DOES SIZE REALLY MATTER?

As I "re-imagine" interactive advertising design as part of IAB's new task force to update their new standard ad guidelines, I ask myself, "Does Size REALLY matter?". The answer is less than you might think.



I have a feeling that more people will jump to the conclusion that increasing ad sizes will magically reverse the trend of declining online metrics. Not so fast my friends. The answer is in positioning, not size. Think about it. Where do you see most large rectangle units? Homepages and within content/stories. Now, where are the smaller units? They are on the peripherals within the navigations - where no one is looking. It's not about the ad size of a takeover ad. It's about the take over itself. Same thing with a Welcome Ad. To this point, there has been chatter of getting rid of the leaderboard unit based on performance. The size isn't obsolete, the position is. Hey, I've been on the publisher side, so I undertand the need for buttons, leaderboards, skys. But if we want to really improve the performance of the online channel, then we'll put our thinking caps on and come up with better positioning and user experiences.

Quick quiz: Without looking, which one of these is in the header of this blog? A. Clouds, B. Trees, C. Birds. Don't know? Thought so, but I bet you saw the ad for the Entertainment Book.

(Media Buying Tip: Ad networks or any buy that involves remnant inventory will charge the same rate for a bundle of ad sizes (468s, 160s, 728s and 300s) compared to portals or contents site, which put a higher value on the bigger sizes - as well as they should. So take advantage of this and opt to run only the bigger sizes, or the 300s only. You'll end up with better metrics and more importantly, better positioning as well.)

Interactive Media Design

The IAB released an announcement on April 30th that it was bringing together a task force of “TopTalent To Re-Imagine Interactive Advertising” – and as a member firm of the IAB, Media Two Interactive was quick to jump on board.

For years, interactive media has been reliant on great creative execution to become successful. Publishers and sales reps alike are the first one to blame creative when a campaign is unsuccessful, which is why about 8 years ago, Media Two started up a media design division (award winning division I might add!). After so many years of doing great media strategy (which includes a combination of media & design), this is a great opportunity for Media Two to help out in the relevance of interactive advertising for years to come.

Although the consensus with our designers is they’d love to eliminate small ad formats, increase file size restrictions (especially now that broadband is widely accepted), and even do away with the original leader board formats that are typically not as responsive as the larger, 4:3 ratio ads – there is more thought going into it than just that… Look at TV for example… DVR’s and Tivo’s of the world are fast-forwarding commercials. Unless the 30-second spots become a Super Bowl caliber entertainment value, people are tuning out most of them. So what you are seeing are more and more product placements within the content themselves... With the advent of Social Media online and consumer interaction at its highest – let’s figure out how to create a non-intrusive placement that consumers want to interact with, can create that coveted brand awareness, and oh yeah, publishers can make their money so the online experience continues to be a free one. I don’t believe TV made a mistake – I believe the consumer experience evolved past that – so let’s not model an online ad experience after one that consumers have already passed by. I’m looking forward to our interaction and involvement with the IAB – as this will be changing the way we work for years to come! If you want to keep updated on things progress, I encourage you to follow our Creative Director Rachel Rumsey on Twitter – she is @rachrum !

Marketing/Media Plan for 2013

I think everyone is in agreement that 2008 ended horribly, and 2009 is starting off with longer lines at the unemployment office than at Disney these days (FYI unemployment office workers – Disney started a “fast pass” program a number of years ago that is awesome – you may want to consider it for 09). Every morning my inbox is filled with 10% layoff notices at this agency and that agency, and everyone on the OldTimers List and my Twitter is networking and appealing to the masses. So how are companies going to survive 2009? Well – if you haven’t figured that out already, chances are you’re not going to – so let’s move on.

I sat in on a great strategy and recap session yesterday between our account services team and the client themselves. The client was asking how they could catch up to their number one competitor who had dominated their industry. We just started with them in September and we’ve already hit a lot of their goals and expectations, but we’re playing catch-up to their competitor, and so the point was brought up by our media team for the client to start thinking ahead. We’ll worry about planning and executing for 2009 and make it a success – but what is going to differentiate them in the future. How are we going to get ahead and have their competition trying to figure out what hit them?

The most common theme brought up was mobile and new applications such as iPhones that make desktops a thing of the past. According to a new study by Parks Associates published on Media Post there will be more than 140 million US consumers paying for mobile broadband services in 2013. I personally have used my laptop for maybe 5 things since getting my iPhone in November. So if your website isn’t currently mobile enabled at the very least – now’s the time to be doing it. Then starting to look at technologies such as the iPhone where it registers as a web browser rather than a mobile device, and it doesn’t yet accept flash… So you need to take that into account – but understand that in the future flash will be there – so don’t spend millions now to only have to change it later. Road map your audience by age category and target usage, and build your mobile site appropriately.

