MSN's Medstory Story

MSN's Medstory Story
by Mark Simon, Monday, March 5, 2007

 

source: MediaPost Publications // Search Insider

LAST WEEK, Microsoft announced plans to buy health search engine Medstory. More than just a buy into a great product, that purchase might be Microsoft's secret weapon into winning the search wars.

As a vertical engine, Medstory's search functionality is fantastic. It's a genius at showing health material and weeding out non-health results -- as a search for an ambiguous term like "wine" will show. When I ran that search, the engine was great at avoiding non-health "wine" results (like results for wine stores or wine recipes); non-health listings only seemed to sneak in around results page 90. (On searches around medical personalities, though, Medstory's filtering looked a lot weaker.)

On top of its excellent relevance, Medstory is also spectacularly effective when it comes to granularity. Along with standard specialty searches like audio and video, Medstory allows searchers to drill down for items like drugs, experts, and even genes that relate to a keyword.

But Medstory's true value only begins with what it offers as a health-search engine. It will undoubtedly make a killer app within MSN Health & Fitness, but that's just the start. It also looks like its technology will be copied across all of the vertical content sections within the MSN portal, like MSN Autos, MSN Music, and MSN Money. Currently, those content areas offer only a site search within the content area itself, and access to run a non-specialized search on Live.com. Visitors to those content sections would gladly welcome -- and use -- a Medstory clone that's geared towards their topic of interest. And that new wave of vertical search traffic would create many more opportunities for highly targeted search advertising.

Medstory, meanwhile, is hardly ignorant of its potential for expanding beyond health alone. As CNet's Carolyn McCarthy points out, "Medstory's Web site hints that health is only the first topic for which it plans to implement its... technology," and that "other 'complex fields' of inquiry may be on the way."

Even vertical search, though, might not be the ultimate goal that's on MSN's mind with Medstory. If there's anything that AdCenter has taught the world, it's that Microsoft is a master at taking the data it already has, and repurposing it into smarter search. A small army of Medstory clones will allow Microsoft to do just that, at a whole new level -- as it will contain a huge inventory of behavioral data on vertically-minded searchers and search queries. MSN can use that data to deliver more relevant organic results, and better ads, within vertically-minded searches on Live.com itself.

Indeed, as CNet's Ina Fried reported Tuesday, Microsoft Chief Software Architect Ray Ozzie has made clear his plans to push Medstory out "within Microsoft's broader Live search engine;" and that, in Fried's words, "vertical search pages are just one of the possibilities." Presumably, Live.com is another one of those "possibilities."

All of this bodes extremely well for Live.com, as MSN pushes to move from search underdog to leader of the pack. More relevant listings -- i.e., better-targeted listings --mean more clicks, as Yahoo's post-Panama clickthrough surge has shown us. And it's not much of a leap from there to saying that more relevant listings generate increased traffic overall, long-term.

And so in buying Medstory, MSN has purchased a great asset within the health market; the next big thing in vertical search overall; and a golden ticket to making more money off of advertising within Live.com. I'd say that isn't bad for the purchase of a tiny search engine.

Am I 100% right about where Microsoft wants to go with the Medstory purchase? I think I am, but we'll have to wait and see. But I can guarantee that, wherever the planned purchase goes, Medstory is just the beginning of the story.

Mark Simon is vice president of industry relations at Did-it, an agency for search engine marketing and auctioned media management based in New York. You can reach Mark at msimon@did-it.com.

New trend: Matching ads to online video content

New trend: Matching ads to online video content

 

Source: ePharm5(tm)
To receive these articles and others like it, click the link below to sign up for a FREE 30-day trial.
http://www.epharm5.com/aboutepharm.cfm?s=EN55651A

 

Last week, the Wall Street Journal (WSJ) ran an article examining the new trend of start-up companies investing in advanced technology systems that can match advertising to online video content. Using text-based search engines pairing content with relevant ads based on keywords, user demographics, and time of day, the companies hope to capitalize on this targeting opportunity. The market for such ads has enormous potential, but whether the start-ups can realize that before larger companies like Microsoft jump in remains to be seen.

 

Also in doubt is the best way to scan videos for content, how to display the ads or how to target them to consumers who will be most receptive to them. One of the start-ups, Blinkx, recently tested targeted ads with video from Britain's Independent Television News Ltd., and reported that identifying key words in the text generally didn't produce better results for advertisers than just identifying the type of content and likely demographic traits of viewers. Another company, ScanScout, has already gained some traction with the technology and it is being tested by PureVideo Networks. Brightcove, PodZinger, and YuMe Networks are other start-ups covered in the WSJ article. 

Costly Red Campaign Reaps Meager $18 Million

Costly Red Campaign Reaps Meager $18 Million

Bono & Co. Spend up to $100 Million on Marketing, Incur Watchdogs' Wrath

By Mya Frazier Published: March 05, 2007 COLUMBUS, Ohio (AdAge.com)

It's been a year since the first Red T-shirts hit Gap shelves in London, and a parade of celebrity-splashed events has followed: Steven Spielberg smiling down from billboards in San Francisco; Christy Turlington striking a yoga pose in a New Yorker ad; Bono cruising Chicago's Michigan Avenue with Oprah Winfrey, eagerly snapping up Red products; Chris Rock appearing in Motorola TV spots ("Use Red, nobody's dead"); and the Red room at the Grammy Awards. So you'd expect the money raised to be, well, big, right? Maybe $50 million, or even $100 million.

