitted hotel horror stories, and enter to win a dream vacation.
With these and the other web-integrated Super Bowl advertisements, it seems that brands are beginning to understand how offering free, fun, accessible content to audiences can help to build customer relationships. As companies provide content like this, they associate their names with enjoyable experiences, and create opportunities to delight customers and to form positive impressions and reputations in the minds of consumers.
And after a customer spends 15 minutes exploring this fun content, he might also explore the actual product information on the rest of the brand website. Or at least remember HomeAway.com, for example, the next time he plans a family vacation.
Great job, HomeAway.com and others. I hope that next year, your Super Bowl ads will go one step further, by integrating with mobile content as well (as blogger Steve Smith points out).
Showing posts with label web content. Show all posts
Showing posts with label web content. Show all posts
Wednesday, February 10, 2010
Friday, November 6, 2009
Making Advertising Work Better for the Customer
Yesterday, MediaPost's Video Insider published an article by Michael Kokernak, founder of Backchannelmedia, entitled "Scientific Advertising and Free Samples." Mr. Kokernak predicts a few of the ways in which interactive television commercials would change the way marketers approach advertising.
First, he says that television advertising will no longer be driven by audience size and demographics. Indeed, demographics are an insufficient predictor of consumer preferences. My buying habits are more affected by my psychographics - such as my lifestyle (I'm a marketer; I run; I draw; I play piano; I'm actively involved in my church), my beliefs, and my friends - than by the fact that I'm a 20-something white American female.
With traditional television advertising, especially on the major networks, it was nearly impossible to segment viewers by anything but audience size and demographics. But since interactive television would enable viewers to pause, click, and further pursue the specific ads and information in which they are interested, marketers can get to "know" the likes and dislikes of each individual viewer, and to customize their advertisements according to those psychographics.
Second, Mr. Kokernak predicts that interactive television commercials will be more "keyed" to results than traditional tv advertising is. The ultimate goal of advertising, as Mr. Kokernak points out, is to drive sales. But so many factors contribute to the consumer decision-making process, that it is difficult to pinpoint if and how a specific ad led to a particular purchase. Except in routine or spontaneous purchases, most consumers' decision to buy a specific product comes after a long period of inputs, including previous brand experience, brand awareness, brand reputation, knowledge of the product category, opinions of other users, a history of advertising, point-of-sale marketing, customer service, etc. Rarely can a sale be attributed to any one factor, such as a particular ad.
Interactive television ads could help to more accurately measure results by capturing the actions of the consumer directly after viewing the ad. Did the viewer click on the ad? Did he spend much time on the website? Did he register on the site, or subscribe to email/SMS/RSS updates? Did he search for the product online? Did he use keywords from the ad in his search? Did he actually purchase the product online immediately after seeing the ad?
By tracking these results, marketers can determine whether an ad was successful in achieving "intermediate" goals, such as increasing the viewer's awareness of the brand, or improving the brand reputation in the mind of the viewers, or drawing the viewer to the website, or creating a positive brand experience for the viewer, or leading the viewer to "become a fan" and subscribe to updates. And because of e-commerce, marketers can also see when their interactive television commercials actually did lead to an immediate sale.
I think the jury is still out on how consumers will receive the idea of television and Internet rolled into one. It could be a huge success if done well. And whether or not "interactive television," as we imagine it, becomes the norm, interactive technology in general should enable marketers to make their communication more relevant and more useful to the individual consumer.
First, he says that television advertising will no longer be driven by audience size and demographics. Indeed, demographics are an insufficient predictor of consumer preferences. My buying habits are more affected by my psychographics - such as my lifestyle (I'm a marketer; I run; I draw; I play piano; I'm actively involved in my church), my beliefs, and my friends - than by the fact that I'm a 20-something white American female.
With traditional television advertising, especially on the major networks, it was nearly impossible to segment viewers by anything but audience size and demographics. But since interactive television would enable viewers to pause, click, and further pursue the specific ads and information in which they are interested, marketers can get to "know" the likes and dislikes of each individual viewer, and to customize their advertisements according to those psychographics.
Second, Mr. Kokernak predicts that interactive television commercials will be more "keyed" to results than traditional tv advertising is. The ultimate goal of advertising, as Mr. Kokernak points out, is to drive sales. But so many factors contribute to the consumer decision-making process, that it is difficult to pinpoint if and how a specific ad led to a particular purchase. Except in routine or spontaneous purchases, most consumers' decision to buy a specific product comes after a long period of inputs, including previous brand experience, brand awareness, brand reputation, knowledge of the product category, opinions of other users, a history of advertising, point-of-sale marketing, customer service, etc. Rarely can a sale be attributed to any one factor, such as a particular ad.
Interactive television ads could help to more accurately measure results by capturing the actions of the consumer directly after viewing the ad. Did the viewer click on the ad? Did he spend much time on the website? Did he register on the site, or subscribe to email/SMS/RSS updates? Did he search for the product online? Did he use keywords from the ad in his search? Did he actually purchase the product online immediately after seeing the ad?
