PardonMyFrench

Yahoo Finally Wins a Search Battle Versus Google

Wow, Yahoo finally beats Google at a product.  What can only be viewed as a win for Yahoo, Google shut down Google Answers and lost out to Yahoo Answers in the new social search arena.  One of the best articles/posts I saw out there was courtesy of the NY Times called Google Is Shutting Down Answers Service.  Why did I think it was the best out there?  Because they correctly pointed out that "Google has introduced dozens of other services, many of which have not turned into hits. The company has said that experimentation is an important part of its strategy and that a high failure rate for new products is to be expected."

I wrote about Google's product extensions back in May and pointed out that most people only use Google for search and that they were far behind Yahoo in social search.  Remember, Google can make mistakes along the way when they extend out past PPC.  Back in that May post it looked like other than search, Gmail was the only significantly used product.  GoogleFinance?  When was the last time you used that?  Seriously?  Bill Tancer over at Hitwise provided this chart on Yahoo Answers which shows that it is far an above the market leader.

Does it seem like I'm jumping for joy?  No.  I love both companies and if you've ever seen a media strategy from me I always include both because they perform.  I just think people, bloggers, MSM, and analysts should give some love to Yahoo for finally beating Google at something.  Is it a major battle?  No and it probably helped Yahoo that Google was charging for answers  But, Yahoo needs a little victory to change momentum and perception in the marketplace because they are a quality company no matter what their Peanut Butter tastes like.

Google tries a lot of different things so they don't get caught unprepared.  However, that doesn't mean everything they touch will turn into GoogleGold.  A little experimentation is the right strategy, but whenever Google makes an announcement these days it looks like from the reports and analysis that they will take over the world of advertising (see next post).  Its like their stock can do no wrong and just keeps going up, up, up and that my friends in when you should keep a close eye on your positions - remember the go go days of internet stock in the 90s?

PardonMyFrench,

Eric

********December 1 Update************************

Bill Tancer from Hitwise updated information on which Google products people use based on the demise of Answers; I referenced his earlier analysis in a link above.  In summary according to Hitwise, 88% of Google's use is plan old search, 93% is search+Gmail, and 95% is search, Gmail, and Video.  All of the other product announcements launched with such fanfare like Finance, Spreadsheets, Calendar are not being used today.  Product extensions and experimentation are great, but lets not start throwing dirt on category leaders like Yahoo Finance or Microsoft Office before people start visiting those pages.

Counting Video Streams

I had a follow-up meeting today (Connell Donatelli) with our new PointRoll account manager and I brought up the YouTube/CBS press release which broadcast how many views per day the CBS shows received on YouTube and the impact on the offline audience.  What upset me most about the press release was the lack of good actionable numbers.  Sure the number of views is impressive, but a view of a video ad is the equivalent of a banner impressions.  Nice numbers for tracking, but meaningless measurements and in my opinion do more harm then good. Why?  The internet measures everything and to put out a lame figure like views belittles the tracking available and reduces online advertisers to their offline equivalents:  peddlers of useless numbers to pad their wallets.

So, what does a view mean to you?  Did the video load?  Did someone watch it for one second and bail out?  Did they leave a comment, vote on the rating, any of that?  No idea what it means?  You know what I translate it into:  internet eyeballs circa 1996.

When we started streaming videos for our political candidates we immediately started reporting on meaningful numbers like average time spent with the banner unit, number of hours watching videos, click thrus to website, donations, email sign-ups, and panel interactions.  Statistics that are easily measurable by any online video product and especially for a company like YouTube.  For example, here's a link to an article in ClickZ that features our online video campaign for Dick DeVos for Governor of Michigan which showed at the time over 1,200 hours of interaction within the ad unit.

As an industry, we should refrain from producing useless factoids like video views or video loads.  I tried looking over at The Internet Advertising Bureau, but all I found was a link to how to count video views.  We should just stop the madness now and throw out video views as a measurement and move towards average time spent and total time spent viewing ads.  Only then can we really rise above the offline measurement game.

PardonMyFrench,

Eric

Google Has A Secret - Get Rid of Your Sales Force

John Chow let the cat out of the bag when it came to breaking the news that Google is working on a Google Display Advertising Network. John broke the news because he got invited to participate in this secret club; I wonder if it comes with secret Masonic Handshakes?  The details which John shared are:

• Google is creating this network to go after the big Fortune 1000 brand advertisers
• They want to sell video and banner ads to these companies for high CPMs
• Lucky publishers get to have a flat negotiated fee with Google for a full year and must guarantee a minimum amount impressions

About two weeks back a friend of mine asked me to poke around and see what I can find out about the double secret probation ad network.  She already had some scoop on the CPMs and the length of the deal.  However, what we talked about was some other motivation behind the now not-so-secret plan.  With success, Google can theoretically eliminate a site's sales force.  Think about it.  Google represents you to these big fortune 1000 company and sells your already negotiated CPM to them on your behalf.  No need to have somebody on your payroll peddling your product; just a site manager and a trafficking coordinator.  No need for your account manager.  So, not only do you get your CPM theoretically if you are over-sold you could eliminate some cost too.  Not bad, huh?  Plus, perhaps you have reduced paper work.  However, isn't that a possible sales pitch for all ad networks?  BTW - before you think the old man is crazy, imagine if the deals included some upfront payment for part of or all of a site's inventory?  Google has deep pockets.....

I guess I'm a little skeptical.  Ad networks are nothing new and the marketplace is very crowded.  Besides the rare occasion when I used content networks and Google's Site Targeting, I am a huge fan of Advertising.com for their reach and ability to predict and optimize my advertising campaigns.  Can Google build a better mouse trap the Advertising.com ?

The other part that makes me skeptical is my assumed interpretation of John's post is that these Fortune 1000 companies are willing to pay big CPMs in the name of simplicity and assumed targeting.  And, having been one of those Fortune 1000 online advertisers on more than one occasion (ex - AT&T, Bank of Montreal) and I'm currently consulting for a few of them, it just isn't the case.  Brand marketers need documented results and if they are sophisticated like my clients, it is a lot more than just running some impressions without an expected action or ROI.  A number of my clients require sophisticated behavioral and/or geo-targeting while boosting brand awareness and post-click actions.  Everything is getting measured.

Maybe Google is just testing here again or maybe not.  They have so many balls in the air now like radio, print, mobile, spreadsheets, and now this it becomes almost difficult to keep track of everything involved and what they are becoming besides a CPC search network.  I hope they don't start eating peanut butter sandwiches.

PardonMyFrench,

Eric

links for 2006-11-29

• Amazon.com: Fidelity Investments' Blog
  (tags: fidelity)
• News & Insights Subscriptions
  (tags: schwab)
• Listing of retirement planning blogs
  (tags: retirement blog)
• Zecco.com - Free Stock Quotes & Financial News
  (tags: finance blog)

Baby Bells Wrestle with Telecom Past

I saw this article called Supreme Court Case on Baby Bells May Affect Antitrust Enforcement in Tuesday's Wall Street Journal and my reaction was - of course they did everything they could to stifle competition; the problem is, as the article points out, is to prove it.  I didn't spend much time on the old AT&T's local side of the business and from 1996 (Telecommunications Act) through 2000 I was either wireless/LD bundle boy or implementing AT&T's consumer online marketing strategy*.  However, as wireless bundle boy I was often in meetings with the managers of the local offers who tried to convince me to add local into my marketing mix; unfortunately, I didn't agree because it was hard enough selling wireless plans on the phone let alone adding in local.

