Geomarketing and mapvertising juin 8, 2006
Posted by Postmaster in Innovation, Mobile, eMarketing.add a comment
eLab – Geomarketing and mapvertising.ppt
The goal of geomarketing is to deliver relevant content for a given geographical context. Geomarketing tools have been traditionally used to determine where consumers are or what type of consumers live in a specific area, but the popularity of online services such as Google Earth or MapQuest opened new fields of application.
Dubbed “mapvertising”, combinations of maps or satellite pictures with geographic/thematic search functions allow marketers to place relevant information, ads, promotions, etc.
Many services support interactive Yellow Pages-like advertising combined with maps: Google Local, Microsoft Live Local, Yahoo Local, national geoportals, etc. A user can search for a shop, a hotel or a gaz station around a given location and sponsored results usually appear before “organic” results. Yahoo! Local shows them as links next to the map and Google is experimenting with red pins for regular results and icons/blue pins for sponsored results. When a user clicks on a pin, a balloon shows up with name, address and phone number, as well as information such as customer reviews and a link to the business Web site. Google is planning to integrate video, chat and pay-per-call or click-to-call in these balloons. A potential customer could watch a video about the product and then directly contact the seller to get more information or to know if a given model is still available.
The potential for mapvertising development is huge, as (for now) Yellow Pages advertising market is bigger than the entire existing online search advertising market.
Marketers also develop new ways of using these tools:
- Fiat used Google Earth for an online treasure hunt promoting the Fiat Sedici.
- Adidas launched a quiz combining football trivia and location of players and teams (via Google Earth).
- HBO used Google Maps to create a tour to follow some of the Sopranos storylines.
- A company called RoofShout paints ads on rooftops in order for them to be viewed on satellite mapping sites (Google Earth, Windows Live Local).
- A German company called Artfield transforms fields into huge advertisements that you can see from planes or Google Earth.
Gamers and advertising juin 2, 2006
Posted by Postmaster in Innovation, eMarketing.add a comment
eLab – Gamers and advertising.ppt
The idea is to sell real-world advertising in electronic games, played on a computer, a console or online. Companies such as Massive Inc. (bought by Microsoft in May 2006) place billboards, posters, vehicles, pizza boxes, etc. within the game in order to increase gamers’ brand recognition. In virtual worlds such as Second Life, people create their own avatars (online alter ego), they build houses, they start virtual business (clothing, real estate, detective agencies, sex shops…), they organize social events, and so on. These virtual worlds are extremely interesting because they show people’s intimate dreams and fantasies, and because they have a huge potential for marketers.
Gamers account for 70% of the 18-34 year-old male demographic who spend more time gaming than watching TV. Furthermore Nielsen Interactive Entertainment has shown that gamers recall advertisements in games up to 35% of the time and a Harvard Business School study shows that over 90% of core gamers do not mind in-game advertising, as long as content is relevant to the game and enhances the gaming experience.
Some figures:
- gaming industry’s revenues are expected to break the $10 billion mark in 2006 (of which in $300 million from in-game advertising)
- 6 million paying subscribers for the online game World of Warcraft, 165’000 residents in the Second Life virtual world, 7 million avatars as visual representation in the Yahoo! community
- Second Life residents spend 5 million (real) dollars a month for virtual products and services; according to this Business Week article, more than 3'000 residents earn an average of $20'000 (the real green ones) a year; British branding firm Rivers Run Red is working with real-world companies to bring their products inside Second Life.
In Second Life it is already possible to find Coke, Corona, Evian, virtual McDonalds with free burgers, Nike shoes that make avatars run faster, etc. What is really interesting is that some of these brands or products have been brought in Second Life by residents and not by the companies themselves.
There are however anti commercial feelings coming from some gamers/residents, who do not want to have “3D spam” in their world. Some also express concern about privacy issues, as their activities in virtual worlds can be tracked. Others are skeptical about real-world marketing in Second Life, because they completely change their personality online and like to keep the two worlds separate. Finally, each virtual world or game has a different culture and public, which means that no single marketing approach is likely to be successful. As this Harvard Business Review article concludes, this is virtually unexplored marketing country.
Podcasting and videocasting juin 1, 2006
Posted by Postmaster in Devices, Mobile, eMarketing.add a comment
The concept of podcasting (combination of iPod and broadcasting) was proposed in 2000. Podcasting is a method of distributing multimedia files, such as audio programs or music videos, over the Internet using either the RSS or Atom syndication formats. A podcast can be downloaded automatically and it does not require an iPod to be listened to: some say that more people listen to podcasts on personal computers than on portable devices. Videocasting is becoming increasingly popular, with video functionalities on the new iPod or on the portable Sony playstations.