Try again: The tally raised worldwide is $18 million. The disproportionate ratio between the marketing outlay and the money raised is drawing concern among nonprofit watchdogs, cause-marketing experts and even executives in the ad business. It threatens to spur a backlash, not just against the Red campaign -- which ambitiously set out to change the cause-marketing model by allowing partners to profit from charity -- but also for the brands involved.

Enormous outlay

By any measure, the buzz has been extraordinary and the collective marketing outlay by Gap, Apple and Motorola has been enormous, with some estimates as high as $100 million. Gap alone spent $7.8 million of its $58 million outlay on Red during last year's fourth quarter, according to Nielsen Media Research's Nielsen Adviews.

But contributions don't seem to be living up to the hype. Richard Feachem, executive director of the Global Fund to Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria, the recipient of money raised by Red, told The Boston Globe in December, "We may be over the $100 million mark by the end of Christmas."

Rajesh Anandan, the Global Fund's head of private-sector partnerships, said Mr. Feachem was misquoted, and defended the efforts by Red to increase the Global Fund's private-sector donations, which totaled just $5 million from 2002 to 2005. (The U.S. Congress just approved a $724 million pledge to the Global Fund, on top of $1.9 billion already given and $650 million from the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation.)

Hugely frontloaded

Red has done as much as we could have hoped for in the short time it has been up and running," he said, adding: "The launch cost of this kind of campaign is going to be hugely frontloaded. It's a very costly exercise."

Julie Cordua, VP-marketing at Red and a former Motorola marketing exec and director-buzz marketing at Helio, said the outlay by the program's partners must be understood within the context of the campaign's goal: sustainability. "It's not a charity program of them writing a one-time check. It has to make good business sense for the company so the money will continue to flow to the Global Fund over time." She added that since many of Red's partners haven't closed their books yet on 2006, more funds likely will be added to the $18 million.

But is the rise of philanthropic fashionistas decked out in Red T-shirts and iPods really the best way to save a child dying of AIDS in Africa?

Parody mocks Bono

The campaign's inherent appeal to conspicuous consumption has spurred a parody by a group of San Francisco designers and artists, who take issue with Bono's rallying cry. "Shopping is not a solution. Buy less. Give more," is the message at buylesscrap.org, which encourages people to give directly to the Global Fund.

The Red campaign proposes consumption as the cure to the world's evils," said Ben Davis, creative director at Word Pictures Ideas, co-creator of the site. "Can't we just focus on the real solution -- giving money?"

Trent Stamp, president of Charity Navigator, which rates the spending practices of 5,000 nonprofits, said he's concerned about the campaign's impact on the next generation. "The Red campaign can be a good start or it can be a colossal waste of money, and it all depends on whether this edgy, innovative campaign inspires young people to be better citizens or just gives them an excuse to feel good about themselves while they buy an overpriced item they don't really need."

Fears of nonprofits

Mark Rosenman, a longtime activist in the nonprofit sector and a public-service professor at the Union Institute & University in Cincinnati, said the disparity between the marketing outlay and the money raised by Red is illustrative of some of the biggest fears of nonprofits in the U.S.

"There is a broadening concern that business is taking on the patina of philanthropy and crowding out philanthropic activity and even substituting for it," he said. "It benefits the for-profit partners much more than the charitable causes."

JupiterResearch Finds That a Third of Online Users Turn to Social and One-to-One Media for Health Information

JupiterResearch Finds That a Third of Online Users Turn to Social and One-to-One Media for Health Information

NEW YORK--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Mar 5, 2007 - JupiterResearch, a leading authority on the impact of the Internet and emerging consumer technologies on business, has found that 34 percent of adult online users (54 million people) in the U.S. said they have connected to others or to the content others created online about health and wellness issues in the past year. Detailed in a new report, "Online Health: Assessing the Risk and Opportunity of Social and One-to-One Media," JupiterResearch refers to these adult users as Health Connectors - a population segment that health marketers and stakeholders must reach as the influence of consumer-created content continues to grow.

 

"Health Connectors share meaningful concrete information and trust, so they are likely to impact important health decisions such as what drugs to buy, hospitals to use, doctors to see, insurance to buy, etcetera," said Monique Levy, JupiterResearch Senior Analyst and lead author of the report. "This can hurt brands and services, but also benefit them if they leverage word of mouth and social marketing."

 Health Connectors are highly interactive and trust one another, representing a significant threat and opportunity among health stakeholders. To address these challenges, marketers must reach out to influencers, leverage experts, and sponsor content alongside consumer-created content, among other tactics.

 

"We continue to see consumer-created content's increasing impact on many markets and the healthcare industry is no exception," said David Schatsky, President of JupiterKagan. "Online users are highly motivated to consume, create and share health content, suggesting there is an efficient viral network among online Health Connectors, so negative or positive consumer-created content can spread quickly."

 

The complete findings of this report and recommendations for health and wellness marketers are immediately available to JupiterResearch clients online at www.jupiterresearch.com. For details on JupiterResearch's methodology, visit www.jupiterresearch.com/bin/item.pl/methodology or email press@jupiterkagan.com to request a detailed methodology statement. For additional information on this report or JupiterResearch's Health research service, visit www.jupiterresearch.com or contact Kieran Kelly, Senior Vice President of Global Sales and Client Service, at 1-800-481-1212 or researchsales@jupiterkagan.com.

 

About JupiterResearch

JupiterResearch provides unbiased research, analysis and advice, backed by proprietary data, to help companies profit from the impact of the Internet and emerging consumer technologies on their business. The company helps online businesses make critical decisions about technology selection, spending, staffing, and Web site effectiveness; advises consumer-facing companies with online advertising, marketing, and customer service strategies to understand, attract, convert and retain customers; and guides technology vendors and service providers on market opportunity, positioning, product definition, and pricing. JupiterResearch is headquartered in New York City and has offices throughout the US and Europe. For more information, visit www.jupiterresearch.com. JupiterResearch is a division of JupiterKagan, Inc.