So, that's a long way of saying that I didn't have the plans and don't have any documentation, but here's what I do remember.  In the early days of the Telecom Act, AT&T tried to resell local service in very competitive states like Connecticut.  However, AT&T was buying the service from the LECs at retail rates with a discount on top of it and then offered this bundle to residential customers.  Basically, an expensive white label product from AT&T's enemy at the time.  Of course when you lumped marketing and promotional costs on top of this product, AT&T quickly started losing money.  And, when C. Michael Armstrong came in as AT&T Chairman, this practice stopped and then we move to selling local service via UNE (unbundled network elements or buying individual parts of the local service and then repackaging them). The LECs then tried to set their own resale prices to force AT&T out while capturing the long distance market. 

I left in June 2000, but in the end we know what happened which was MCI collapsed due to playing with their books and the old AT&T stopped marketing to residents to pretty themselves up for purchase by SBC which formed the new, new, new, really it is new AT&T.  For a little more history, check out Armstrong's speech given to the Senate in June 2001 on the state of telecom competition.

This reminds me of two stories.  One was back in 1997 when I interviewed for a marketing position with Teleport a competitive local company for businesses headquartered in Staten Island.  Besides being very late for the interview because of a major accident on the Outerbridge Crossing, I took one look at a US map of their local service and thought to myself, AT&T is going to buy Teleport and I'll end up right back where I started.  Of course, when the CMO asked me what I thought of the company I mumbled something about the commute instead of telling him the truth. 

The second story had to do with sticking it to a Division Manager named Andy M. who was walking along the long third floor corridor on his way to see then head of Consumer Long Distance Jack McMaster when I caught up with him.  I was also on my way to see Jack to talk about career plans when Andy decided to smugly tell me that I was sure to get bumped because he had more important things to discuss with Jack namely to brief him for his meeting with Armstrong on AT&T's 7 (or 9) State Local plan.  Jack of course took the 15 minute meeting with me and we talked about the Yankees, my career, a promotion, and general guy talk.  6 months later Jack made good on his promise and promoted me to Division Manager.

Anyway, back to the article.  So while I have no concrete proof, I saw from AT&T's perspective the LECs putting up stumbling blocks.  At the end of the day what really matters is local competition right?  Well, according to this chart from the FCC local competition peaked back in June 2004 and now is on a downward trend.  And, that peak reached 14% of all lines nearly 8 years after the Telecom Act of 1996 was supposed to foster competition.  Think it doesn't matter now with VOIP, wireless, cable, and etc think again.  The LECs get pricing power without any real competition and that really gets to the heart of the Net Neutrality Issue.

PardonMyFrench,

Eric

links for 2006-11-28

• Likability poll bad news for Kerry | Top News | Reuters.com
  (tags: politics)
• Where Have All the Good Videos Clips Gone? · MadisonAvenueJournal.com
  (tags: youtube)
• Oprah on Yahoo Answers | Developing on the Google OS | Google Writing Nice C&D | Google Parking Lot | On a Given Day, Fi ...
  (tags: search)
• ActBlue: Crowdsourcing Elections | Personal Democracy Forum
  (tags: politics)
• Michelle Malkin: Supreme Court to NYTimes: Buzz off
  (tags: politics)
• THE MYSPACE REPORT
  (tags: myspace)

Volkwagon Commercials Pass My TiVo Test

Did you see these Volkswagon commercials over the weekend?  I know they have been probably around for about 4 weeks now, but they slipped in past my TiVo and scared the hell out of me.  I don't know what freaked me out more, the Giants blowing a 21 point lead with 10 minutes left to go in the game or these ads.  I had to rewind them about 3 times each.

Now, I don't think they are going to make me go out and buy a Volkswagon (strictly Japanese in this household), but for advertising these are a home run.  Target audience was probably the 25-30 year old crowd with a message that a Volkswagon will save your life and your co-riders life in a car accident.  Powerful and simple message that breaks through the clutter.  Nicely done.  Why don't you ditch the Slash guitar ads and just pound these home.  Talk about scaring a car buyer into the safety message.

PardonMyFrench,

Eric

Ad #2

links for 2006-11-27

• Jaffe Juice: From Frags to Riches
  (tags: secondlife)
• Virtual property queen says thanks a million - BizTech - Technology - smh.com.au
  (tags: secondlife)

Shop, Shop, Shopping All Day Long at the Catalog

Flashback a few days ago at my house...

Ding Dong.  "Herumff", I grunted, doing my best J. Jonah Jameson (of Spider-man) imitation,  There's the mailman again.  "Marrrryyy!!! Could you get the door?  I'm busy."

"Yes hold on", as Mary rushes to the door and opens it.  "Hi!, oh these are for us?, Mary asks the mailman.  "Let me ask you something.  Why do you keep coming to the door instead of dropping it in the mailbox?"  The mailman who speaks broken English and is obviously in a hurry, just hands her a stack of catalogs and jogs back to his truck.

"Mare, he rings the doorbell everyday and leaves a giant stack of catalogs.  And, it is getting worse everyday.  With all of the shopping you do, these catalogs are multiplying like rabbits right before Easter."  End of flashback.

It is true, the amount of catalogs have exploded at my house. At first I thought it was because we put ourselves on the national do not call list a few years back, proving out a warning my father in-law gave me when he said "the amount of catalogs will explode once you land on the DNC list."  My only guess now is that the retailers, especially the catalog intense ones, have tied their catalog sales tracking with their e-Commerce.  And, besides that, even above average on the tech scale people like my wife, don't walk around with the laptop glued to their, well...lap.  So, some people actually flip through tons of these and as my wife says, "it is a lot more convenient than slogging through the internet" or another one which is "the internet is just a means to an end, an ordering end."

To further prove my wife's shopping habit is more the norm than not, comes this article in this week's Business Week called Catalogs, Catalogs, Everywhere.  Interesting points in the article are:

• # catalogs mailed in 2005 grew 5.5% from 2004
• Victoria's Secret mailed out 400 million catalogs or 1.33 for every American and their online/catalog sales accounted for 28% of all sales.
• More progressive retailers are using catalogs to promote imagery using big glossy pages with resolutions that are not approachable by most home PCs.
• These same retailers don't print every item available, just the ones to paint the picture and then use the web to offer everything else.

My wife is the typical big-time shopper of 2006; use anything including catalogs and the web to get holiday gifts.  The catalogs are everywhere, but we really do go through them because they are easier to flip through and get ideas.  The internet as Mary said, is for completing the sale once you know what you want.  Catalogs are not dead and I'm sure all postal carriers are rejoicing with the new weight reduction program the shopping community has put them on.

PardonMyFrench,

Eric

links for 2006-11-26

• Commentary: If Google Shopped Until It Dropped
  (tags: search google)

links for 2006-11-24

• Why MySpace may settle with Universal Music Group - MarketWatch
  (tags: myspace, copyright)
• B.L. Ochman's weblog - Internet and corporate blogging strategy, and online marketing trends, with news and commentary: Turkeys Try to High Tail It Out of NJ on the Train
  (tags: funny)
• www.myspace.com/honda
  (tags: myspace)

Making Money In SecondLife

I've been having a lot of fun lately with Second Life.  The only person I couldn't convince that it is worth spending any time on was my brother in-law who is a big time coder and CTO.  Recently, my favorite conversation was with my friend Bart S. who did see the value in having a 3D showroom, but didn't think enough of main stream would participate and he's probably right over the short term.  However, there are a ton of people making money in Second Life as this Reuters article points out called Second Life development shops pull in big business. 