Podcasting started gaining popularity in September 2004, and in June 2005 it was definitely recognized as Apple adding podcasting capabilities to its iTunes music software. In the first 2 days after Apple’s launch of podcast on iTunes, customers subscribed to more than one million podcasts and some podcasts now have very large audience: as of February 2006 The Ricky Gervais Show had an average of over a quarter of a million downloads per weekly episode. Market research forecasts that by 2010 about 50 million people will have downloaded a podcast at least once, 15 million will download podcasts on a regular basis.
Business and marketing people quickly saw the interest of podcasts: in an environment where information overload becomes the norm, podcasts provide an effective way to get a message across to prospective buyers. Indeed podcasts usually address a niche and are listened to almost exclusively by interested individuals. Furthermore they can be easily tracked. Several companies provide technical solutions for advertising on existing podcasts, such as Fruitcast, CastFire, or Podtrac. They connect content producers (podcast or videocast) with advertisers that can buy “airtime” according to relevant criteria.
Other models than buying "airtime" on popular and thematic podcasts exist: several large corporations (VW, Cadillac, Nike, Honda, Sony PSP) have already launched their own videocasting campaigns, Kraft offers over 100 audio recipes to download, Whirlpool sponsors a podcast called Family Life that covers topics such as premature birth, setting limits for teenagers, long-distance grandparents, and so on. Gemey-Maybelline (L’Oréal) gives beauty and make-up tips via audio and video podcasts.
Collaborative marketing mai 30, 2006
Posted by Postmaster in Collaborative Web, Office of the Future, eMarketing.add a comment
eLab – Collaborative marketing.ppt
Traditional mass marketing techniques seem to be declining in effectiveness and increasing in costs. Indeed this 2006 survey shows that 78% of American advertisers feel that traditional television advertising has become less effective in the past two years. 80% of them will spend more of their advertising budget on Web advertising and 68% of advertisers will look to search engine marketing. Advertisers are also looking at alternatives to traditional TV advertising and will spend more on: branded entertainment within TV programs (61%); TV program sponsorships (55%); interactive advertising during TV programs (48%); online video ads (45%); and product placement (44%). Furthermore, traditional promotions have decreasing ROI: according to a Nielsen survey, between 1987 and 1997, trade promotion spending increased from 35% of the marketing mix to 54%, yet consumer sales remained relatively stable. One of the ideas to improve marketing efficiency is collective pooling of marketing efforts, information and intelligence in order to bring combined products/services to a greater audience at more economical costs. Collaborative marketing is generally based on commonality (geography, timeframe, audience, theme, etc.) and can be of many forms, for example:
- Lake Geneva and Matterhorn region marketing campaigns organized by the tourist offices of Geneva, Lake Geneva Region (Vaud) and Matterhorn Region (Valais)
- various partners advertising during a music festival or cultural event
- retailers and manufacturers targeting key shopper groups
- consumers become co-creator of a product (see entry on co-creation)
All marketing elements are potentially integrated around a common theme that communicates a brand value for the retailer and the strategic manufacturers:
- product development: for P&G Advisors, customers try new products and provide feedback
- pricing: in HP partition pricing, customers pay incrementally for capacity as they need rather that paying upfront for hardware
- segmentation: Dell allows customers to configure, price and order products according to their needs
- support: Cisco rewards selected network engineers that answer support questions on their online community by certifying them.
For detailed examples, see this article.
Most collaborative marketing initiatives rely on technological platform to connect the partners involved: customers, design/sales/marketing departments, suppliers, etc.
Mobile marketing mai 23, 2006
Posted by Postmaster in Devices, Mobile, eMarketing.add a comment
Mobile Marketing refers to distributing commercial or promotional content to mobile phones or PDAs, via SMS, Bluetooth, Infrared, or NFC. It is a subgroup of e-marketing, where digital technologies are used to acquire and keep customers, and to deliver targeted content that matches their profile and behavior.
Mobile marketing enables very promising applications:
- Digital billboards, where consumers can download music, play video games, watch movie trailers, participate in a contest, get a digital coupon, and so on.
- "Permission marketing", where consumers opt-in to receive advertisements they are interested in, for example by sending a sms or scanning a matrix code such as QR.
- Proximity: a mobile advertising campaign or a contest in a stadium during a football game has a fairly good chance to reach its target, Bluetooth enabled screens in public transportation can match ads and neighborhoods, interactive billboards send digital time-limited coupons for promotions in nearby stores or, etc. Posterscope even has a demo of a billboard that changes ads depending on the gender of the person standing in front of it.
The potential of mobile marketing is huge, as there were already 134 million Bluetooth phones across the world in 2005, and they make up 70% of the sales in Western Europe (estimations by mid-2006). For the "Stand up and speak up" campaing launched by Nike, the traffic on the Internet mobile site is higher than that of the Website
Advanced mobile marketing solutions are already on the market:
- BlueCasting is a point-to-point transmission system which uses the BlueTooth standard to transmit text, images, audio, Java applications, or business cards to users who make their handset discoverable to BlueCast Server. This works up to 100 m in the open and has been used to launch the last album of Coldplay in 2005: 20'000 persons downloaded video clips and sample tracks from posters in London.