By tracking these results, marketers can determine whether an ad was successful in achieving "intermediate" goals, such as increasing the viewer's awareness of the brand, or improving the brand reputation in the mind of the viewers, or drawing the viewer to the website, or creating a positive brand experience for the viewer, or leading the viewer to "become a fan" and subscribe to updates. And because of e-commerce, marketers can also see when their interactive television commercials actually did lead to an immediate sale.
I think the jury is still out on how consumers will receive the idea of television and Internet rolled into one. It could be a huge success if done well. And whether or not "interactive television," as we imagine it, becomes the norm, interactive technology in general should enable marketers to make their communication more relevant and more useful to the individual consumer.
Monday, July 27, 2009
Balkanization of the Web?
In today's MediaPost Search Insider blog, search engine marketing professional Steve Baldwin wrote about what he foresees as the "Balkanization of the Web."
He says that, in order for suppliers of premium web content to stay alive, they will begin to release their information only to those search engines that cut them the best deals. This will result in information being divided among the various search engines, such that certain content is exclusive to specific search engines. Thus users will find themselves pushed to one engine or another, depending on the content they are seeking.
Baldwin thinks that this is the only real method by which search engines can distinguish themselves, since users care about the relevance of search results (which is now basically uniform across search engines), not the bells and whistles of a given search engine.
Now I'm no SEM expert as Mr. Baldwin is, but I must disagree with his prediction. I cannot see how such splitting up of web content is a good idea for any party involved. Nor would it ever begin to happen. Here's why.
One, the providers of premium content to whom Mr. Baldwin refers (i.e. The New York Times) are in no position to bargain for "better deals" from search engines. They are dying. Their readership is declining. They are trying to figure out how to renew their relevance and attract more readers. That is why they engage in SEO and SEM in the first place - so that any and every potential reader can find them in any and every pertinent search on any and every search engine. Creating an artificial scarcity, or threatening to, would be shooting themselves in the foot.
Two, search engines will not want to restrict themselves to only certain types of information. In other industries, concentrating all of one's resources in one product category enables a business to become truly and distinctively excellent in that category. This is not true for search engines. For search engines, there is no competitive advantage to ignoring some topics in order to focus on others. Nor will the search engines be forced to do so by the content providers, because, as noted in reason #1 above, the content providers have no bargaining power.
Three, users won't stand for it. Sharing and finding information on the Web should be free and easy. Users won't want to try several different search engines before they find the information they want - not when they can use Google to find virtually everything. And, as noted in reason #2 above, Google (and every other search engine) has no motive to limit the kinds of information it can find for users; therefore, users will continue to be able to find everything there.
The search engines and the dying providers of premium content will need to find another way to monetize their offerings. Sorry, Mr. Baldwin, but artificially limiting their products won't work. If they want to make money, they should try providing services that consumers perceive as worth paying money for.
He says that, in order for suppliers of premium web content to stay alive, they will begin to release their information only to those search engines that cut them the best deals. This will result in information being divided among the various search engines, such that certain content is exclusive to specific search engines. Thus users will find themselves pushed to one engine or another, depending on the content they are seeking.
Baldwin thinks that this is the only real method by which search engines can distinguish themselves, since users care about the relevance of search results (which is now basically uniform across search engines), not the bells and whistles of a given search engine.
Now I'm no SEM expert as Mr. Baldwin is, but I must disagree with his prediction. I cannot see how such splitting up of web content is a good idea for any party involved. Nor would it ever begin to happen. Here's why.
One, the providers of premium content to whom Mr. Baldwin refers (i.e. The New York Times) are in no position to bargain for "better deals" from search engines. They are dying. Their readership is declining. They are trying to figure out how to renew their relevance and attract more readers. That is why they engage in SEO and SEM in the first place - so that any and every potential reader can find them in any and every pertinent search on any and every search engine. Creating an artificial scarcity, or threatening to, would be shooting themselves in the foot.
Two, search engines will not want to restrict themselves to only certain types of information. In other industries, concentrating all of one's resources in one product category enables a business to become truly and distinctively excellent in that category. This is not true for search engines. For search engines, there is no competitive advantage to ignoring some topics in order to focus on others. Nor will the search engines be forced to do so by the content providers, because, as noted in reason #1 above, the content providers have no bargaining power.
Three, users won't stand for it. Sharing and finding information on the Web should be free and easy. Users won't want to try several different search engines before they find the information they want - not when they can use Google to find virtually everything. And, as noted in reason #2 above, Google (and every other search engine) has no motive to limit the kinds of information it can find for users; therefore, users will continue to be able to find everything there.
The search engines and the dying providers of premium content will need to find another way to monetize their offerings. Sorry, Mr. Baldwin, but artificially limiting their products won't work. If they want to make money, they should try providing services that consumers perceive as worth paying money for.
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