The development shops that a big company can pay to design an island, shop, or building are cashing in big time.  And, I think it is well deserved because I've tried constructing items in Second Life and it is a pain.  Sure, I can make a brick wall, but playing around with scripting and coding is way past the amount of time I can afford.  That's why I'm trying to enlist my friend Chip B. to look around and see how we can make some cash.  According to the article, the developers were planning on averaging $80K in revenues for the 4Q with a median of $18K.  Even if that is inflated (self-reported survey data always is), that is still some serious cash that should only grow.

Someone is making money in Second Life.  Right now, you can exchange L$272 for US$1 and in the last 24 hours over $650K was spent in Second Life.  Me, I'm just looking to set up shop and have some of my clients over for a meeting.  Just to get their feet wet in social marketing, that is until Chip and I can figure out something.

PardonMyFrench,

Eric

How To Make Money Embracing YouTube

I know it seems sexy right now for folks to comment on how you should let the community download and post music, videos, etc on social network sites like YouTube, MySpace, and etc for free.  However, I keep asking questions on how these companies, bands, etc make money in the long term and how they recoup their investment.  Every time I post a comment on expert sites I get similar answers like: don't wreck the community, these are big companies they'll make it up elsewhere, the classic Digital Millennium Copyright Act reply, or my favorite which is silence.  One thing is clear that going after the end-user who posts the content is wrong because at the end of the day, they make nothing off of it and after all this is about money right?

You know how you make money if you are a major content owner?  Embrace the community and cut deals with as many social networks as possible.  That way, you get paid advertising and let the social networking shells work their magic with traffic, commentary, and friend building.  You know like CBS is doing with YouTube. 

It seems that after this deal has been in place which includes a CBS Channel on YouTube,  CBS has seen awesome online as well as offline results. CBS is averaging over 850,000 views per day and have seen TV ratings boosted on Letterman as well as The Late, Late Show.  For a detailed look at the numbers, check out this press release found over at YouTube - those are some nice views.  The only problem right now with the CBS Channel on YouTube is the lack of enough advertising units to generate money (preroll video) and I'm not talking Google AdSense.  The other disappointing piece of the press release is a lack of more concrete numbers - for example, when I've reported numbers for online videos I report minutes viewed and average time spent in the unit, not just viewership....no reason why the internet can't do better than counting views.

See, embracing the community while making money and protecting your copyrights can all be accomplished at the same time.  All it takes is a little deal-cutting, cooler heads, and a realization that this is the world shaping up in front of us.  To ignore the online video wave is like putting your head in the sand when Google's stock came out at $90.  If you do, you might end up viewing consumers as thieves....

PardonMyFrench,

Eric

Copyright, Universal Music and the Community

So on Friday Universal Music decided to sue MySpace over copyright infringement and I was originally going to sit this one out because I've said enough on the subject in the past.  Well, I can't sit this one out for very long.  Sorry, besides I need to write another post to keep my mind off of the the Giants-Jaguars football game. 

First up for me was Joe Jaffe's website and the commentary which I left for Joe which he did answer.   You can read the post from Joe which is a good one and no he didn't get me upset or fired up, just made me think a little more and post.  However, I asked this question "Why should MySpace make money from other's content?.....Seems to me that MySpace cuts a deal or end up in court."  Joe wrote back "Don't get me wrong...I'm not advocating that MySpace profit (although I'm still not sure there's a robust and proven advertising model per se other than the exit strategy which as already been enacted), but at the same time, how exactly does one figure out a fair and equitable royalty per se.."  Good stuff.

Next up was my fellow Marketing Prof blogger Mack Collier in the post called Want to Go Swimming? Try Going WITH The Current.  I didn't leave a comment because well, it goes along with what Joe wrote and I already have one conversation going.

So, my question is why should the content owners let  MySpace, YouTube and others make money off of their traffic which is partly driven by the copyrighted material posted there?  Where do you think people are going to go to see The Daily Show now that they had the content removed from YouTube and kept over at their website so Comedy Central can monetize that traffic themselves?  How do you view the Google search results shown on the right?  See #4?  Where do you think that traffic is now going to?  Back to the content owner.  I'm sure Comedy Central's web marketers are happy with where that traffic is going now.

I'm not sure what the right answer is here, but when YouTube can be sold for a king's ransom for traffic that is partly generated by copyrighted material than those content owners will take notice and want a slice of the pie.  I do believe that going after the end-user who uploaded the material in the first place is not the solution - that's just wrong to go after people that are not benefiting from a trickle down effect of the gold being showered on the inventors of the social marketing shell game.

PardonMyFrench,

Eric

links for 2006-11-21

• Research Brief » Blog Archive » Internet Video Advertising On Fast Growth Track to $3 Billion in 2010
  (tags: research video statistics)

Snake Oil Salesmen 2006 Wicked Version

Have you seen Wicked yet?  I saw it a few months back and loved it.  In a nutshell, it is a different spin on the Wizard of Oz casting the Wicked Witch of the West as a victim of circumstances with the original circumstance being that she was the result of an affair her mother had with a snake oil salesman who later turned out to be the Wizard.  Why tell this story?  It reminded me of the 2006 version of snake oil salesmen  - the big Pharmaceutical Companies.

Yes Big Pharma.  The people you rely on to produce medicine that is supposed to help you, but all they are really out to do is...well...make a buck.  And, if that means you take medicine that used to be effective and no longer is..oh well...buyer beware. What got me so fired up?

In yesterday's Newark Star Ledger, I woke to find this article called For stuffy noses a new drug runs counter to opinion.  Basically what the article says is that with a new federal ruling to limit access to pseudoephedrine (Sudafed) products and put them behind the counter (but not requiring a prescription), Big Money Making Pharma decided to replace pseudoephedrine with  phenylephrine.  So, you might ask what is the big deal?   They are looking out for us right?  Nope.  Check this quote out from the article and follow-up paragraph:

"At the maximum 10 milligram dose, phenylephrine is no more effective than a placebo. It's like shooting blanks," Leslie Hendeles, a research pharmacist at the University of Florida, said in an interview.

Hendeles and colleague Randy Hatton, in a peer-reviewed letter published this summer in the Journal of Allergy and Clinical Immunology, found seven of 11 studies done decades ago as the basis for Food and Drug Administration approval for over-the counter decongestant remedies showed phenylephrine at the allowable 10 mg dose did not work effectively.

They found only 38 percent of the medicine gets into the system compared with 90 percent for pseudoephedrine.

So what do the money grabbing companies do?  Just change the active ingredient on some of your favorite over the counter medicines and if you don't read the label oh well.   Going in to grab a replacement bottle of DayQuil or NyQuil because as Lewis Black said "your cold doesn't give a damn what time of day it is"?  Well,  read  that label because you  should give a  damn about the ingredients.

Some of the companies like Wyeth, makers of Dimmetapp, are using a dual strategy of putting out the ineffective stuff out in the isle and the good stuff behind the counter.  That is of course assuming your pharmacy decided to carry it and go through the effort of tracking who buys it.

Back in the day, Coca-Cola had coco extract in it as well as alcohol and was sold as a cold remedy.  It of course turned into my old roomate Dave's favorite breakfast drink.  Unfortunately, if you don't read the label of what you are buying, you won't be buying anything that will help your cold and certainly won't give you that happy original Coke feeling.  All you'll end up doing is helping cure what ails the pharmaceutical industry.    Read your labels, that's why the US Government forced them to put them there.

