Ogilvy's VergeCast - Digital News

The Ogilvy Digital Lab network expands on 19th May

FRI, 14 MAY 2010 00:00:00 GMT

The Ogilvy Digital Lab network already includes labs in the Ogilvy New York, Sao Paulo, Singapore, Beijing and London offices. But next week, the lab gets a new spin and an additional London location - at the WPP offices in Westbourne Terrace.

Westbourne Terrace is home to Ogilvy Action, Ogilvy HealthWorld, Primary Contact, Coley Porter Bell, 24/7 Real Media, Schematic and Kinetic. The new lab is a collaboration between these WPP group companies, all of who are committed to the development of their digital capabilities. The lab will showcase the latest in digital hardware to WPP staff and clients, allowing them to get hands-on experience, and to develop, test and deploy innovative solutions utilizing state-of-the-art platforms.

The technology in the Lab has been provided by Ogilvy London's Digital Lab Partners and includes:
- Augmented reality demos (CrossPlatform.tv)
- 360 TV (Yershon Media Solutions)
- Gaming pod (EA Video Games)
- Wireless mobile chargebox (Scramblr)
- Holobox (Activ-8)
- Interactive iPhone gaming (Velti Mobile)
- Amplifi wifi content delivery technology (The Bright Place)
- Touch table (Touch It)

The Ogilvy Digital Lab network has been creating innovative digital experiences for clients since 2008, and now is an exciting time to extend this offering across the London WPP group! Follow the latest updates and the fun around the Lab launch via hash tag WTlab on Twitter.

Read more: http://innovationlab.ogilvyeurope.com

2010 BrandZ Top 100 Global Brands Report

WED, 05 MAY 2010 00:00:00 GMT

This year marked the 5th publishing of the BrandZ Top 100 Most Valuable Global Brands report. In addition to the extensive company brand valuations and category insights, BrandZ also shared its key take-aways from the past 5 years. With the changes in economy and digital and social media demanding transparency, they noted: "The biggest share price gains will be made by brands which aren't afraid to stand for something. They will go beyond the functional, to represent an ideal, which appeals across products, categories and cultures. In an increasingly 'flat' world, this is the only way that brands will differentiate themselves from competitors and succeed globally."

Some other highlights from the report:
The BRIC countries (Brazil, Russia, India, China) made a huge mark this year, including: the first Indian brand debut (Icici bank); 7 of the top 100 brands are from China; and, the first brand from a N-11 country made the list (TelCel from Mexico).

p. 12 - 15 summarizes the Impact of Social Media on brand. The section starts: "What would Don Draper do?" and ends with: "What Don Draper would do doesn't matter. His world is history." Some eye-opening stats and anecdotes help explain just what this means for brands.

p. 67 - 68 summarizes the key take-aways from this years report, as well as along the 5 years that they've been conducting this study.

p. 69 - 70 provides and overview of methodology, including how the study is conducted and results are put together.

Millward Brown has done a lot to make this year's report very accessible, so check out the website where you can view an interactive version, download an iPhone/Blackberry/iPad application and view the launch web briefing.

Read more: http://www.brandz.com

OgilvyOne's Search for the World's Greatest Salesperson

FRI, 23 APR 2010 00:00:00 GMT

If you think you have what it takes to sell a common, ordinary brick, then OgilvyOne Worldwide has a once in a lifetime opportunity for you - complete with an all expenses paid trip to the south of France for the Cannes Lions International Advertising Festival and a job with OgilvyOne.

OgilvyOne is on a mission to reinvigorate the art of salesmanship and the credo of our founder David Ogilvy who said, "We sell, or else." So, we've launched a global search to find the world's greatest salesperson through an online video competition on YouTube. For a bit of inspiration, we've seeded our YouTube channel with some humorous examples of the best sales techniques proven to close the deal. But we know you have some even better ideas - upload your video now!

Three finalists will be selected from entries received between March 30 and May 16. These finalists will be flown to the Cannes Lions Advertising Festival and will pitch for the win at a special session on June 21st. The winner of the "Search for the World's Greatest Salesperson" contest will receive a three-month fellowship with OgilvyOne where his/her job will be to rearticulate the lessons of sales espoused by David Ogilvy with a 21st century twist.

Sound like a challenge that you're up for? We'd love to see your entry on YouTube.