 

Contact

JupiterResearch
Vic Beck or Pete Arnold, 781-239-1030
press@jupiterkagan.com

Viral Video: Don't Call It Boob Tube Any More

Viral Video: Don't Call It Boob Tube Any More

by Mark Walsh, Monday, Mar 5, 2007 6:00 AM ET source: http://publications.mediapost.com/index.cfm?fuseaction=Articles.san&s=56491&Nid=27958&p=212886

VIRAL VIDEO ISN'T JUST FOR breast-obsessed young men anymore. That's one conclusion of a new study done by ad tracking firm Competitrack based on reviewing 3,000 viral campaigns by more than 800 advertisers. The report cites recent viral efforts including Dove's celebrated Campaign For Real Beauty, featuring unconventional models, and Unilever's series of animated mystery "Webisodes" for I Can't Believe It's Not Butter. "What's most amazing to us is to see insurance companies, banks, and makers of dish soap actively getting into viral advertising," said Bob Moss, president of Competitrack. The company is launching a new viral video tracking service in April that will include daily alerts on breaking campaigns and access to archived video ads for between $5,000 and $10,000 annually. Moss noted that the viral study included only sponsored ads, not the mash-ups or video spoofs of brands or products that proliferate on YouTube and other sites. The study divides viral ads into videos, microsites, games, social networks and multi-media categories. It estimates that 60% of viral ads created by advertisers are videos, with many being popular TV commercials uploaded to the Web by viewers. But Competitrack estimates that hundreds of videos are produced specifically as online virals. "These tend to be longer, more narrowly targeted, and very often, more outrageous than any commercial you are likely to see on TV." (About 8% carry the label: ("Warning! May not be suitable for office viewing.") The most creative viral campaigns, Moss said, are usually microsites--small Web sites focused on a specific brand, that invite user-generated videos, blog participation and other types of interaction. They account for about a quarter of viral ads. The study points to high-profile microsites such as Gillette's Noscruf.org, which takes the form of a faux political action site against men with unshaven faces. It says the ad "is also an example of a campaign where the brand or product advertised is either very discreetly revealed or not revealed at all." Of course, trying to disguise their ads as the work of online hipsters has also backfired for some marketers. That includes Sony's online promotion of its PlayStation Portable game console featuring a blog and online video made to look like the creation of actual fans. The campaign was later exposed by bloggers as a marketing ploy, making Sony the object of ridicule. Nevertheless, Moss believes that through experimentation, marketers will find the right balance between inventiveness and outright deception to create effective viral campaigns. "People will seek out viral video because it has some intrinsic value--either it's entertaining or compelling or something consumers identify with," he said.

Facebook Extends Lead As Fave Young Adult Site

Facebook Extends Lead As Fave Young Adult Site

MARCH 2, 2007

Where did college students spend winter break?

source: http://www.emarketer.com/Article.aspx?1004636&src=article1_newsltr

If they're like the rest of 17-to-25-year-olds surveyed by Youth Trends, they likely spent part of that time on Facebook.

The social networking site topped the list of favorite sites in Youth Trends' most recent quarterly survey, and it is now the first choice of nearly 70% of females ages 17-25.

[CHART: http://www.emarketer.com/images/chart_gifs/081001-082000/081455.gif]

"Although we heard some rumblings anecdotally and from some of our more hyper communicative panelists that Facebook reached a pinnacle," said Josh Weil of Youth Trends, "the results of this report say otherwise."

The survey is conducted quarterly, and the previous quarter marked the first time that Facebook was tops among both women and men.

 [CHART: http://www.emarketer.com/images/chart_gifs/081001-082000/081454.gif]

Two blogs were in the female top 10 list for the first time: Pink Is the New Blog and What Would Tyler Durden Do? (WWTDD). Both blogs have an entertainment/gossip focus, which Mr. Weil says "is consistent with Gen Y females' current adoration with content surrounding celebrities and their 'uh oh' moments."

MySpace was second on the top 10 list for females, but it remained sixth for males, with the percentage of 17-to-25-year-old males listing it as their favorite moving up slightly from 13% in the previous quarterly listing to 14%.

It's no secret that social networks are increasingly attractive to marketers. eMarketer estimates that $865 million will be spent on social network ads this year, largely on the strength of News Corp.'s recent acquisition of MySpace.

[CHART: http://www.emarketer.com/images/chart_gifs/077001-078000/077945.gif]

Last fall some industry watchers wondered if social networking was cooling off. Facebook said at the time that its traffic was not slowing, and a spokeswoman told eMarketer the company had been working with comScore and Nielsen//NetRatings to improve measurement of the site. She said Facebook had more than 10 million registered users.

MySpace also noted at the time that the site experienced a slump between August and September in 2006, but that growth had resumed. Of course, as sites grow larger, growth rates typically slow.

The long-term trends for social networking sites are, for the most part, positive, not only in popularity but also in time spent there — especially by young people. Young people account for a vast proportion of usage of MySpace, Facebook and other social networks.

"The average 12- to 17-year-old spent 260 minutes on MySpace and viewed about 808 pages. By contrast, the average 35- to 54-year-old spent 179 minutes on the site and took in 560 pages," Ad Age reported in October (but did not cite the source of the data).

In other words, teens consumed 44% more content and spent 45% more time there than did older users.

For a deeper look into social network ad spending, read eMarketer's Social Network Marketing: Ad Spending Update report.