PardonMyFrench,

Eric

 

links for 2006-11-20

• Secrets, Lies, And Sweatshops
  (tags: china)
• NBC Breaks into the Ad Business
  (tags: advertising)
• Michelle Malkin: Draft-mongering Dems
  (tags: politics)
• Michelle Malkin: Jihadi word search puzzles...
  coming to a school near you?
  (tags: politics)

Smoothing Out The Peanut Butter Manifesto

I loved this article found in the Wall Street Journal called As Yahoo Falters, Executive Memo Calls for Overhaul.  It references a 4 page memo called The Peanut Butter Manifesto written by Yahoo executive Brad Garlinghouse with what he thinks is wrong in the company and suggestions to fix it.  What I like about it is that Mr. Garlinghouse had the guts to write the memo in the first place and according to the earlier referenced article, COO Dan Rosenzweig (a huge Springsteen fan) is starting to listen and investigate changes.

There are so many people these days who like to point out what Yahoo is or isn't doing and of course most of it is compared with Google.  For example, some analysts think that Yahoo should buy Facebook for like a billion dollars.  Me, I thought they should pass and I still do. 

Unlike these analysts, Garlinghouse has an insider's view and as someone who has bought millions of dollars (not just search marketing) on Yahoo  since 1999, I have to agree with most of what he wrote.  I'll go over the exceptions in a second, but here's a summary of the memo and my observations:

PROBLEMS CITED IN MEMO

• Lacks focus and vision for the company - I can't really know for sure because I'm not on the inside, but unlike Google who is about 95% focused on monetizing search marketing revenues, Yahoo does seem to be spread thinly.  Are they into content or aggregation?  How about search versus display ads?  How about youth versus adults?
• Lack clarity of ownership and accountability - When I spend enough money, especially as a financial marketer, I have a single point of contact and a great sales team behind them.  That team is very accountable for my business and if I had a problem with say Overture/Search, they took ownership and solved my problem. So, I haven't experienced this problem as a big spender.....
• Lack decisiveness and then he listed out products that compete - This part I agree with.  Seriously, what is the difference between Yahoo Photos and Flickr or myweb versus Del.icio.us? I'd like to know.  The current one I'm struggling with is social media versus 360 (blogs) versus Groups (message boards).

I won't go into detail on what Brad's solutions are because they speak for themselves.  However, a few of my own personal observations as an active Yahoo buyer over the years would be:

• The biggest advantages I've seen that Yahoo has are: web surfing and customer information to be used for modeling and content aggregation to keep people longer on the site.  It is time that the behavioral modeling takes more of a forefront because it is unmatched in the industry.
• The Finance team works extremely hard and looks to be understaffed not overstaffed.  The 15%-20% reduction would be very painful to absorb in that area and would probably impact bottom line results.  Trust me when I say that once you go down the layoff path you sell your corporate soul to the wall street devil.
• However, getting rid of spare parts and overlapping products would be a good idea and streamline the business at the same time.  Layoffs couched in selling off a business unit are not the same as cutting a % of your workforce when it comes to morale.
• Become offline content's best friend in the online world using the 60 minutes partnership as the example.  Yahoo can take on Google/YouTube without the same headache.

The Peanut Butter Manifesto looks like it lays out a plan for or at least starting a conversation for what is wrong at Yahoo these days.  I'm glad to see that someone had the stomach to write it and then someone had the guts to read and examine it for valid suggestions.  More companies should look at how thin they spread themselves and instead focus on their core business. 

Back at the old AT&T, a co-worker named Matt B. once told me "Eric, never leave the core business.  Never", when he saw how AT&T Computers was closed after AT&T purchased NCR.  The message from the Peanut Butter Manifesto is to stay focused on your core objectives.  Because, once you start spreading peanut butter too thinly, you forget why you started to make your sandwich and all you care about is covering as much of the bread as possible and of course washing it down with New Coke....

PardonMyFrench,

Eric

Ohhh Rutgers

Yes I am a Rutgers alumni - both The Rutgers School of Engineering and The Graduate School of Management.  I haven't been a supporter of the football team (but basketball) since a few years back when Rutgers got crushed at home on a hot September night by Miami like 50-3.  I haven't had season tickets and certainly not this year when my kids have soccer on Saturdays.  Anyway, of course I jumped back on the bandwagon and even though they lost last night to Cincinnati  I'm still excited.   The football team is clearly building momentum and now I get to have conversations with football fans from USC, Notre Dame, Ohio State, and etc.  So what has me so down....this article found on the front page of yesterday's Star Ledger called For these Rutgers fans football boom's a bust.

Basically what the article says is that Rutgers English Professor William Dowling and a small core of critics think that Rutgers should reduce the size and influence of sports programs.  Here's a quote from the english professor "The football buildup sends a symbolic message," Dowling said. "What this tells the state and students is that the only thing Rutgers cares about is having a semi-professional football franchise and attracting academically substandard students who don't like being in school but do like having a football team to cheer for."

What I really don't like about this article is that it doesn't make sense to me.  If these so called professors want the school to save money or spend it all on education than why stop at what they previously called for was downsizing the sports teams to Division 1-AA?  If you guys are soooo intelligent than why stop there?  Why don't you call for an elimination of ALL SPORTS programs and all extra activities.  How about band, chess, and all other non-educational programs?  And while you are at it, why don't you eliminate courses like (if they haven't already done so), Apple Judging, Detective Fiction, The Comic, Science Fiction, and all blow-off courses?  Than once you do that, why stop at the collegiate level and then go after High School sports in the state?  That's the only argument that makes logical sense, professor.

Sure the football team will cost Rutgers (or as my friend Jim said the state of NJ since we are a state school) $13 million before those costs are offset by ticket sales, bowl game, etc.  However, as Jim pointed out that some of that is our tax money, but don't you think the merchants in New Brunswick, Piscataway, and surrounding towns and cities like the resurgence?  I'm sure they do and that helps our economy, especially in those cities, right?  Hey Professor Dowling, why don't you see if an economics professor can model that?

Once you make the decision to have a sports team you need to try and win.  I'm not saying at all costs like some other schools, but at least in a reasonable fashion.  That's what I see happening at Rutgers right now and it is a lot to be proud of.  This is good for the school, good for the towns, and good for the alumni who finally might start making donations to the school and become more active.  College is about a lot of things including sports and getting ready for the real world.  And, the real world loves competition and sports...all I'm writing is, once you make the decision to have college sports lets try and win for once, please?

PardonMyFrench,

Eric

BTW - check out the data in the continue reading section.  All the football hype is delivering more traffic and buzz to Rutgers....

links for 2006-11-18

• The 'Peanut Butter Manifesto' - WSJ.com
  (tags: yahoo)

links for 2006-11-17

• Is this BusinessWeek or The Enquirer ? - Blog Maverick
  (tags: youtube)
• Too idle to read the Bible? It's in a blog | Tech&Sci | Internet | Reuters.com
  (tags: general)

links for 2006-11-15

• Dell sets up 'Second Life' shop, offers PCs to residents | CNET News.com
  (tags: secondlife)
• Internet Outsider: Update on MSN: Still Going Nowhere Fast
  (tags: search)
• Word of Mouth Research Blog -- Word of Mouth Marketing Association -- WOMMA
  (tags: research)
• The LA Riots Videos vs Gootube - The Actual Filing - Blog Maverick
  (tags: youtube)
• Giuliani Moves to Explore Bid - New York Times
  (tags: politics)

Shea Goodbye to Shea

Now it is true that I am a Yankees fan and ever since the Mets traded Tom Seaver I have been a Mets hater.  The last Mets game that I went to, I made fun of the stadium so much that I got myself uninvited from future games even though I loved the sausage sandwich and beers from around the world.  But this announcement of the Mets selling the naming rights to Citigroup for $20 million over 20 years is terrible and real bush league, more so than Ed Kranepool alley.  Sure $20 million per year would provide good money to the franchise and might help sign future free agenets or their own stars, but this is just a plain sellout and I can't imagine they need the money now that they have a TV network.