Read more: http://www.youtube.com/ogilvy

Ogilvy at MIPTV 2010

FRI, 23 APR 2010 00:00:00 GMT

This year marked the 4th consecutive year that Ogilvy was a prominent sponsor and participant of the MIPTV conference in Cannes, France, 12-16 April, the leading international media and content event. The event brought together Ogilvy colleagues and clients from across North America and Europe to hear the latest about the evolving branded entertainment industry. In the era of media fragmentation and advertising abundance, compelling content is more and more the most effective way to reach and engage with consumers. This year's MIPTV was another opportunity to evolve our approach and strengthen our partnerships in this field.

A key element of this year's event was Ogilvy's organization of a "Speed-dating with the World's Greatest Brands" session. Participants of the speed-dating session were executives from top global entertainment companies, including: Endemol, Fremantle, MTV and Zodiak. Each company had 20 minutes to pitch their responses to briefs submitted by Ford, Louis Vuitton, Nestle and Coca-Cola to the respective client and Ogilvy teams. This event was conceived with the hope of inspiring Ogilvy's clients to think about their role as content creators and the impact that compelling content can make on engagement with their brand.

Ogilvy & Mather Paris and Coca-Cola were lead sponsors of the Content 360 Competition, which was focused on "Engaging Teens with Branded Entertainment for Coca-Cola." The competition received a record 189 entries and the 3 selected finalists spent the week pitching and refining their ideas. The competition culminated on Wednesday evening at the Content 360 Zapping Show, where David Cornwall from Scorpion TV UK was awarded the grand prize of 10,000 Euros for his "The Win Win Show" idea. David will now be working with Ogilvy and Coca-Cola to bring "The Win Win Show" to life.

Ogilvy also participated in several panels throughout the event, including the "Branded Entertainment Across All Platforms" panel, which provided perspective on the role of branded entertainment in building brands and engaging audiences; and, "Next Generation Advertising Models," which explained how advertisers can better leverage video ad formats as part of their advertising mix.

Check out Ogilvy.com/MIPTV to see our latest Branded Entertainment case studies from across North America and EAME and the newly updated OgilvyEntertainment TWEED blog http://www.ogilvyentertainmentblog.com/ for re-caps of the big industry news from the week. The MIPTV conference organizers have also provided re-caps of the majority of the panels on their blog: http://www.reedmidem.com/mipblog/ and videos from most panels are on their main site: http://www.mipworld.com/en/miptv/.

Read more: http://www.ogilvy.com/miptv

Butts on Facebook for a new kind of viral hit

FRI, 09 APR 2010 00:00:00 GMT

While online video is no doubt still very important, it seems there's a new "viral" hit in town competing for the attention and participation of the masses - the "viral status." You have probably seen this new phenomenon creep up in your Facebook news feed in the past months. Remember for example when all your girlfriends were posting one-word color status updates? What they were really telling you was their bra color! The true source of this craze is unknown, but it was rumoured that it was started to raise awareness of breast cancer.

You may have also noticed that you had a few more celebrity friends than you realized when the "doppleganger" rage hit Facebook in February. The experiment was announced via a Facebook status message, saying: "It's Doppelganger week on Facebook; change your profile picture to someone famous (actor, musician, athlete, etc.) you have been told you look like. After you update your profile with your twin or switched at birth photo then cut/paste this to your status." For those who had never been compared to a celeb, the site had an application, Face Double, which generated their look-a-like.

Despite the popularity of these two examples, it's interesting to note that there really was no strategy behind either of the two. No brand integration, no objective, just a fun idea that caught on. But that's not to say a brand can't get involved and spark their own movement. Take for example this work by Ogilvy Montreal for the Colon Cancer Association of Canada - "Get Your Butt Seen." Supported by a dedicated website, online campaign, transit ads, digital out of home and a TV commercial, this campaign encourages people to email or post to Facebook photos of their behind to raise awareness for colon cancer. Participants can upload their own butt pictures or choose a sensational stand-in butt from a range of beautiful backsides available on the CCAC's web site: www.getyourbuttseen.ca. Launched on 31st March, don't be surprised if see a surge of behinds on your news feed.

Just like its video counterpart, the "viral status" requires a truly unique, yet simple idea. We're looking forward to seeing some inventive brand examples in the near future.