 

"Return on Influence" Is Social Media's New ROI

Tuesday, February 27, 2007
ROI Is Social Media's New ROI
By Joe Marchese

Looking for ROI on your online marketing campaign? There is a 50% chance you are looking for the wrong thing. That's because ROI is out -- the new thing for increasing sales and building brands in social media is ROI. What I am saying is that before you can really discern return on investment, you need to understand how you are going to achieve influence for investment and return on influence.

Social media is all about influence and, like it or not, everyone who participates is an influencer. Social media decides what's in and what's out. Social media allows brands to be amplified or destroyed in the blink of an eye. And social media is as fickle as a high school lunchroom. I am not just talking about MySpace and Facebook here -- although they do represent a sizable chunk of social media. Social media is all media developed by, incorporating or facilitating the formation of community for the purpose of self-actualization. This definition includes everything from major media's online video components to upstart video-sharing sites, from the MySpaces of the world to the fledging baby boomer social networks -- and everything in between. And what social media delivers for investment can't always be captured in clicks and actions. What social media delivers in return for investment is cultural and generational influence.

Positive return on investment is a great thing; however, just looking at traditional return on investment skips an important step. Advertisers and agencies need to be looking to maximize influence obtained through their investments, and return on that influence should be the end goal of the total investment. Important to remember is that investment to obtain influence can take a number of forms. The easiest way, obviously, is to look at dollars spent, but influence isn't always for sale (at least not in an efficient manner). The pivotal balance for maximizing influence obtained through investment is to balance investment in creative, which enhances the content in which it resides, with investment in purchasing distribution for said creative. There is any number of ways to optimize a particular combination of creative and distribution, once you find the right platforms. It's true that social media means more expense on the creative side, since it demands greater content pull, and explicit acceptance of messaging, than traditional media does. But social media does not eliminate the ability to purchase distribution, as there can be a number of advertisers able to produce creative relevant to a particular piece of social content.

The battle isn't over once social media decides to lend an advertiser its influence, since advertisers then need to capitalize on that influence. This means controlling the message, not to garner a single transaction, but rather to leverage the influence lent to the advertiser for its investment to build premium brands that command premium margins. I am still not sure why I buy Coke or Pepsi instead of the cheaper store brand, but I am pretty sure it has something to do with this factor. Maximizing return on influence is again a balance, a balance between investment in creative messaging (back to relevancy) and ensuring that online brand experience/messaging resolve in the real world. Making sure the experience resolves in the real world is 50% product quality and 50% product availability. Insuring premium product quality may be outside of marketing and advertising's control, but ensuring that the premium product is available (for its premium price) to social media influencers and those influenced (commonly one and the same in social media) is promotional marketing at its finest.

Return on influence takes into account the lifetime brand creation and/or lift delivered by brand advertising within social media. Now their devil is in the details; how do you calculate influence? How do you create an efficient market accessing influence? How do you measure the effectiveness of your social media campaign when the campaigns goals aren't to drive immediate actions (or if immediate actions only represent a portion of the total value)?

The takeaway is this: if all advertisers are looking at is immediate return on investment, there is a good chance they are missing the real potential for maximizing their investment in social media -- and probably spending way too much in the process. But it's not the advertiser's fault entirely; the platform hasn't been built that efficiently facilitates accessing the type of brand-building influence offered by social media ... yet.

Joe Marchese is President of Archetype Media, developing the next generation brand advertising platform, and aiming to bridge the gap between Madison Avenue and Silicon Valley.

Unaided Advertising Recall Significantly Higher With Mix of Radio and Internet

Unaided Advertising Recall Significantly Higher With Mix of Radio and Internet

According to research from the Radio Ad Effectiveness Lab (RAEL) released at the Radio Advertising Bureau's (RAB) Management & Leadership Conference, recall of advertising is dramatically enhanced when a mix of Radio and Internet ads is used together compared to website ads alone.

The report demonstrated that unaided recall was four-and-a-half times higher, and aided recall was more than twice as high with consumer exposure to one radio and one Internet ad compared to two Internet ads alone. Furthermore, the report states that a mix of radio and Internet exposures revealed a clear potential to elevate other kinds of consumer impact, ranging from website visitation to emotional bonds.

The study first examined existing data about radio and Internet advertising to determine how the two media are likely to intersect. Several key points on how Radio and the Internet might work well together in a media mix emerged:

• Both radio and the Internet reach light users of other media
• Radio and the Internet connect with consumers differently and in potentially complementary ways
• Radio can drive traffic to websites
• Radio and the Internet have unique reach patterns, and that can make them work powerfully in combination. On a daily basis, Radio and the Internet together reach 83 percent of the 18-54-year-old population
• Consumers often use Radio and the Internet simultaneously, with up to a third of Internet usage being accompanied by Radio listening during some times of the day

Michael Orgera, Vice President, Director of Research, Universal McCann, said "... With so many media choices and so many ad messages... understanding how radio and the Internet together can significantly boost advertising attention levels is a tremendous advantage when creating a multi-platform campaign."

And Rex Conklin, Media Director, Wal-Mart, and member of the RAEL Research Committee, noted,  it's been gratifying to see advertisers and agency representatives work closely and candidly with broadcasters to establish clear direction for research studies..."

The full study, plus previously released research from RAEL, are available here.

Tween Social Networking Takes Off

Tween Social Networking Takes Off

source: http://www.emarketer.com/Article.aspx?1004613&src=dp1_newsltr

FEBRUARY 27, 2007

Even preteens have social networks now.