I'm upset whenever professional teams sell their stadium naming rights.  I used to be able to name every baseball stadium and other than Coors Field who really cares what the corporate name is.  It adds no character to the team and even sounds ridiculous to say that I'm going to a game at United Parcel Services today.  Or how about a stadium named after Embarq the worst brand name ever?

Besides being offended I've often wondered what the value of this advertising is to the corporation other than an ego boost.  Will it sell more banking accounts?  Not based on my experience.  Does Citigroup really need to boost brand awareness?  Who hasn't heard of them in the NYC area?  I could understand if a company like mine wanted to slap a name on a stadium, but a major corporation with huge awareness?  What's the point? 

Personally I would have spent the $20 million per year on online advertising to sell more credit cards, money markets, bank accounts, anything but on a stadium name.  Good thing I never followed up on those recruiter calls to Citi because I probably would have screamed so much over this deal that I would have been shown the door...

PardonMyFrench,

Eric

MSN AdCenter Is Sexy but Empty

I saw this post today from Henry Blodget called Update on MSN: Still Going Nowhere Fast and it reminded me of a post I've been meaning to make.  Henry makes a lot of great points, but I'd like to add a few to it (you can read the post yourself for a summary) by focusing on his comments on search and AdCenter. 

I love the AdCenter platform and the only and I mean the only issue I have with it is the lack of traffic which is a pretty important attribute to have when conducting search engine marketing.  I checked out one of our clients keywords and since most of our Connell Donatelli clients are politicians it was very easy to compare between the three platforms Google, Yahoo, and MSN.  Basically what I found and then checked this across the board is the MSN has about 10% of Yahoo's search traffic;  that's not 10% of Google, but Yahoo, and very rarely do we max out our daily budget (BTW - Yahoo is about 40%-50% of Google).  Searchers don't use MSN at an acceptable level for marketers.  Which gets back to another point that Henry made which is just want the Google is going on with MSN?

Are the search results inferior at MSN?  Well, probably not since I'm talking about PPC advertising and as I said above I love the platform because it makes it easy to figure out what is working and how you handle the match process.  My thought is that they need to work the demand side of the search instead of paying money for full page ads in the Wall Street Journal targeting the media buyers.  Sophisticated advertisers know they can use the platform for marketing, the problem they will find is a lack of traffic.  I haven't seen anything out of MSN that leads me to believe that they are marketing their platform to users.  Sure, there is the new Internet Explorer and Vista on the way but why would you think that is going to change user behavior?  A focus solely on driving search traffic should be the only search advertising MSN does these days.

Sexy platform?  Absolutely.  Great charts and search tools?  Yes.  Traffic to use those tools on?  Priceless if they had them.

PardonMyFrench,

Eric

********UPDATE*************

Of course I forgot about Ms Dewey which is MSN's sexy viral version of their search platform.  Obviously they are trying to use this to boost traffic especially with the male demographic (type in David Wright or leave the screen up to see what she does and shows off), however, I still think they need to do more than Ms.Dewey unless this is more than just a cheap (one) trick pony.  She is fun and cute, but not sure it will shift behavior from Google.

links for 2006-11-14

• Where the Republicans Went Astray - Newsweek National News - MSNBC.com
  (tags: politics history)
• Avatars at the Office - WSJ.com
  (tags: secondlife)

Shopping for an Office In SecondLife

Ok, so I bought some land in Second Life and dropped one of those free homes on the land.  However, the Tubular model that I picked up on Help Island doesn't suit me and I wouldn't want to entertain any clients in it.  So, I started shopping and it wasn't as smooth as I thought it might be, but I found a great home/office and placed it in the clouds.  However, before I show off my new digs, I thought you'd like to see the process I went through to find it.

1. First I hit the popular places link in search, but neglected to uncheck the box that said include mature content.  What I found was the screen shot to the right of mostly gambling and gentlemen clubs.  Unchecking the box was a little more useful because the clubs were replaced with newbie places.
2. I warped to New Citizens Incorporated via the non-mature popular places link and it is worth its weight in Prims.  There was a great screen  in the beginning that offered tips on buying land and fixing the lag.  Yes, I wrote fixing the lag in Second Life.  NCI is definitely a must-visit for newbies.
3. Ok, so now I hit the classifieds link and searched for homes and had a huge list to go through.  So, I just started visiting places to see what they had to offer.  I stayed away from places with a long lag because there was so many to visit I had to eliminate them somehow.
4. While visiting a few places I realized that there are three variables you need to be worried about when it comes to buying a home:  the shape of your plot, the size of land, and how many Prims you can hold.  I have 512 sq. m, 117 Prims, and the dimensions are rectangle so I wanted the door on the short side.  Plus, then you have to worry about the cost so choose wisely.  It is buying beware with no refunds.
5. The Prims became an important issue for me because I wanted a low Prim but well designed home.  Think of Prims as K-size on the Second Life server.
6. After visiting a ton of places, I settled on a home found in Sky Dreams (Federal 182, 209,31).  The prims were light, I got a fireplace and a hot tub, plus I could modify the home.  Modification was another key so I can put up walls and change the appearance.  The home cost me L$600.
7. Now that I found my home, I needed to place it on my land, but I ran into an issue there.  First, my "neighbor" put up an ugly stone wall up and then the rest of the area around me has other unsightly buildings.  So, what's an Avatar to do?  Take to the sky. 
8. That's right my Sky Dreams home is build for being up in the sky so I change my Z coordinate and put it up at the cloud layer.  One other tip I learned when you buy land is, you also own the air space above your land up to 768m.  Now I have a professional home in the sky....

Sure, it may not be friendly being up in the sky, but I always have a good view and could hold some meetings there.  Now all I need is some conference equipment and some furniture.

I know some of you think I am crazy, but I can see a need especially for virtual meetings and presentations.  With broadband access in the home and a greater use of social networking, I can see SecondLife becoming important in the B2B world especially for work at homes and telecommuters. I put a link to teleport to my office under my favorite links section on the right margin.  Of course, you need to have SL to visit...

PardonMyFrench,

Eric

Political Online Advertising Recap: Part 3

So you say you want to work in politics?  Or perhaps you are one of those online gurus who can't understand why politicians don't spend more money online.  How about a vendor trying to sell a product, impressions, or some tool and can't understand why you are having trouble selling into this industry.  Well after surviving my first cycle there is one thing I am definitely sure of, this isn't like selling telephone service or a brokerage account.  Heck, the standard widget sales example doesn't apply. 

Typically a good product marketing person will put together a 4-5P marketing plan and maybe even a SWOT analysis.  These papers would be put together at the beginning of a campaign and then the marketer and their agency would brainstorm tactics and creatives.  Finally, this would be put into motion via a marketing campaign where the results are monitored and after sufficient time has passed an optimization of the creatives and placements would occur.  None of this prepares you for dealing with an online political advertising campaign.  There are so many forces and personalities impacting your campaign that the most important skills to have are to think and act quickly before your moment passes.

Eric's Top 10 Reasons Why Political Marketing Is Different from Private Marketing

1. You have a finite time to deliver your result
2. Being 90%-99% close to your objective (winning) means you failed
3. Creatives need to be brainstormed, designed and implemented within 1-2 days before your window of opportunity has passed
4. Media plans are constantly re-evaluated and need to be proved out over a period of time; large sums of money are rarely tied up to maintain flexibility
5. Making any mistake, no matter how small, can cost you a client or a media buy
6. Reports and feedback need to be simple, easy, and quick to digest; it isn't that the eCampaign manager doesn't understand, it is that they have a million other projects to work on and no time or help to complete them
7. Your target audience is constantly changing and in fact, the future is probably closer to the Long Tail of Marketing; more on that another day
8. Your product is constantly changing based on external forces and real-life trends
9. There is a large portion of people that will never, ever buy your product no matter how good you think it is or what discounts you offer; for example. George Washington got 97.8% of the electoral college results in 1792 and FDR got 60.8% of the popular vote in 1936.
10. There is no opportunity for testing and learning; learning is passed to the next election cycle

As my old COO at Harrisdirect Mike Hogan once told me "Selling brokerage plans isn't like selling phone service, Eric" and I can honestly tell you that politics is just what it means, politics.  If you can't handle the pressure and the deadlines, stick to selling books.