The key to your success is still going to be knowing who your audience is and what marketing principles have worked in the past. Saving yourself from the grey hairs (and unemployment lines) is going to come with aligning yourself with the right partner who understands all of the changing technologies and can guide you through the process.

New Year’s Resolutions in Interactive for the CMO

A few weeks ago I sat and watched with great interest at the Internet Summit a panel of venture capitalists as they gave their forecasts for when the economy would turn around. There were 4 panelists, and their answers started out with 12 months, 18 months, 24 months… And then it got to the last person, and I could kick myself for not remembering who he was… “I have no idea” was his response.

Finally! It is ok to admit that nobody knows… So why is everyone so intent on trying to guess what 2009 will bring for Madison Avenue? After 13+ years in this industry, you’d think that I’d understand that it’s just the “big guns” trying to sound intelligent, and the reality is all of us in the trenches who are actually defining the industry are still focusing on delivering tangible results for our clients. So with that in mind, I’ve created a New Year’s Resolution list for Chief Marketing Officers everywhere (regardless of whether ad spend in 2009 will go up or down in each channel):

Test something new: I still believe 20% of your budget should be set aside to test new campaigns, technologies, solutions, etc… And by “new” – it can be something that is simply new to you – you don’t always have to be the first out the door launching your new Facebook Connect campaign. But if you know text ads work for you, maybe give SMS ads a try in a controlled environment. Just keep testing, as people’s wants and needs are changing every day - so too should your testing.

Marketing through Search: Yes – I say this a lot… It is Search Engine MARKETING – so test different products on different keywords, test pricing and discounts, test in-store promotions… Some of you that stayed awake in Marketing 101 are starting to hear some familiar P’s… Don’t lose track of what got your company where you are today. Search is the medium - marketing is how you use it.

Set Your Metrics: This goes without saying – right? Well knowing your metrics and dictating your marketing to hitting them while keeping a good marketing mix are a lot more difficult than you may think. That being said, if you know that your product retails at $20, and you need a COGS of $10 to be profitable, make sure you have a media campaign set up as a whole that will accomplish that. Don’t judge one medium independently of another. Even though interactive may appear to be the cheapest, there are offline occurrences that affect your online campaigns.

Own Social Media: The words social media seem to now be what “emerging” media was 2 years ago… A catch all for everything you don’t understand. Grasp the areas of social media that are relevant to you. Set up Google Alerts on your company name, your competitors, etc… Own your online reputation. Set up a Twitter account for your company, set up a LinkedIn account for your company… These are all free tools that are available for you to communicate with your customer. If you find they’re not working (make sure you review your site analytics before you make that judgment), then move on. But allow your customers to interact with you in the way they want to… You need to own Social Media – not let it own you.

Happy New Year CMO’s!

Peter Shankman, Internet Summit and IAB Q3 Revenue Report

Needless to say, it has been a whirlwind 7 day period in which plenty of things are going on in the interactive world. If you want to ask about my family’s personal tour of the White House we received during the G20 Summit last weekend – then we’re REALLY talking about a whirlwind week (I got to pet Barney without getting bit)! But back to interactive… Peter Shankman was in Raleigh speaking at the TIMA event – and if you have never seen him speak, or don’t follow him on Twitter – or really just don’t know anything about what he’s about – you’re missing out. He’s filled with plenty of stories – and filled with plenty of thoughts and ideas on where the social media/interactive world is going. I’d like to say he speaks with a lot of common sense, but driving 150 miles for a Hardee’s burger pretty much throws that out the window. That being said – he is in tune with modern day technology, and he is well connected and should be followed, tweeted, LinkedIn, etc…

This week was also the inaugural Internet Summit in Chapel Hill… I am happy to say, interactive finally has a major following in the Triangle! The event was sold out (estimated 700+ attendee’s) – and from what I could tell – a smashing success. Bob Young of LuLu and Red Hat fame spoke about how they’re a good company – but should be great if they can get their hands around everything new in interactive. Gian Fulgoni from comScore spoke about online lifts to the offline world. There were plenty of social media “experts” and what seemed to be even more legal folks in attendance. All-in-all – it was an impressive summit and one of the first that I’ve attended that I felt like I actually took more away from it than I paid for. Congrats to the group at CED and Tech Journal for pulling this all off.

And to cap off the week – in this horrible economy we’re in – the Q3 numbers were released by the IAB (which – shameless plug – Media Two is one of only 13 Associate Agency Members) and interactive grew by 11% to a tune of $5.9 Billion last quarter. No – it’s not the 20+ percent we’ve grown accustomed to, but I think you’ll all agree that showing some growth is still a positive. Lot’s going on at Media Two – so more to come, but I have a goal of getting a Twitter account this month. I’ve spoken about it, explained it, followed the phenom (including the latest Motrin/MommyBloggers) – and I think it’s about time I actually joined. Have a good one.