Read more: http://www.getyourbuttseen.ca

Destroy an iPad to create buzz

THU, 08 APR 2010 00:00:00 GMT

Blendtec hi-end blenders have been proving the power of their appliances for years now via their inventive "Will it Blend?" campaign. Tom, the master blender and company founder, has tackled everything from golf balls, to car parts, to dolls in his Blendtec blender, racking up a library of videos nearly 200 strong posted on YouTube. It's been a phenomenal brand awareness campaign that shows the durability and strength of the product; and, it has also translated to real sales - with retail sales figures up 700% since the start of the campaign.

But after a few years of blending and inspired by how the "Will it Blend"-campaign success was accelerated when Tom blended the just launched iPhone to pieces, it took the iPad to spark renewed interest in this campaign. Yes, just hours after getting the now back-ordered iPad, Blendtech did not dive-in for a revolutionary touch-screen experience. Instead, they set-out to answer their long-standing question - "will it blend?" Check out the video (now viewed almost 5 million times in the past week) to see how it turned out:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lAl28d6tbko

Read more: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lAl28d6tbko

OK Go's viral hit formula

MON, 15 MAR 2010 00:00:00 GMT

We all remember OK Go's "Here it Goes Again" treadmill hit. It still ranks as one of the most-watched music videos of all time. OK Go learned an important lesson with that video; yes - good content is critical, but just as important? Allowing the video to be embedded across the web. As Damian Kulash from the band said in a New York Times article, "The numbers are shocking: When EMI disabled the embedding feature, views of our treadmill video dropped 90 percent, from about 10,000 per day to just over 1,000."

The tricky part is, EMI (their record label) does not earn revenue off the video unless it is viewed on YouTube. Hence, disabling embeds is default for the label and its artists. Though with the launch of their new album and song "This Too Shall Pass," the band used their creativity in two ways: 1) for the content of the video (of course); and, 2) to strike a deal with State Farm insurance to get around the embed rules. In return for State Farm paying an undisclosed sum to ensure embedding, the video includes the State Farm van kicking off the video, a glimpse of the State Farm teddy bear and a final screen saying, "OK Go Thanks State Farm for making this video possible." A formula that seems to have once again worked - the video has garnered over 8 million views since being posted on March 1st.

And to prove the point further, another recent video of the group, for the song "WTF?," was in my opinion a better a song and a more creative idea than the current hit. Even the user comments rave about the content, however, it turns out enabling was always disabled on the content. And views? They're only at 100,000.

"In these tight times, it's no surprise that EMI is trying to wring revenue out of everything we make, including our videos. But it needs to recognize the basic mechanics of the Internet," Kulash writes.

Well said, Damian, and it's an important lesson for brands, too.

Sources: New York Times, Rolling Stone, Business Week

Read more: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qybUFnY7Y8w

Tropicana brings brighter mornings to Canada

MON, 15 MAR 2010 00:00:00 GMT

To promote Tropicana Essentials, Tropicana's new juice with added calcium and Vitamin D, the brand has created a TV commercial and a social integration on Facebook all around a "brighter mornings" event they held in Inuvik, Canada. Just 200km north of the Arctic Circle, the 3,500 people of Inuvik could use some extra sunlight during their dark winters (or at least some Tropicana Essentials!), so the brand decided to bring them just that.

On January 8th, 2010, Tropicana floated a 36-foot wide helium balloon above Inuvik and then lit it up with 100,000 lumens of light. The people of Inuvik were waking up to sunshine - and literally, a brighter morning. This stunt was recorded and turned into Tropicana's latest TV ads, which you can view here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4Krky4i6Xk8

To keep the discussion going around the stunt, TV ads drive viewers to Tropicana Canada's Facebook page - facebook.com/tropicanacanada, which has a tab for "The Arctic Sun" where they've included the thinking behind the campaign and behind the scenes HD videos. Tropicana is also encouraging Facebook users to post their thoughts, pictures and videos about what makes their mornings bright - in attempt to create a hub of all things cheerful mornings.

Couple this with their community support efforts (they're supporting the Inuvik Food Bank, among other organizations), they've created a fun campaign with real talk value at the heart. And even better, they're driving the people of Canada to one central location (Facebook) to have the conversation. We're looking forward to seeing the results!