Sites like Club Penguin, Whyville.net, Habbo Hotel, Imbee.com and Nickelodeon's Nicktropolis offer tweens a MySpace of their own. The sites offer either fantasy worlds (members at Club Penguin have tuxedoed birds as avatars) or more standard fare like blogging and music sharing.

Club Penguin had four million unique visitors in January 2007, according to comScore Media Metrix.

Parents like the sites' security (no random chat offers here), but they are still cautioned to monitor for cyber-bullying and the amount of time their childen spend playing online.

There's also the question of ads. Ad-free sites make money strictly through membership subscriptions and promotional tie-ins. Whyville and Disney Xtreme Digital (DXD) have plenty of third-party advertising, and DXD also has Disney branding in spades.

Information for Children with Asthma (AstraZeneza)

http://www.bubbliboo.com/

 

Digital Shops Exploiting General Agency Skill Gaps

 

Digital Shops Exploiting General Agency Skill Gaps

by Gavin O'Malley, Tuesday, Feb 27, 2007 6:00 AM ET

THE WEB AND RELATED DIGITAL technologies are exposing major weaknesses in traditional agency skill sets, according to a study released yesterday by Forrester Research. This trend, the study finds, is working in favor of specialist digital shops, which marketers are increasingly calling upon to fill skill gaps. "Marketers first turned to digital specialists to build Web sites during the dot-com bubble," explained Peter Kim, Forrester Research analyst and author of the report. "Now, the specialist trend has expanded as marketers seek fresh approaches from digital shops--like Avenue A | Razorfish and Critical Mass--as well as creative independents--like Modernista!, Tugboat, and Mother--eroding the core value proposition of traditional ad firms." Digital agencies, Kim noted, have even begun winning "traditional" agency work as in the case of Agency.com, which has created print and outdoor ads for IKEA United Kingdom, and AKQA, which now serves as Yell.com's main agency. Beyond confirming what many have long suspected, the study illustrates a major rift between marketers and agencies with some harsh survey results: On aggregate, agencies scored a dismal Net Promoter rating of 21%, showing just how few marketers in the fourth quarter of last year would have recommended the same agency services they themselves pay for. "Today, agencies must deliver technology--in addition to creative--expertise, and many traditional agencies struggle to adapt," Kim said. Indeed, according to the study, marketers today view ad agencies as the least competent among service providers to deliver marketing technology. Huge gaps exist between marketer and agency perceptions of the ability to deal with changes in TV, Internet, and consumer-generated media, according to Forrester. To illustrate his point, Kim points to recent agency blunders like Wal-Mart's fake blogs (the product of a PR agency) and GM's Chevy Tahoe user-generated ads. Forrester fielded a survey with the American Marketing Association and interviewed eight vendor and user companies, including: Avenue A | Razorfish, H&R Block, Hill Holliday, JWT, Kia Motors America, and Xerox. Notably, despite the fact that agencies wield influence over a majority of the marketing budget, a whopping 76% of marketers do not measure the return on investment of their lead agency relationship.

MS. DEWEY

For those who have not seen microsoft's underground search project, it's worth checking out.  Simply put, it's a different way of making "search" more engaging.   I call it, "the subservient searchbabe".

"Return on Influence" Is Social Media's New ROI

Tuesday, February 27, 2007
ROI Is Social Media's New ROI
By Joe Marchese

Looking for ROI on your online marketing campaign? There is a 50% chance you are looking for the wrong thing. That's because ROI is out -- the new thing for increasing sales and building brands in social media is ROI. What I am saying is that before you can really discern return on investment, you need to understand how you are going to achieve influence for investment and return on influence.

Social media is all about influence and, like it or not, everyone who participates is an influencer. Social media decides what's in and what's out. Social media allows brands to be amplified or destroyed in the blink of an eye. And social media is as fickle as a high school lunchroom. I am not just talking about MySpace and Facebook here -- although they do represent a sizable chunk of social media. Social media is all media developed by, incorporating or facilitating the formation of community for the purpose of self-actualization. This definition includes everything from major media's online video components to upstart video-sharing sites, from the MySpaces of the world to the fledging baby boomer social networks -- and everything in between. And what social media delivers for investment can't always be captured in clicks and actions. What social media delivers in return for investment is cultural and generational influence.

Positive return on investment is a great thing; however, just looking at traditional return on investment skips an important step. Advertisers and agencies need to be looking to maximize influence obtained through their investments, and return on that influence should be the end goal of the total investment. Important to remember is that investment to obtain influence can take a number of forms. The easiest way, obviously, is to look at dollars spent, but influence isn't always for sale (at least not in an efficient manner). The pivotal balance for maximizing influence obtained through investment is to balance investment in creative, which enhances the content in which it resides, with investment in purchasing distribution for said creative. There is any number of ways to optimize a particular combination of creative and distribution, once you find the right platforms. It's true that social media means more expense on the creative side, since it demands greater content pull, and explicit acceptance of messaging, than traditional media does. But social media does not eliminate the ability to purchase distribution, as there can be a number of advertisers able to produce creative relevant to a particular piece of social content.

The battle isn't over once social media decides to lend an advertiser its influence, since advertisers then need to capitalize on that influence. This means controlling the message, not to garner a single transaction, but rather to leverage the influence lent to the advertiser for its investment to build premium brands that command premium margins. I am still not sure why I buy Coke or Pepsi instead of the cheaper store brand, but I am pretty sure it has something to do with this factor. Maximizing return on influence is again a balance, a balance between investment in creative messaging (back to relevancy) and ensuring that online brand experience/messaging resolve in the real world. Making sure the experience resolves in the real world is 50% product quality and 50% product availability. Insuring premium product quality may be outside of marketing and advertising's control, but ensuring that the premium product is available (for its premium price) to social media influencers and those influenced (commonly one and the same in social media) is promotional marketing at its finest.