Night On The Town With WWE

So, face it - as an interactive agency, there are some perks that come along every now and then. The latest adventure was a M2I's group outing to fantasy land....Wrestling fantasy land!

Thanks to WWE.com and our online sales rep Stacy (she was the BEST hostess ever) for the opportunity to witness in person one of the top U.S. spectator sports.

You know the saying, you learn something new every day? Well, here's my learnings from the field trip...

1. I got a totally different perspective of wrestling fans. From my observations, I would guess the demo is: Middle America: 18-54, Middle Income, Single Men and Married Couples w/ Children, High Propensity for Brand Loyalty (Am I even close Stacy??)
   
2. Giants DO exist....check out these guys...I am having nightmares that Kane is coming for me and that Batista wants to be my friend
   
3. I knew that I was being drawn-in and wrapped up into the soap opera when I heard myself yelling "Bring It On!" and chanting for the defeat of someone dressed like J.R. Ewing in speedos. Again, the nightmares continue...

Happy Hump Day Everyone!!

Wild Week at Media Two

So just so everyone has it - we're now keeping score on our interactive marketing news page, but last week warrants a post of its own...

On Monday, CNN posted a story about Media Two's recent Microsoft win, and how more and more larger firms are choosing the nimble interactive firms to represent them.

On Tuesday, DM News posted a portion of a thought paper on "Driving search conversions with display advertising".

On Wednesday, I spoke to an audience of agency members and marketers alike at the DMA's DM Days conference in New York. The specific topic was on what defines a full service advertising agency - and the answer that the room delivered was a resound "they don't exist anymore". We followed the show up by an in-person meeting at the IAB to discuss the results of the UGC / Social Media event as well as outlining guidelines for the future.

On Thursday - we learned that great results don't always lead to great things, and the David's of the world can always be replaced by the Goliath's of the world's promises (apparently not everyone read the CNN article on Monday). That being said, you can see the roll Media Two is on, and we're excited to continue that roll and focus our efforts on other accounts. Growing a firm with no interactive department or spend to being one of the top 25 interactive advertisers speaks volumes for the talent in this office, and we're looking forward to our next challenge!

On Friday, we resumed our overall great week by being named the #1 internet marketing and design firm in the Raleigh, Durham, Chapel Hill area by the Triangle Business Journal. That's extremely exciting news - especially seeing as how all of our clients happen to be outside the state of North Carolina!

Not to be outdone of course - on Friday the offices of Media Two were also closed for a good cause... The Learning Together organization in Raleigh put on their annual Tees for Tots program - and it was a smashing success. Media Two was the title sponsor for the 2nd year in a row, and the team I played on destroyed everyone else, posting the highest score in the tournament of 79! P.S. As the title sponsor, we chose to change the rules and say that the high score wins. Thank goodness for interactive marketing!

Agen"see"

I read an interesting commentary today from a colleague of mine explaining why most agencies still don’t succeed at interactive advertising. The gist of the argument was that poor media buying led to ineffective campaigns. Very true, but I also think this points us to look at the evolution of the “big agency” take on interactive and why this is only half the equation. Truth be told, at first the failure of big branding agencies to succeed online was because none understood the level of trackability and functionality. It was thought that you just needed to get online because your competitors were there… or weren’t there yet.

A few years later and a few campaigns wiser, most are realizing the errors of their initial efforts. But to that point, are they really “getting” interactive now? In my humble opinion, the answer is no. So what if they’re producing multi-level Flash campaigns with interactive rollover banners and integrated video? That’s aesthetically pleasing and gives the business suits the warm and fuzzies, but does it really product results?

We constantly preach good design here at Media Two, but for most agencies I think that there’s a disconnect between what’s good design and what’s functional. Good design placed in the right places still doesn’t necessarily product results, and the converse is certainly true. But when good and functional design is coupled with innovative strategy, the result is a living and breathing media plan that grows and evolves.

So where I’m going with this is that success is two-fold in nature. It begins with the design team understanding the strategy side. Whether it’s copy, images, or functionality you’re talking about, the design team must understand the context in which their work will be viewed. For example, slap the Mona Lisa on the side of a building in East Harlem and it goes unnoticed, but speak to the locals through a blended mural and suddenly an artistic genius emerges.

The second part of this equation is ensuring that the strategy team fully understands the end result the designers are striving to achieve and then using that knowledge to find innovative ways to display it. After all, pictures always look better with a nice frame, right?

In the long run, I think the ultimate demise of most interactive campaigns comes from the inability of both groups in the equation to fully understand each other. It’s the old left brain/right brain conflict at its best. Those agencies that are capable of collective thinking with both brains will be the ones that excel in this industry by driving all parties involved towards a common goal.