Welcome to The Friday Five, curated reads about marketing, advertising and digital media from the team at @MediaWhizLLC.
How a Brick-Shaped Heineken Bottle Almost Changed the World 50 Years Ago | Adweek
Fifty years ago Heineken went beyond the standard focus-group testing and developed what may be the coolest packaging for a product ever known: a brick-shaped beer bottle. Why is that so cool? As David Kiefaber of Adfreak explains, the bottle wasn’t meant to just be used to consume beer. No, it had a much higher purpose in life: it doubled as a “giant interlocking Lego brick, and was made for building eco-homes back in the early 1960s.”
Mobile Wallet Is Expanding, But Hype Doesn’t Match Reality | MediaPost
MediaWhiz’s Daryl Colwell writes in MediaPost that the mobile wallet appears to finally be growing up. But there are concerns that the hype surrounding it doesn’t match consumer value. “With two key factors — ease-of-use and rate of adoption — moving in the right direction, mobile payments may finally reach their lofty potential. But there is still a long way toward mainstream adoption,” says Colwell. (more…)
By Peter Klein | SVP, Media Services
Editor’s note: The following post was originally published in mThink / Revenue Performance magazine.
MediaWhiz took over LeadsCon East with some creative advertising
It has been a busy summer for online marketing professionals. LeadsCon East and Affiliate Summit East were scheduled three weeks apart, making scheduling and planning for these important events somewhat more complicated than in years past.
Despite the close proximity of the two shows, each continues to offer a different kind of value.
LeadsCon attracts a more advanced professional group, one that leans toward advertisers, brands and the professional services end of the online marketing business. Transparency, lead quality and government regulations are repeatedly covered topics.
By comparison, Affiliate Summit focuses more on the tactical aspects of affiliate and performance marketing. It’s aimed at the beginner and intermediate affiliate marketers, with seminars and workshops on website optimization, blogger relations, SEO and finding the right affiliate network.
(more…)
By Keith Trivitt | @KeithTrivitt | Director, Marketing and Communications
Editor’s note: The following post was originally published in iMedia Connection.
Google has always been a search marketing dynamo. It has literally invented or made mainstream several well-known search functions, including autocomplete of search terms and the basic structure of search-based online advertising that is used today. So it should come as no surprise that in its seemingly never-ending race to one-up its competitors, it has recently introduced or improved two critical functions of its search business:
The latter isn’t an earth-shattering announcement. Google launched voice search for both desktop and mobile platforms in 2011 and now serves dozens of languages. This latest update, according to Direct Marketing News, adds languages from various European markets, including Swedish, European Portuguese and Finnish, along with regional tongues such as Basque, Catalan, and Galician. The company said in a blog post that the addition of those newly added languages will add nearly 100 million people to its voice search function.
It’s the integration of Gmail into search results that has generated the most intrigue. Industry reaction to the announcement varied. Some said it wasn’t that big of a deal, while others called it “interesting and creepy.” (more…)
MediaWhiz’s leaders are continually sought after as resources for opinions, advice and expertise, based on our deep understanding of industry trends, the needs of our customers and the broader marketplace in which we operate.
For the week of Aug. 20–24, 2012, MediaWhiz experts were quoted or featured on a variety of digital media news and trends, including Facebook marketing, the integration of social media and search and mobile payments. Their commentary was featured in
Advertising Age, eMarketer, MarketWatch / Wall Street Journal and
iMedia Connection.
Aug. 17, 2012 | Advertising Age (Op-Ed by Adam Riff, SVP of digital strategy)
When it was reported in early May that social advertising had overtaken search, many in the search-marketing industry reacted with disbelief. Some wished to take up a protracted battle with social-media marketers over whose turf reigns supreme.
Sadly, much of the discussion completely missed the point of what this data tell us: the age of the “walled garden” approach to search marketing is over. Let us all rejoice. The search-vs.-social debate is a worthless pursuit. Brands don’t care, nor should marketers.