Read more: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4Krky4i6Xk8

Facebook milestones

MON, 08 MAR 2010 00:00:00 GMT

Just last month, Facebook hit two major milestones:

1) 400 million active global users
2) the title of 2nd most popular website in America (behind Google, but outperforming Yahoo!)

So with these two victories under its belt, this month there is one more first for Facebook - its own Vitaminwater "Connect."

At the end of last year, Vitaminwater used its fans in social media to source its latest flavor launch. The new flavor, a black-cherry and lime concoction, was sourced by buzz across the web. The flavors that were most mentioned in tweets, on blogs and throughout the web garnered points to determine the winner and were tracked in real-time via a Vitaminwater "flavor creator" app on Facebook. The name and bottle design were also put into the hands of the consumers who could submit their ideas and let the crowd decide. The winning "Connect" bottle even has a Facebook logo on it, in tribute to its origin. With its now over 1 million Facebook fans, Vitaminwater is using facebook to distribute 100,000 free samples of the new beverage this month.

We'll see if the popularity of Facebook surges in liquid form, too!

Read more: http://ryanspoon.com/blog/2010/03/06/vitaminwater-connect-facebook/

IKEA Mobile App Wins at GSMA

MON, 08 MAR 2010 00:00:00 GMT

OgilvyOne Frankfurt, in conjunction with CLANMO GmbH, was awarded the Best Mobile Advertising and Marketing award at the 2010 Global Mobile Awards. The award, announced at the Mobile World Congress in Barcelona, honored their IKEA PS Mobile Planning Tool, which was designed to help sell the unusual IKEA furniture collection, IKEA PS.

While people tend to show lots of enthusiasm when looking at the PS collection in stores, they are reluctant to buy these pieces of furniture because they can't imagine how they fit into their houses and rooms. The Mobile Planning Tool was OgilvyOne Frankfurt's solution to tackle this problem head-on.

The mobile app helped customers see just how the furniture would look in their home. They were able to download a mobile application by entering their mobile number into a web form on the IKEA website or by sending a free text message to receive a download link. Bluetooth pillars were also put up in IKEA stores, so shoppers could download the application right next to the furniture pieces in question. Once installed, the app used the integrated mobile camera to overlay one of eight PS furniture pieces onto scenes in the camera view, allowing the customer to see which piece of the IKEA PS collection fit his room best.

More and more of these augmented-reality style mobile apps are popping up now. Congrats Frankfurt on this honor for a very practical first!

Read more: http://www.mobiadnews.com/?p=3829

Marmite Marmarati helps spread the word

FRI, 05 MAR 2010 00:00:00 GMT

Marmite, the mysterious salty spread, has taken to its fans to formulate and promote its latest flavor - Marmite XO.

"...the Marmarati enlisted the help of around 30 bloggers to form 'The First Circle' to help spread news of the society. Those who sought to join 'The Second Circle' had to prove their love by taking quizzes, which they could share on Facebook and Twitter. They also had to upload a video, photo or a written submission for the chance to preview the extra-strong spread, with site visitors voting for the winner.

Once enlisted, members could win a handmade jar and also got to meet each other at a tasting event shrouded in mystery."

For a brand that recognizes they have a loyal and passionate fan base, this is a terrific example of how they have involved them in all aspects of this new product launch. Love for their fans, with love from them in return - in the form positive video, social and in-person reviews.

Read the full Contagious article here: http://www.contagiousmagazine.com/2010/03/marmite_3.php

Read more: http://www.contagiousmagazine.com/2010/03/marmite_3.php

Dove Damage Repair builds reputation via online reviews

FRI, 05 MAR 2010 00:00:00 GMT

Beauty industry experts, from magazine editors to celebrities, have remarked on the amazing results of Dove's Treatment Mask for damaged hair. But Dove wanted everyday consumers to find out for themselves. OgilvyOne Thailand launched a 360-degree communications plan to get consumers to engage with the product in a personal way - by asking them to sample the product and share their experiences at www.dovedamagerepair.com.

In a first phase, Dove engaged Marie-Claire editor teams who confirmed that the Dove treatment showed proven results after just one use. Secondly, free samples were sent to registered Dove consumers, who were asked to share their thoughts on the Dove Damage Repair site. This was supported by a 360 campaign including e-mail, banners, TV, magazine ads and events/workshops, which all promoted sampling of the product by also driving to the campaign site. Once there, over 50% of site visitors registered to receive their free sample via mail.