Return on influence takes into account the lifetime brand creation and/or lift delivered by brand advertising within social media. Now their devil is in the details; how do you calculate influence? How do you create an efficient market accessing influence? How do you measure the effectiveness of your social media campaign when the campaigns goals aren't to drive immediate actions (or if immediate actions only represent a portion of the total value)?

The takeaway is this: if all advertisers are looking at is immediate return on investment, there is a good chance they are missing the real potential for maximizing their investment in social media -- and probably spending way too much in the process. But it's not the advertiser's fault entirely; the platform hasn't been built that efficiently facilitates accessing the type of brand-building influence offered by social media ... yet.

Joe Marchese is President of Archetype Media, developing the next generation brand advertising platform, and aiming to bridge the gap between Madison Avenue and Silicon Valley.

Unaided Advertising Recall Significantly Higher With Mix of Radio and Internet

Unaided Advertising Recall Significantly Higher With Mix of Radio and Internet

According to research from the Radio Ad Effectiveness Lab (RAEL) released at the Radio Advertising Bureau's (RAB) Management & Leadership Conference, recall of advertising is dramatically enhanced when a mix of Radio and Internet ads is used together compared to website ads alone.

The report demonstrated that unaided recall was four-and-a-half times higher, and aided recall was more than twice as high with consumer exposure to one radio and one Internet ad compared to two Internet ads alone. Furthermore, the report states that a mix of radio and Internet exposures revealed a clear potential to elevate other kinds of consumer impact, ranging from website visitation to emotional bonds.

The study first examined existing data about radio and Internet advertising to determine how the two media are likely to intersect. Several key points on how Radio and the Internet might work well together in a media mix emerged:

• Both radio and the Internet reach light users of other media
• Radio and the Internet connect with consumers differently and in potentially complementary ways
• Radio can drive traffic to websites
• Radio and the Internet have unique reach patterns, and that can make them work powerfully in combination. On a daily basis, Radio and the Internet together reach 83 percent of the 18-54-year-old population
• Consumers often use Radio and the Internet simultaneously, with up to a third of Internet usage being accompanied by Radio listening during some times of the day

Michael Orgera, Vice President, Director of Research, Universal McCann, said "... With so many media choices and so many ad messages... understanding how radio and the Internet together can significantly boost advertising attention levels is a tremendous advantage when creating a multi-platform campaign."

And Rex Conklin, Media Director, Wal-Mart, and member of the RAEL Research Committee, noted,  it's been gratifying to see advertisers and agency representatives work closely and candidly with broadcasters to establish clear direction for research studies..."

The full study, plus previously released research from RAEL, are available here.

Brightcove Enables New Washingtonpost.Newsweek Ad-Supported Video

Brightcove Enables New Washingtonpost.Newsweek Ad-Supported Video

Tuesday, Feb 27, 2007 6:00 AM ET

WITH THE HELP OF VIDEO technology company Brightcove, Washingtonpost.Newsweek Interactive is launching ad-supported Web video channels across all its online properties. Washingtonpost.Newsweek Interactive -- the online publishing subsidiary of The Washington Post Company -- will feature daily newscasts from the Washington Post's stable of journalists, news documentaries, and international coverage. The Washington Post site currently features a video series on "Being a Black Man," that explores the lives of black men through their shared experiences and existence. Newsweek.com and the online magazine Slate already have launched ad-supported Internet video channels using the Brightcove Internet TV service.

Digital Shops Exploiting General Agency Skill Gaps

Digital Shops Exploiting General Agency Skill Gaps

by Gavin O'Malley, Tuesday, Feb 27, 2007 6:00 AM ET

THE WEB AND RELATED DIGITAL technologies are exposing major weaknesses in traditional agency skill sets, according to a study released yesterday by Forrester Research. This trend, the study finds, is working in favor of specialist digital shops, which marketers are increasingly calling upon to fill skill gaps. "Marketers first turned to digital specialists to build Web sites during the dot-com bubble," explained Peter Kim, Forrester Research analyst and author of the report. "Now, the specialist trend has expanded as marketers seek fresh approaches from digital shops--like Avenue A | Razorfish and Critical Mass--as well as creative independents--like Modernista!, Tugboat, and Mother--eroding the core value proposition of traditional ad firms." Digital agencies, Kim noted, have even begun winning "traditional" agency work as in the case of Agency.com, which has created print and outdoor ads for IKEA United Kingdom, and AKQA, which now serves as Yell.com's main agency. Beyond confirming what many have long suspected, the study illustrates a major rift between marketers and agencies with some harsh survey results: On aggregate, agencies scored a dismal Net Promoter rating of 21%, showing just how few marketers in the fourth quarter of last year would have recommended the same agency services they themselves pay for. "Today, agencies must deliver technology--in addition to creative--expertise, and many traditional agencies struggle to adapt," Kim said. Indeed, according to the study, marketers today view ad agencies as the least competent among service providers to deliver marketing technology. Huge gaps exist between marketer and agency perceptions of the ability to deal with changes in TV, Internet, and consumer-generated media, according to Forrester. To illustrate his point, Kim points to recent agency blunders like Wal-Mart's fake blogs (the product of a PR agency) and GM's Chevy Tahoe user-generated ads. Forrester fielded a survey with the American Marketing Association and interviewed eight vendor and user companies, including: Avenue A | Razorfish, H&R Block, Hill Holliday, JWT, Kia Motors America, and Xerox. Notably, despite the fact that agencies wield influence over a majority of the marketing budget, a whopping 76% of marketers do not measure the return on investment of their lead agency relationship.