The future of search marketing will demand a blend of many different digital-marketing components — traditional search, retargeting, display, etc. — that must reach audiences across a wide swath of media, as consumers use many different devices to search for content across multiple platforms and interfaces.
Marketers need to focus on how well they are integrating social within search, and vice versa. It’s not an either-or debate. There are two reasons this is true.
Social Signals. In the old days of search — that is, pre-2012 — many brands and agencies kept their search-marketing campaigns, both organic and paid, separate from social-media campaigns. They feared that mixing the two might alienate the respective audiences of what are sometimes highly distinct customer bases. Read more … (more…)
By Heather Fernandez | Senior SEO Strategist
Editor’s note: The following is an excerpt of an op-ed originally published in Mobile Marketer magazine. Read the full opinion piece here.
Mobile is not just for email anymore.
That is evident to any marketer who has spent time around teens, at a mall or at a sporting event. Mobile is everywhere and it is reshaping how people interact with brands and make online purchases.
In a three-month study spanning February to May 2012, comScore found that 234 million U.S. consumers use smartphones and, of that number, 110 million are smartphones owners.
This impressive growth demonstrates the need for marketers to understand that consumers are changing their online behavior when they research and engage with brands.
Consumers are using the Web 24/7, thanks to the affordability and portability of owning a mobile device. The issue they increasingly face is trying to connect with businesses that have yet to adopt a mobile-friendly digital strategy.
Brands that have not developed such a strategy are missing out on the largest segment of online growth opportunities.
Read the full op-ed in Mobile Marketer.
By Adam Riff | @AdamRiff | SVP, Digital Strategy
Editor’s note: The following is an excerpt of an op-ed that was originally published in Advertising Age.
When it was reported in early May that social advertising had overtaken search, many in the search-marketing industry reacted with disbelief. Some wished to take up a protracted battle with social-media marketers over whose turf reigns supreme.
Sadly, much of the discussion completely missed the point of what this data tell us: the age of the “walled garden” approach to search marketing is over. Let us all rejoice. The search-vs.-social debate is a worthless pursuit. Brands don’t care, nor should marketers.
The future of search marketing will demand a blend of many different digital-marketing components — traditional search, retargeting, display, etc. — that must reach audiences across a wide swath of media, as consumers use many different devices to search for content across multiple platforms and interfaces.
Marketers need to focus on how well they are integrating social within search, and vice versa. It’s not an either-or debate. There are two reasons this is true.
Social Signals. In the old days of search — that is, pre-2012 — many brands and agencies kept their search-marketing campaigns, both organic and paid, separate from social-media campaigns. They feared that mixing the two might alienate the respective audiences of what are sometimes highly distinct customer bases.
But that’s all in the past. Social signals and the rapid expansion of the digital-advertising industry are forever altering the search-marketing landscape — for the better. While still a relatively small portion of search marketing, social signals – the signals from Google +, Facebook, Twitter and other social networks that Google considers in its algorithm — are already being optimized for by sophisticated search marketers. More broadly, the digital-advertising industry is poised to reach $39.5 billion in 2012, according to eMarketer, and will overtake TV advertising spend by 2016. That’s too big a pot to be arguing over.
Read the full op-ed in Advertising Age.
MediaWhiz’s leaders are continually sought after as resources for opinions, advice and expertise, based on our deep understanding of industry trends, the needs of our customers and the broader marketplace in which we operate.
The Wall Street Journal / SmartMoney | Featuring Daryl Colwell, VP of Business Development
… Plus, the leather wallet has one distinct advantage: It doesn’t require a battery. Even a digital-wallet fanatic is “always going to want some kind of backup,” says Daryl Colwell, a vice president at MediaWhiz, a digital media agency.
If there’s good news for consumers, however, it’s that as retailers embrace mobile commerce they could be offering deals of all sorts as part of the formula, experts say. Think “instant” coupons or other offers, designed to trigger a last-minute purchase.
And just as retailers will offer shoppers a special one-time discount for signing up for an in-house credit card, they could do the same with a mobile-wallet platform.