In the end, 540 reviews were submitted, 98% of which were positive. An amazing success for a new product launch! As we're clearly in the age of "we-commerce" with customer reviews informing opinions all across the web, this was a smart strategy that raised Dove's profile with both the traditional (magazine) and self-appointed (you and me) beauty experts.

Read more: http://www.dovedamagerepair.com

"Love in Action" UGC film for Lacta

WED, 17 FEB 2010 00:00:00 GMT

Lacta chocolate bar has been heralding a message of love for nearly the past decade. After years of successful TV commercials, Lacta lovers were brought online last year by the story of Petros, a young Greek man, and Joanna, an English girl in a pre-quel to the latest aired TV campaign. While on vacation in the island of Paros, Petros and Joanna fell in love at first sight, and their dramatic love story unfolded online in an interactive movie website, ending with their romantic re-encounter at a concert as featured in the TV campaign.

The first, 17-minute "Love at first sight" story was a truly immersive 360 media campaign by OgilvyOne Greece, supported with TV, radio, posters, cinema trailers, on-pack signage, rich media online banners and the start to a dedicated online following via a Facebook Fan Page. Traffic to the Lacta website exploded from just over 5,000 unique visitors per month the year before, to over 155,000 during the campaign. And most importantly, sales of the Lacta candy bar rose 10% year over year.

This year, Kraft and OgilvyOne decided to put the love story into the hands of the Greeks, who were called on to submit their own love stories and to interact with Lacta via social media. Over 1,300 love stories were submitted, and after intense deliberation, a winner was selected to work with one of Greece's top screenwriters to turn the story into a screenplay. The Lacta Facebook fans were asked to help determine the lead roles in the film, and some were even recruited to serve as extras on the shoots. From the start of production, Lacta fans on the Love in Action blog, Facebook, Twitter, YouTube and Flickr accounts, have been able to watch the story unfold in real time via making-of videos, extensive Flickr photo galleries, and blog reports. After all, it is their story, featuring their characters - it only made sense to give them the inside look into the filming as well.

Leading up to the biggest love day of the year, Valentine's Day, the Lacta making-of videos were shown throughout The Mall Athens. There fans could see the videos, and also meet the cast and sample the famous Lacta chocolate. And on February 14th, the Love in Action film made its full debut, both online on the Lacta Films YouTube channel, and also on Greece's top TV channel, MEGA. The full 25 minutes of the film were shown during Valentine's day primetime, reaching 335,000 Greeks and resulting in one of the biggest TV ads ever shown in the country.

Check out the videos on the Love in Action blog here: www.loveinaction.gr.

See more and let us know what you think here:
Twitter.com/lactafilms
Facebook.com/loveinaction
Youtube.com/lactafilms
Flickr.com/lactafilms

Who knows - maybe we'll make your love story come to life next year?

Read more: http://www.loveinaction.gr

Bidding a digital farewell to a VW legend

WED, 17 FEB 2010 00:00:00 GMT

Volkswagen's iconic Citi made a huge impression on the South African public in its nearly 30 years on the market. With over 500,000 units sold, it was the ultimate people's car - a legend and a friend. So when Volkswagen announced that the car would be discontinued at the end of 2009, Ogilvy knew something special needed to be done. Something big. Because no good friend should be allowed to leave without a proper farewell. And that's exactly what Ogilvy South Africa gave it.

The farewell idea took life both on and offline. Across South Africa, the final Citi was driven from the Volkswagen factory in Uitenhage through small towns, big cities, rural villages and historic dorpies along the way, allowing people to sign the car like a giant card. The tour ended back in Uitenhage, at the Volkswagen Museum, where the car would stand forever, covered with goodbye messages.

Online, and for those that couldn't meet the group on the road, the incredible power of social media came in. Ogilvy created and leveraged a variety of online platforms, including: Twitter, YouTube, Facebook, Flickr and the dedicated site, www.goodbyeciti.co.za, all of which allowed the live event to be experienced by an even wider audience. The site tracked the entire journey live - with a live GPS feed, daily videos from the tour, photos and a daily diary update.