My So-Called Last Year In The 18-34 Demo

Wednesday, February 21, 2007
My So-Called Last Year In The 18-34 Demo
By Cory Treffiletti

source: Mediapost Publications Newsletter

This year is big. This is my very last year in the hallowed demographic of 18-34. Being an 18- to 34-year-old male in America has been good for me, but I guess it's time to move on and make room for someone else.

I came upon this realization over the weekend while I was partaking in some MTV, and I realized that it's very, very possible I'm no longer the target audience for their shows! I don't find the "Road Rules Challenge" (or whatever it's called) to be very interesting, nor am I totally engrossed in finding the "Next White Rapper" (The guy from 3rd Bass was good back in the day, but I don't need to hear from him anymore). No; I am no longer the core of the desirable audience for today's impulse-minded commercialism, which got me to thinking and reminiscing slightly about what happened to Gen-X.

It's sort of humorous to know that Gen Xers are now aging into their middle 30s and early 40s. The Wikipedia refers to Gen-X as people born between 1963 and 1978, though they also refer to people born from 1961-1981. Either way, I fall squarely in the middle of those ranges, so it's safe for me to consider myself Gen X and to write about my experience.

Gen X used to be hip. We were the generation without a goal. We were sometimes referred to as "slackers" -- but the entire dot-com bubble of the 90s was a direct result of our desire and ambition to build really cool stuff! We were the generation of piercing and tattoos becoming popular, basically because we had nothing better to do. We were supposed to have a lack of optimism and enthusiasm for the future - however, we were the ones who embraced the Internet and have transformed the world into the future that it is today. We embraced grunge, and of course we created (either directly or indirectly) Nirvana and Pearl Jam, which by itself should be the mark of a highly motivated and deeply creative generation.

Well, it's now 2007 and the generation who rages together ages together. We are now older, in managerial positions -- but still creating companies aimed at driving forward the growth and adoption of technology and knowledge. Of course, we also embrace terms like "viral marketing" and "social networking," all of which are slightly ambiguous terms used to explain the daily occurrences of life in an online environment where things are out of our control, and yet we still want to take credit for them. We try to harness the power of the consumer and use it for the "greater good,"which basically means we pawned off the creative responsibility for 50% of what we do and called it "user-generated content." We even convinced Time magazine to give "You" the award for Person of the Year in 2006, primarily because we couldn't figure out if there was anyone who stood out and did something more important than the rest of us. No; our enthusiasm for the future is actually quite strong, because we keep finding ways to make our jobs fun and create new opportunities for us to sell ourselves to the world at large.

We find old things and tweak them so they are new again. We routinely shake things up with new technology and try to make ourselves obsolete. It's the model of "planned obsolescence" created by Henry Ford and replicated through the auto industry. This theory requires that you create a new version of your product every year, so that the old version is no longer new and you need to buy the new one, even if you don't really need it! It works for clothes, for cars, for computers and for all sorts of technology. Are you really happy with your DVD collection? Wouldn't you be happier with BluRay?

As I age into the next demo, I join the rest of Generation X as it matures and comes into power in the world. Gen X will run for office and get into the White House someday. Gen X is probably already in the Senate, and I know Gen X is all over Silicon Valley.

It's funny to think that in 10 to 15 years, it's possible that 40-50% of the people on the floor of the House of Representatives might secretly have a tribal tattoo on their arms or the small of their backs. These people created the world we live in today, they created the Internet, or at least they created the need for the widespread consumption and commercialization of the Internet, so why can't they be running the rest of the world, too?

Of course, now my mind drifts off into space and I recollect the famous words of one Lloyd Dobler, from the movie "Say Anything": "A career? I've thought about this quite a bit, sir, and I would have to say, considering what's waiting out there for me, I don't want to sell anything, buy anything or process anything as a career. I don't want to sell anything bought or processed or buy anything sold or processed or repair anything sold, bought or processed as a career..." and so on and so on.

A randomized controlled trial of a nurse short-message service by cellular phone for people with diabetes

Source: 1: Int J Nurs Stud. 2006 Apr 14; [Epub ahead of print]

 

A randomized controlled trial of a nurse short-message service by cellular phone for people with diabetes

 

Kim HS.  Department of Adult Nursing, College of Nursing, Catholic University, 505 Banpo-Dong, Socho-Gu, Seoul 137-701, Republic of Korea.

 

BACKGROUND: Nurse's education using telemedicine results in a decrease in blood glucose levels in patients with type 2 diabetes.

 

OBJECTIVE: To investigate the effectiveness of an educational intervention that used both the cellular phone and the Internet to provide a short-messaging service (SMS) relating to plasma glucose levels.

 

METHODS: Twenty-five patients were randomly assigned to an intervention group and 26 to a control group. The intervention was applied for 12 weeks. The goal of the intervention was to keep blood glucose concentrations close to the normal range. Patients in the intervention group were asked to access a website by using a cellular phone or to wiring the Internet and input their blood glucose levels every day. Participants were sent the optimal recommendations by both cellular phone and the Internet weekly.

 

RESULTS: Patients in the intervention group had a mean decrease in glycosylated haemoglobin (HbA(1)c) levels of 1.15% and those in the control group had a mean increase of HbA(1)c levels of 0.07% (p=0.005). There was a significant mean change in the 2hrs post-meal glucose (2HPMG) level for the intervention group (p<0.05), with a mean change of -4.7mmol/l. The mean change in the control group was not significant.