Mr. Colwell believes it’s this sort of promotion that could ultimately make the mobile wallet a mainstream consumer reality. “As long as there’s a big incentive for shoppers to jump on board, they’re going to jump on board,” he says. Read more …
Note: Article also published on MSN Money. (more…)
By Keith Trivitt | @KeithTrivitt | Director, Marketing and Communications
Courtesy of blogtipswriter.com
Facebook has been all over the news lately. Unfortunately for the company, much of that news has been of the non-positive, stock-sinking variety. But there is a silver lining: Facebook appears to be finally getting its act together when it comes to brand advertising! At least, that’s what we’re led to believe by the frenetic PR push the company has been on in recent weeks.
The reality, as Digiday’s Brian Morrissey expertly dissected in a recent post, is more nuanced and less rosy for the social network. In that blistering post, Morrissey declared what many digital marketers have long grumbled to themselves: “Facebook’s got a brand problem.”
The post details how, despite some laudatory press about its overhauled ad offerings, marketers aren’t buying the hype that Facebook is trying to portray about its value to advertisers. “More often than not, marketers proclaim to love Facebook, only not for the ads,” Morrissey says. But much of what they love about Facebook is its “earned and owned media” and brand equity-building qualities: the fact that it allows brands a free and enormous platform upon which they can distribute their messages to whomever they’d like.
Despite this apparent upside, there are many reasons why skepticism remains high among marketers over the value of advertising on Facebook. Whether it is the feeling that Facebook just doesn’t just doesn’t care about brands, or the daily grind marketers have trying get some semblance of reasonable stats and analytics about the value of the money they spend on Facebook advertising, the general perception seems to be that Facebook is putting on a show for advertisers rather than helping them deliver results. (more…)
By Adam Riff | @AdamRiff | SVP, Digital Strategy
Want to feel like a super-spy while learning valuable secrets that can help grow your client’s business?
Here’s how you do it: invest your time and money in paid search marketing (PPC) competitive intelligence and, please, shhh … don’t tell anyone.
As the auction grows more expensive and more complex, it’s critical to have a view into your client’s competitors paid search program, otherwise you’re fighting blind. The simple truth is that PPC is a competition. You’re competing for the world’s most valuable inventory and for the top positions in an auction that you can’t just win with a wallet, but with skill (i.e., your ability to generate click-thru-rate).
Dozens of factors go into winning, of course. One of the critical factors is knowing your opponents. If you don’t know them, it’s going to be difficult to beat them. Competitive Intelligence tools can help you do that, and in this post, I’m going to disclose a few that we use at MediaWhiz to look at some key metrics and some tips on how to use them.
Budget
Here you can see the average monthly spend. Ispionage tends to be on the low side of its estimates when it comes to spend, so be sure to cross-reference with KeywordSpy, which tends to report on the high side. It also shows you seasonality which can allow you and your clients to know when to expect more competition and potentially higher returns.
By Ed Kats | President
While not ideal, DNT legislation could foster improved media integration
Proposed do-not-track (DNT) legislation will create numerous barriers for advertisers, brands and agencies. The ability to track consumers’ online purchasing habits and deliver targeted ads based on data collected is a cornerstone of e-commerce.
DNT legislation will make online ads less relevant, forcing potentially unforeseeable changes — not to mention increased costs — into the digital ecosystem. This will adversely affect consumers’ online experiences in a manner few proponents are willing to admit.
Despite these issues, the enactment of DNT legislation will not destroy online advertising.
While we do not wish to see this legislation passed we believe it would force marketers to be more creative in their campaigns. It may foster the development of closer connections and opt-ins between brands and consumers. This, in turn, will deliver more detailed customer data and more successful purchase paths.
Numerous products and services exist that help agencies and advertisers target consumers and collect publicly available data. If advertisers are compelled to collect that information offline (as would be the case if DNT legislation is passed), those capabilities will still remain.
The two behemoths of online advertising — Google and Facebook — offer examples of how DNT legislation could imperil future growth and innovation of online advertising but won’t dampen the industry’s prospects. (more…)