PardonMyFrench,

Eric

links for 2006-11-11

• Republicans look to Reagan era for inspiration | Politics News | Reuters.com
  (tags: politics)

links for 2006-11-10

• Online Political Ad Spending Down from '04 National Election
  (tags: politics)
• B.L. Ochman's weblog - Internet and corporate blogging strategy, and online marketing trends, with news and commentary: Record Turnout of Young Voters May Have Swung Election Results
  (tags: politics)
• Pew Research Center: Democrats and Republicans See Different Realities
  (tags: politics research)

Political Online Advertising Recap: Part 2

Well Part 1 of my week-long series sure generated some hype out on the internet.  I don't think Part 2 which will focus on display ads will be as exciting, but let's see how I do ;-)

So, what's the state of banner advertising for political advertising?  Umm, it could be a LOT larger, but it  is definitely a little better than the impression counts mentioned in this ClickZ article called Online Political Ad Spending Down from '04.  I don't fault ClickZ for publishing these numbers because they pulled them from AdRelevance and I know the actual numbers.  For example, I had one client run over 10 million impressions in the month of September 2006 and our totaled combined advertised impressions dwarfed the 16 million mentioned in the article for all political campaigns.  So, what gives?

While I think that most campaign managers get the need for search marketing (but don't realize they need to allocate more dollars) I think they need get more experience with what a display banner ad can do and why it will be superior to network TV buys.  Yes I wrote that and I'm completely sober.  I think the biggest problem that display ads have is that we can track nearly everything about them. One of  our biggest pluses also is our biggest negative.

For every marketing or campaign manager that says, well a 1% click rate means that 99% ignore them, they are the same people that have no idea how many people really saw a TV ad, let alone how many people were compelled to take an action.  I actually had a campaign not renew an online ad campaign in favor of plowing more into TV even though their TV commercials were streamed in a PointRoll unit that had 1000s of hours of documented viewing.  Their cost per 30 seconds viewed on that ad was less than $20, but it still wasn't renewed.  So, what needs to change?

Eric's Top 10 Reasons Why Display Ads Are Better Than TV Ads

1. I can take your commercials and stream them in a PointRoll unit so that when people are online and actually reading political news, they can see your ad
2. Everything is measurable, right down to how many people saw, clicked, donated, signed up for an email, viewed your ad, etc.
3. Note: #2 above is ACTUAL numbers, not something extrapolated from a TV media model built in 1988 that you hope is still accurate
4. Any cost number you want to look at - cost per email, cost per second of a commercial viewed is more efficient online.
5. You can rotate in multiple creatives in a matter of minutes and can have complete control of which ad is seen and where
6. Constant placements like buttons on a homepage, can cheaply reinforce a brand message and drive actions on your website.
7. You can take a list of voters and market directly to them via display ads or streamed video.
8. Speaking of targeting, if you don't have a list, you can use actual demographic profiles or behavioral models instead of some guess provided by a sample of people who agreed to have a tracking box installed on their TV
9. Preroll videos, though I turned my nose up at them for this election cycle (see the ClickZ article called Political Pre-Roll Lags Despite Online Video Hype) are going to change the game in political marketing because they will FORCE users to watch your commercial before the video will play.
10. You get to work with me (the other ideas I had for tracking, audience duplications, brand measurements were not as sexy as working with me)

Really it is better online.  The only, and I mean only, documented positive I can find with TV advertising is that the MSM actually reports out on TV ads, especially the negative ones.  I guess that makes for good drama on network TV these days, but I wouldn't know, since I watch very little network TV and when I do, I TiVo through the commercials.

PardonMyFrench,

Eric

links for 2006-11-09

• Advertising Age - Democrats Set Sights on Drug Ads and Media Ownership
  (tags: politics)
• Beltway Blogroll: Rightroots Losers
  (tags: politics)
• Internet Outsider: Is Google Checkout a Dud?
  (tags: google)

Political Online Advertising Recap: Part 1

Part 1 of my week long look at my first time through a real election cycle.  I originally was going to make the first post on what it is like to work in politics, but I was pre-empted by this political search study from the Rimm-Kaufman Group and I wanted to comment on it before a lot of people read it.

In general the biggest issue I had with the study is how they based their conclusions on a certain number of races, thereby introducing a selection bias into their results and that they also had no visibility into the actual spend per day.  This led to the following conclusions that based on my experience in this election cycle I don't agree with:

1. Few political advertisers use Yahoo or as they wrote in the details "we found virtually no political ads on Yahoo"- Wrong.  All of our clients used Yahoo and most used MSN.
2. Name-only search perspective -   Wrong.  They listed words which they thought we should have been buying but these words were either tested and removed or we used other better performing words. 
3. Limited tracking - Wrong. All of the clients used tracking as provided by the search engines and then our back-end captured the donation amounts and clicks.  Current clients are being moved into a bid manager platform as we speak.

Focusing on a few races without regard to daily spends generated this conclusion "We believe political pay-per-click advertising is in its infancy.  We base this opinion on the low utilization, limited tracking, Google-only perspective, and name-only search emphasis."  You see, we were very sophisticated for the amount of dollars that was allocated to search.  Limited budgets caused certain strategies.  For example, if you had $1 per day to spend where are you going to put that $1?  On Google only or split it up? 

Enough complaining about the study, which I did take a little too personally.  It did make some good observations about the text ads and looked at differences between Republicans and Democrats.  However, I do agree that search marketing is going to explode (in a good way) leading up to 2008. So, to end this wrap-up...

Eric's Top Political Search Observations

1. Campaigns all have different experiences with SEM, but all of them can benefit by spending $1000s per month.
2. Republicans seem to have embraced more search marketing than Democrats with the Dems relying on blogs/SEO for search
3. A well rounded campaign includes Google, Yahoo, and MSN
4. Content targeting should be turned off for the vast majority of campaigns and especially for ones that are not spending a decent daily amount; however, it should be tested because there are a few campaigns that had successful content campaigns.
5. Issues words convert differently for each campaign
6. Need to know what the goals of the search campaign are:  donations, traffic, email sign-ups, links to video, or branding.  Each one of those strategies have completely different tactics.
7. Monitor reported click fraud (fraud observed by Google but not charged) because if it is too high it may indicate a problem; there are plenty of zealots willing to bang your PPC ad and cause it to turn off when it hits a budget.
8. Yahoo and MSN need to do a better job of marketing to the political industry
9. Know when to geo-target and when not too or as I call it the Ryan Corollary
10. And finally, political advertising is not like eCommerce or traditional advertising.  The product is constantly changing and different issues impact the strategy.

That's a wrap on search or at least until Connell Donatelli publishes some papers.  It really is going to explode leading up to 2008 especially with the people that we worked with this year that experienced what a well managed search strategy can do for traffic, donations, and branding objectives.  BTW - if you need some help drop me a line...