During the 11-day trip, it's estimate over 6000 people signed the final VW Citi, and with online contributions, this number doubled to well over 12,000. Throughout the duration of the 12-week good-bye campaign, we saw 41,298 unique users to the campaign website, 7,439 Facebook fans, 397 twitter followers (including some of South Africa's most influential celebrities who were tweeting about us regularly) and over 9,500 individual video views on Youtube... small numbers for the big social citizen countries in the world, but a first in South-Africa. A charity auction of the 3rd last Citi on South Africa's biggest online auction site, BidorBuy, went for the winning bid of R300 100. This was almost 3 times the cars' market value and the record for a charity auction on BidorBuy. And in the true spirit of Citi, the new owners' money was donated to uBuntu Education fund - a community project near Volkswagen's hometown of Uitenhage.

Apart from charity records, the campaign broke new ground in South Africa online marketing. The live GPS tracking of the tour, the daily video uploads and live web banners streamed directly from the tour were all new initiatives in SA advertising. Unlike most SA campaigns, this idea didn't start with a traditional TV ad or a print campaign - it began with a wide-ranging social media campaign that was then followed up by a compelling and absorbing live event that captured the whole nation's imagination. And contrary to standards, the TV commercial came at the end, and told the true-life story of the last Citi's journey around SA. When the TV ad went live officially on social media before it appeared on TV, it was a landmark South African first. Within less than an hour of its release online there were hundreds of positive comments about the ad on Facebook, Twitter and YouTube, a number that continued to grow until the campaign was drawing to a close and the ad was no longer on TV. Watch it here: http://www.youtube.com/goodbyeciti

Now that the campaign is over and the last Citi stands in the Volkswagen Museum covered with signatures, it truly is the end of an era. So from our South African offices, we say: Goodbye Citi, thanks for the memories. And thanks for an incredible journey that allowed us to harness the power of social to push the standards of SA advertising.

See more here: http://www.goodbyeciti.co.za

Social Media for Good

TUE, 19 JAN 2010 00:00:00 GMT

On January 12, a 7.0 magnitude earthquake struck Haiti, and since then the outpour of support has been like none seen before - both in monetary amount and in channel via which the donations have been provided. It marks one of the first efforts that has been significantly driven by online and mobile giving options in the USA.

According to CNN and American Red Cross spokesman Roger Lowe, nearly two-thirds of donations received by the American Red Cross have been online contributions and 15% to 20% have been through its text campaign. The American Red Cross has received more than USD21 million in text donations, and the organization brought in more than USD500,000 an hour during the Saturday and Sunday NFL games because of its pre-game and in-game promotional messages ("text HAITI to 90999") featured on FOX and CBS, Lowe said. And according to Business Week, within 48 hours of the earthquake, text donations were coming in at a rate of USD200,000 per hour - more than 12 times the amount that donors had sent by text in the wake of Hurricane Katrina in 2005. To date, all mobile donations provided for Haiti have already surpassed texted monies for all causes in 2009 in the USA.

A full list of mobile giving options is listed at: http://www.mobilecommons.com/blog/ and includes:
Text HABITAT to 25383 to donate USD10 to Habitat for Humanity
Text CARE to 25383 to donate USD10 to CARE
Text HAITI to 25383 to donate USD5 to International Rescue Committee
Text OXFAM to 25383 to donate USD10 to Oxfam International
Text LIVE to 25383 to donate USD10 to Americares
Text AJWS to 25383 to donate USD10 to American Jewish World Service
Text Relief to 30644 to donate to Catholic Relief Services
Text HAITI to 90999 to donate to American Red Cross
Text YELE to 501501 to donate to Yele Haiti Foundation

It's amazing the speed at which digital technologies are allowing charitable and government organizations to mobilize in response to this disaster. It's clear social media has been the primary catalyst for this; Haiti, and/or related words, have been Twitter's top trending topics since the day of the disaster. Facebook status updates and blog posts around the world have disseminated tips on how best to donate.

Google has also quickly deployed several first-time tools to help with the relief effort in real-time. On their Haiti earthquake response website, http://www.google.com/relief/haitiearthquake/, visitors can utilize the People Finder gadget, developed in conjunction with the State Department, to search for missing persons via one unified database. Google Maps has been updated with live radar images of the earthquake grounds and users are encouraged to upload their own images to help depict a realistic picture of the current situation. Google Voice has also been modified to allow free calls to Haiti for the next two weeks, in effort to allow loved ones to get in touch with each other. Users are also encouraged to upload their own video footage to YouTube.