- Hypertag: electronic device installed in a poster panel that sends phone numbers, reminders, pictures or ring-tones via Infra-Red or Bluetooth. Hypertags have been used by Transport for London to save an information number on safe travel directly in users' adress books. Another campaign invited the consumer to receive a unique key code to be entered on aussiehair.com in order to get a free sample of 3 Minute Miracle and enter a competition.
- Kameleon offers similar functionalities and also works with Bluetooth, but users have to download an application in order to be able to interact with posters or other signs.
- Gravitec offers advanced and complete solutions for mobile ticketing, couponing, payment, loyalty, etc. They are based on 2D data matrix from mobile phone displays. During a campaign for s.Olivier coupons were sent by picture SMS or MMS to users' mobile phones, who could then convert their SMS coupon into a paper-based discount voucher by scanning their phone's screen.
Digital signage mai 16, 2006
Posted by Postmaster in In-Store technologies, eMarketing.add a comment
Digital signage (also called narrowcasting) refers to electronically controlled displays (LCDs, plasma monitors, projectors, and even holographic imaging) that present a custom-tailored mix of informational and advertising content, such as product specials, news, and upcoming events. Changes can be made dynamically and cost effectively, and targeted messages can be distributed to hundreds or thousands of displays at once.
Digital signage can be as simple as a non-networked media player showing basic loops of video from a memory card or a disk. Sophisticated systems offer control over many displays in many venues from a single location.
The key issue is to deliver the right message at the right time to the right person: this article explains that as much as 75 percent of buying decisions are made spontaneously at the point of purchase, and that customers develop "mental ad-blockers" if the content is not relevant.
Simon and Publicis Group developed a concept called OnSpot Digital Advertising where 8-minute loops will be shown in malls, featuring half entertainment content and half commercials. The Kamppi shopping centre in Helsinki has an 86-screen network showing mall, outlets and third-party advertising, including 20 percent of informational content such as news and weather, which is updated for every loop. The solution uses Scala software to manage content and Panphonics’ technology to concentrate directional sound into into a specific area in front of the screens. Digital signage can furthermore be interactive, with solutions such as Actalyst that can handle flat-panel displays with up to 165 cm diagonals.
Swiss company Neo Advertising plans on deploying a pan-European retail network of 50,000 screens by 2008. In Switzerland Neo already manages the network and sells advertising for retailers such as Carrefour, Coop and Migros, with a solution based on BroadSign software.
Interactive TV mai 15, 2006
Posted by Postmaster in Home of the Future, eMarketing.add a comment
Interactive TV allows the viewer to interact with the television: selecting a film, playing games, voting or providing other immediate feedback, banking, shopping, etc.
Interactive TV can be delivered over satellite or cable, if the cable infrastructure is upgraded to provide two-way capability, but also by using the Internet Protocol over a broadband connection (IPTV). IPTV requires either a personal computer or a "set-top box" connected to a TV. Advantages of IPTV include two-way capability, as well as point-to-point distribution allowing each viewer to view individual broadcasts with stream control (pause, wind/rewind). However the deployment of IPTV is complex and expensive: SBC is spending over $6 billion on Project LightSpeed to bring TV over next generation DSL connections and Swisscom postponed the launch of Bluewin television based on Microsoft IPTV "until some time in 2006" (the project started in 2004).
Some have high expectations for advertising over interactive TV: the author of Adressable IPTV Advertising believes that "highly targeted and addressable advertising offers the potential to increase advertising revenue per viewer by a factor of over 20 times while the viewer experience becomes more personalized and well received"; this analysis says that there is a "probable" $15B market for targeted television advertising by 2010.
On the other hand it is also seen as a threat to "classical" advertising on TV: a survey showed that almost 70 percent of advertisers say they believe that DVRs and video on demand will reduce or destroy the effectiveness of traditional 30-second commercials. Digital video recorders (DVR or PVR, personal video recorders) capture and store video to a hard disk for later viewing, and users can control the video stream: pausing live TV, instant replay of scenes, and skipping advertising. TiVo, a popular brand of DVR, reports that its users skip 70% of commercials. Jupiter Research estimates that ad-skipping could cost up to $8 B in TV revenue.
TV corporations and advertisers explore new solutions. In May 2006 CBS launched a new ad-supported broadband channel called "innertube" that will include specially created Web series and some material that has already run on CBS. Users can see these shows for free but they have to watch the commercials. CBS ondemand lets users download shows (starting at $1), which they have 24 hours to watch before they expire. TiVo has a targeted commercials service that lets the viewer choose the products or services that he is interested in and that automatically finds and delivers relevant video clips ranging from one minute to 60 minutes, from more than 70 advertisers and 100 leading brands: Kraft offers 20 different cooking videos and General Motors has detailed presentations of its vehicles.