PardonMyFrench,

Eric

links for 2006-11-08

• CBS Replaces Digital Chief
  (tags: online advertising)
• Blog Growth
  (tags: blog funny)
• It’s My (Virtual) World ... - New York Times
  (tags: secondlife)
• Research Brief » Blog Archive » More Republicans than Democrats Online, But Web Users Leaning “Moderate”
  (tags: research politics)
• Research Brief » Blog Archive » Online Marketing Ranks Second to In-Person for B2B in 2008
  (tags: research b2b)
• Research Brief » Blog Archive » Only Four Percent of TV Viewing Recorded
  (tags: research tv)
• Research Brief » Blog Archive » Yahoo!, MSN and AOL Top Financial News Destinations
  (tags: research finance)

Election Day Blues

Well, it is 11:49PM on Election Day 2006 and we still don't know who controls the Senate and I have to go to bed.  Even so, I'm feeling a little blue because other the watching results, things will be quiet for a little while.

My Aunt called me earlier tonight and among other things asked me how it feels to be involved in a lot of these races and to watch the results.  Mary also asked me a similar question and my answer was - it is/was pretty cool.  Sure, I only worked on Republican online advertising campaigns but still it gave me a different perspective on these races.  Some of our clients spent more than others online, but still they were all fun to watch.

So, over the next few days unless something else pops-up I'll share some of my views on online politics and where I think they are going in the future.  I think I'll look at a recap of the current state of political online advertising, differences between private and political marketing campaigns, and what the future looks like.  If you are not one of my political readers, hang in there with me...or visit some of my link posts.

PardonMyFrench,

Eric

links for 2006-11-07

• Jaffe Juice: O Big Brother where art though?
  (tags: secondlife)
• Beyond Madison Avenue
  (tags: general)
• Bambi Francisco: Microsoft launches Virtual Earth 3D
  (tags: microsoft bambi)

Born to Unsubscribe

Tramps like us, baby we were born to....unsubscribe?  Yes, Born to Run happened over 30 years ago and I was only 8 when it came out.  I remember the music as it was my camp song at NJ Y Camps in PA and I still think of escape, long summer nights, the beach, and friends.  What doesn't come to mind is politics. 

Sure, a seasoned Springsteen fan may argue that some of his music has political undertones (Factory, Born in the USA, No Surrender, Devils and Dust), but the majority of his base of music was around those themes plus working class struggles.  When Springsteen went on the Vote For Change Tour I turned my back, when he campaigned for John Kerry, I tuned him out, and finally when the Peter Seeger Sessions came out I did the unthinkable - I didn't buy a Springsteen CD.  However, I still held out hope until today.

Yes.  Today is the day that I've given up.  That doesn't mean I won't buy older Tracks 5 or a new E-Street Band CD, but being that crazy Springsteen zealot is over.  Today, Bruce jumped the shark when he used his email base to send out a political email (I'll post the image tomorrow).  I signed up to receive Springsteen news and information not an email on which way I should vote or articles I should read.  What makes a musician think they no more about politics than me?  Here's the line on their website as to why you should sign-up for Springsteen email "Join Bruce Springsteen's mailing list to stay up-to-date on all the latest news, tour info, and more!"  More shouldn't mean more political news.

This isn't a left/right issue.  If you are into politics and follow the news, the last thing you need or want is an aging rock star pointing out some interesting articles you should read just in case you missed them.  And, if you are not into politics perhaps you should talk with someone closer to you than a stranger on a CD for political news or viewpoints.  I found the email insulting so I unsubscribed.  Unsubscribing when you get an email like that is the only way to send a message to the sender - any email marketing novice knows to track unsubscribes.

I know you share my pain.  It isn't right that because you wrote music that appealed to a wide range of political views and made millions that now you can try and use that base to influence people to vote the way you think people should.  The only people that will actually click and read the links are people that would have voted your way anyway.

Well, at least we had a good run, but unfortunately I have to fade away.  One of the great things about music is that I can listen to the glory days over and over again.  And, with all of the high quality bootlegs I have, there is always a great Springsteen concert on in my house - from the 70s of course when he just cared about paying for food...

PardonMyFrench,

Eric

links for 2006-11-06

• Top 50 Advertisers by Media Value in September, 2006
  (tags: research online)
• Preferably, It's All or Nothing
  (tags: politics finance)
• Politicians in Drive
  (tags: politics)
• Search Insider » Blog Archive » Reviewing Dayparting Tactics
  (tags: search ppc)
• Keeping Customer Service Jobs at Home in the U.S.A., Literally - New York Times
  (tags: wah)
• Networks in Uproar on Ratings - New York Times
  (tags: research advertising)
• Google Print Ads
  (tags: google advertising)
• Can Google Go Glossy?
  (tags: google advertising)
• Google's New Frontier: Print Ads
  (tags: google advertising)
• Google Operating System: Google Tests AdSense for Print
  (tags: google advertising)

Long Tail of Newspaper Ads Brought to You By Google

Yes it is true.  I am not a lover of print advertising.  Never have been and probably never will be at least not in its current form.  Advertising in your local newspaper if you are the town deli is fine, but for national advertisers I have never seen any benefit - no increases in long distance winbacks, brokerage accounts or visits to a website as a result of a newspaper campaign.  In fact, when I had meetings I'd often get tossed out early for being too vocal about wasting valuable marketing dollars in newspapers.  That's why I found this NY Times article called Newspapers to Test Selling Ads On Google so perplexing.

The first thing that is perplexing is the title which is contradicted by the first sentence that says "In a move into the old-fashioned business of ink on paper, Google is going to start selling advertisements that will appear in the print editions of 50 major newspapers."  I guess the title writer was confused too. 

Anyway, the article describes how the 100 advertisers in the test will be able to check a box and then place bids to have an ad potentially appear in a newspaper provided the bid is accepted by the newspaper.  Judging from the article, it looks like it will work like Site Targeting does today in Google (see continuation of article below).  Google won't take any revenue during the test, but expects to take 20% later on.  Finally, according to Owen Youngman “Google says they can bring us thousands of small advertisers for space we would otherwise fill with house ads, and we say ‘Great.'" 

Seems like the newspaper industry read The Long Tail, which is a good idea.  Catering to small business advertisers that wouldn't see the light of day with a newspaper for the amount of money they would spend is helpful and could generate more revenue for newspapers.  So, if that's something an advertiser wants, now Google will make it available and give access to some of the largest newspapers in the country.  However, the current form as described in the NY Times article won't amount to much in my opinion.  Sure, this Long Tail implementation makes sense, but it deviates from much of what makes advertising with Google so great.

You see even with paying for Site Targeting on a CPM basis still works in the Google AdWords model because you can track clicks and conversions of those ads.  In the newspaper test, I can't see how the results are going to be measured.  Are the advertisers going to use Google Trends to measure buzz or visits to a website?  If they experience anything like I have, there will be no measurable impact on any critical business key performance variable.  Literally, if you want to give newspapers a try this new process gives you access previously only available to the big girls.

According to the article "Neither Google nor the newspapers would make any predictions of how much advertising would be sold in the program nor what the rates would be. “I have no idea how big this will be,” said Ms. Denise Warren. “For us, we think there is very little to lose in the test.”  No there isn't much risk for newspapers or Google by putting this in place to get access to the small business Long Tail advertiser.  However, unless there is some new tracking measurement in place, these small business advertisers will discover what I have with print advertising - no impact, proving everything Google is not gold.