 

CONCLUSION: This educational intervention using the Internet and an SMS by cellular phone improved levels of HbA(1)c and 2HPMG.

 

Participatory design of a text message scheduling system to support young people with diabetes

Source: Health Informatics J. 2006 Dec;12(4):304-18.

 

Participatory design of a text message scheduling system to support young people with diabetes

 

Waller A, Franklin V, Pagliari C, Greene S.
School of Computing, University of Dundee, Dundee DD1 4HN, Scotland. awaller@computing.dundee.ac.uk

 

Effective self-management of diabetes requires considerable behavioural change and continuous support from health professionals, which can be expensive. Information technology has the potential to offer cost-effective patient support, but internet use mostly relies on the active seeking of information. Text messaging offers an ideal channel for delivering 'push' support and facilitating reciprocal communication between patient and health professional. This paper describes a participatory design methodology to develop a text message scheduling system for supporting young people with diabetes. The project illustrates how this familiar design approach can be used in a short-term project to deliver a successful medical application. Close working between clinician and software developer led to successive user-informed iterations as the clinician became more aware of the system's potential and identified barriers. The result was a reliable, functional, acceptable and usable system that was effectively implemented in its intended setting.

 

Internet use can help patients with stigmatized illness, study finds

January 27, 2006

Internet use can help patients with stigmatized illness, study finds

A study by CHP/PCOR fellows finds that the Internet can be a valuable tool to help break through the stigma of conditions such as mental illness, by enabling patients to anonymously seek information and treatment.

 
By Sara L. Selis

Research has shown that people with stigmatized health conditions, such as mental illness or sexually transmitted diseases, tend to avoid discussing the problem and seeking treatment -- a situation that can harm the patient as well as others.

 

A recent study co-authored by CHP/PCOR fellows Laurence C. Baker and Todd H. Wagner, however, finds that the Internet can be a valuable tool to help break through the stigma of such illnesses, by enabling patients to anonymously seek information and treatment. The study, published in the October 2005 issue of Social Science and Medicine, found this was particularly true for psychiatric illnesses such as anxiety and depression.

"The Internet is potentially very useful in situations where getting good medical advice out to patients is challenging," said Baker. "For conditions that can be hard for patients to talk about, the Internet may be of great benefit since it provides a chance to gain information without having to discuss sensitive issues face-to-face."

 

While several studies have examined patterns of Internet use among various populations -- including those seeking health information -- none had specifically examined Internet use among those with stigmatized illnesses. Baker, Wagner and colleague Magdalena Berger hypothesized that people with a stigmatized illness would be more likely than those with non-stigmatized illnesses to use the Internet to seek information and communicate about their health condition. They also hypothesized that, since people with stigmatized illnesses often don't know about available treatments, those who searched the Internet would be more likely to report that their Internet use increased their use of medical services.

 

To test these hypotheses, the researchers analyzed a large nationally representative survey of Internet use for health information, enabling them to examine patterns of Internet use among patients with stigmatized and non-stigmatized illnesses. For purposes of the study, the researchers identified four stigmatized illnesses: anxiety, depression, herpes and urinary incontinence. Patients who reported having one or more of these conditions were compared with patients who had one or more non-stigmatized chronic illnesses, such as diabetes, hypertension or back pain.

The researchers explored the respondents' Internet use in detail by evaluating how often they used the Internet to seek health information; how often they used it to communicate with healthcare providers, family members or others about their condition; how satisfied they were with the information they obtained online; how much time they spent on the Internet overall; and whether their Internet use affected the number of times they saw a doctor or other healthcare provider. The researchers controlled for many factors, but cautioned against drawing causal relationships given the cross-sectional nature of the data.

 

The study results largely confirmed the researchers' hypotheses: People with stigmatized illnesses were more likely to have used the Internet for health information and to have communicated with a physician online. Significantly, those with a stigmatized illness were more likely to report that they increased their use of healthcare services after using the Internet. In particular, people with psychiatric illnesses (in this case, anxiety and depression) were more likely to turn to the Internet for health information than those with non-psychiatric stigmatized illnesses. Similarly, people with psychiatric conditions were more likely than those with other stigmatized illnesses to report that their Internet use increased their healthcare utilization.

 

The results aren't surprising, the authors say, given the privacy and anonymity the Internet allows. "Online information ... can be casually perused without classifying oneself as having a mental (or other) illness," they write in their paper. "This informality may make searching for health information online less intimidating than seeking advice from a health professional."

 

The authors conclude that "the Internet may be a good public health education and intervention tool for targeting some people with stigmatized illness." But these benefits, they caution, assume that (1) the information patients obtain online is accurate and unbiased, and that (2) patients are not overutilizing healthcare services as a result of their Internet use. They note that "the Internet is replete with information of questionable value," and that "there have been instances of pathological use of the Internet among those with ... mental illnesses."

 

Despite these caveats, Wagner said he is encouraged by the study results, because they highlight the significant potential health benefits of Internet use, particularly for hard-to-reach patients. "The Internet has made it much easier for the average person to find an enormous amount of medical information very quickly and anonymously," he said. "This study shows us how patients can benefit from the anonymity of the Internet."

 

Wagner noted that while some physicians are wary of their patients' use of the Internet for medical information, he believes that "physicians shouldn't disregard this information; instead, they should help their patients manage it." For example, he suggests that physicians compile for their patients a list of the health Web sites that provide, in their judgment, the most accurate and unbiased information.

 

This study was funded in part by a grants from the Center on the Demography and Economics of Health and Aging (CDEHA). 

 

For this study, go to: http://healthpolicy.stanford.edu/publications/internet_use_and_stigmatized_illness/