PardonMyFrench,

Eric

****UPDATE ON 11/6*****************

Couple of other articles (see afternoon link post) for Google's newspaper ad trial.  I read through all of them and Googled (note proper use of the word Google :-) for past articles and I can't find any concrete plans or screen shots for how the test users are going to evaluate the results of the print trial.  My guess is that it will be a combination of Google Trends/Analytics and using a unique URL for tracking the traffic.  Nothing new about this tracking.  If someone knows for sure, please let me know in the comments below.

links for 2006-11-05

• Top 50 Advertisers by Media Value in September, 2006
  (tags: research online)

links for 2006-11-04

• B.L. Ochman's weblog - Internet and corporate blogging strategy, and online marketing trends, with news and commentary: WOMMA: Better Late Than Never?
  (tags: walmart)

links for 2006-11-03

• Political Pre-Roll Lags Despite Online Video Hype
  (tags: politics online)

One Last Look at Political Mudslinging

Interesting article over at Business Week called Digital Mudslinging which takes a look at how political advertising's use of mudslinging has transcended into the online space, but of course with a different twist.  Sure, the attack TV ads can make their way into YouTube or you can stream them in a PointRoll Fatboy (I've never done something like that ;-), but that is not fully taking advantage of the medium.  In the online space you can do so much more and have a little more fun.  And remember as I wrote about a few days ago and as Becki Donatelli from Campaign Solutions says in the article "Negative campaigns work and that's why people always do them, but if you're going to say something negative, you should try to do it with a sense of humor."

Speaking of humor, check out the WheresCasey website before next Tuesday (it is election day so get out and vote!!) and all the iterations.  The strategy behind WheresCasey is to make fun of Rick Santorum's opponent in the PA Senate Race, Bob Casey, by stressing to voters that Casey is not around when PA needs him (not a political statement by yours truly, but just the strategy behind the websites).  The current version stresses Casey being missing in action with a map of PA, a campaign bus, an annoying duck, and everyone's favorite (for sound effects) yeller Howard Dean.  The detective site is political humor at its best where you try and look for Bob Casey is his PA Treasurer's office.  The detective site includes music, sound, voice messages, and of course Howard Dean again.  Those voices sound very familiar to me.....And finally, the original Western site which first launched Where's Casey includes digital mudslinging and Casey's stand on issues.

Digital Mudslinging needs to take on a different life in the online space.  Sure recycling the videos on YouTube and streaming them in PointRoll ad units are very good uses of online advertising.  However, to really take advantage of this space you need a digital strategy to truly make the mudslinging come to life and if you can add some humor to it, then you might actually get your message across without alienating the voters.  Heck, you might even get them to pay attention instead of complaining about more confusing attack ads.

PardonMyFrench,

Eric

I'm A SecondLife Land Owner

As you can see from my one lousy link from yesterday, I've been looking around at buying land in SecondLife.  I finally made the plunge into upgrading my service from just  basic so I can get more Linden $$$ per week and own land.

What made me change my mind?  It certainly wasn't the speedy rendering of the graphics which sometimes takes as long as steeping a cup of tea.  Was it all of the new marketing ventures like Crayon that launched?  Nope.  It was this article from a professor (I forgot to tag the url) who thought SecondLife would be a good place to teach a class.  Yes. That simple.

One of the biggest challenges I've had to overcome working from my home office is whether I'm working or not.  Am I working hard or hardly working?  Believe it or not, I work harder from home because I have little distractions and when I have a distraction it is either my wife, kids, or my cat.  I don't take 15 minute breaks to get a cup of coffee or hide out down by my friend Craig's cube in Compliance to avoid people. 

Now if I had an office in SecondLife where I can meet people or people can drop by and actually see me at a desk they'll know I'm either working or I paid my wife to sit at my RL desk and chat away.  Also, meetings could be easier sitting around a table.  We can look at a presentation, pass around notes - heck if you bundled it with real chatting and video capabilities then everyone would feel like they are participating.  Plus, the other upside would be people could tell when you are late or leaving early.

So, I went off and grabbed some First Land.  It took me a few days, but I got this swell piece of property for L$512 and then I dropped a free house on it.  Sure it is nothing right now and maybe I don't even keep it, but I bought some property.   I did learn a few things quickly 1) Set your newly acquired land so that other people can't build anything on it.  I had to delete this one jerk's step from my land 2) Buy your First Land, ummm first otherwise you don't get the special deal 3) Don't sell it to the first person who offers to buy it from you.  Just like RL, these people know the true value 4) Location, Location, Location - I spent about an hour picking through what was offered to get this spot on a cliff. 

My next venture out in SecondLife is to look for something to buy and perhaps change my lame house around.  Yes, I'm too busy to play around with the object designer, so I'll buy what I need.  I stopped by a NYC Chef's business because he had recipes for sale; unfortunately, they were a little expensive in Linden $.

PardonMyFrench

Eric

links for 2006-11-02

• Advertising Age - Political-Ad Spending Nears $2 Billion Mark
  (tags: politics spending)
• Advertising Age - No Shortage of Mudslinging in Midterm Run-Up
  (tags: politics)
• Bambi Francisco: The 'Short' list
  (tags: research)
• B.L. Ochman's weblog - Internet and corporate blogging strategy, and online marketing trends, with news and commentary: Resident Uproar Leads to Delay in Second Life Land Prices
  (tags: secondlife)
• Digital Mudslinging
  (tags: politics online)

Political Ad Spending Goes Negative

Two interesting articles over at AdAge.  One looks at Evan Tracey's (from TNS Media Intelligence) prediction that political ad spending will hit $2 billion for this campaign cycle surpassing the 2004 election by 17%.  The second one looks at how political ads have been going negative.  Both articles should have been grouped together because they paint a picture on what the offline strategy looks like in 2006 and why more of that money should go towards online.

First the negative strategy.  Historically, campaigns run negative ads because, well, they work.  Yes, you hate them and complain about them, but they work.  They break through the clutter and capture your attention.  As long as the negative ads are backed up with a candidate's stand on issues, then the strategy should be effective.  Negative ads have been a part of American Politics for 100s of years; don't believe me?  Read up John Adams versus Thomas Jefferson.  However, what's interesting (the only part for me) is the unknown quote at the end that said "The negatives aren't working as well and so campaigns are turning up the volume in their ads," and this works nicely with a few quotes I have heard from other political consultants when it comes to their TV ads - basically, they aren't working as well as they did in the past.  Hold that thought for a second.

So, campaigns need to turn up the volume which works on two fronts.  First the tone to break through the clutter and the TiVos.  The second is to buy even more ads while TV stations boost their spot market buys.  Plus, with more donation money pouring in and the committees like the RNC, NRCC (House), and the NRSC (Senate) spending for their own advertising goals you have more dollars coming in.  And, let's not forget special interest groups, people advertising for ballot initiatives and you have what should be the peak in TV spending.  More negative tone, more negative ads to try and boost assumed effectiveness (remember they are using tracking tools to measure viewership) translates into throwing more money after an outdated strategy. 

The audience is spending more time online so the consultants should divert money to where the viewership is - online.  We've been very successful at taking the same offline TV commercials and streaming them in banner units via PointRoll.  In fact, we've streamed these ads against a match file of known voters and we know the click rate, traffic to the website and how long they actually watched their ads.  We had one candidate spend a very small amount online for a 2 week buy and got over 3,000 hours of people watching his commercial.  Try figuring that with your offline spend, but you have to use actual data not derived using formulas that make you look good.

It is time for political campaigns to stop chasing their TV tail.  The audience is leaving and even if they are still in front of the boob tube you have to fight through DVRs or people just running to the fridge to grab a drink.  Stop looking at outdated models that predict trends based on derived viewers.  Come over to the internet where we can measure what people are doing.  You can still take those TV commercials that you worked so hard on to produce and stream them in a banner buy.   You know what, you actually might influence people....

PardonMyFrench,

Eric

links for 2006-11-01

• Land buying advice for new players
  (tags: secondlife land)