To do its part, Ogilvy has established the Ogilvy & Mather Haiti Relief Fund, through which employees can donate via their local office finance director, or via a newly established PayPal account. We encourage you to do your part to help wherever you live - it's never been easier!

Domino's listens, learns and reacts

SAT, 16 JAN 2010 00:00:00 GMT

Domino's pizza executives had heard some anecdotal complaints about their pizza before... it lacks flavor, doesn't quite stack up to Papa John's, overall a bit bland. But was that just a few people's opinion?

Turns out the answer was no. There was a lot of chatter going on about the brand online, and little of it was positive. By "listening" to this talk on the web, and conducting their own focus groups, Domino's found out that one of the most brutal complaints was shared by many: their pizza crust tasted like cardboard.

There was no way to avoid it - Domino's had a serious taste issue - and, luckily, they've attacked the problem head-on. Domino's has launched "the great pizza turnaround," which includes a full reformulation of their pizza: new crust, new sauce, new cheese. You can see it all at pizzaturnaround.com, as well as the full story in the pizza turnaround documentary on YouTube (just click the link below). And paying tribute to the new pizzas' origin, pizzaturnaround.com also includes a live Twitter stream that shares opinions of the new pizza with all tweets including the hashtag #newpizza. The early verdict seems to be quite positive.

What's most interesting about this story though, is that it once again reinforces that the consumer opinion is in control. As people continue to share more and more of their opinions online, it's increasingly important for brands to monitor, understand and react to what's being said. Not only is it becoming expected (with the Domino's story amplifying that expectation), but it would be a missed opportunity to ignore the free research lab that is the Internet. Many brands have been using Twitter to successfully do this already - Jet Blue, Dell, Comcast, among others - have shown the channel can be successfully used for both customer service and sales activation. And yet other brands, like Starbucks, have created specific destinations like mystarbucksidea.com to continuously source and respond to consumer contributions.

Globally, a massive 81% of people online use reviews to inform their purchase decisions. And the phenomenon is only growing and becoming more prominent as social activity gains more prominence on the search results page. People are talking about your brand and making decisions based on what they hear.

Are you listening? And more importantly, what actions are you taking based on what you hear?

Read more: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AH5R56jILag

Augmented Reality: not just cool

THU, 14 JAN 2010 00:00:00 GMT

There has been considerable buzz around Augmented Reality over the past year, and it's been building steam as the most daring brands have given it a go. An early work from GE (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NK59Beq0Sew) certainly caught our attention, but what's most interesting is how much advancement there has been in the brand engagement value in more recent attempts.

Take for example this packaging integration (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IZYbHcEmWQg) on Nestle's Chocapic cereal. Kids used to think it was fun to fill out crossword puzzles on the back of the box, and now, can you imagine kids collecting these like video games on their shelves? Talk about some serious "shelf life."

Not surprisingly, Burger King has also made clever use of this technology in promotion of their BK Dollar menu. Not only can USD1 buy you the food, it can also unleash the full dollar menu in a new, interactive way. Theya??ve also integrated this into online advertising (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2PhBhcFTcTo) where interacting with the banners can earn users a coupon for a USD1 double cheeseburger.

Augmented reality has not been left out as digital applications aim to serve greater utility. Wal-Mart's "Your Zone" line of furniture for teenagers allows kids to simulate a bed, dresser, chair, or other furniture item, and see just how the piece would look in their room. Yelp, the user review site, debuted one of the first AR iPhone applications. By activating the AR monocle while walking down the street, users can aim the camera at storefronts and see their star rating displayed on the image. What exciting new ways to furnish your room or pick a dining option!

As digital experts we have our eyes on this space, but what about consumers? Wim Vermeulen, Director of Digital Innovation for Ogilvy in Central and Eastern Europe, says "The number of people you reach is limited. They need a webcam or a mobile running on Android or an iPhone. It's niche for now." He's been tracking this space closely, along with leading augmented reality developers Between Brackets, on the below linked blog.

So does it make sense for your brand to try it out? Here are some things to keep in mind in these early stages of this new technology:
- Do my users have webcams?
- Will AR serve a new function that my website or mobile applications dona??t already cover?
- How will I promote and incentivize my users to try this out?
- What action do I want my users to take after interacting?
- Although potentially only a small group within my target audience can access this application, can I leverage it to create buzz?

It's exciting to see the sophistication of AR execution advance so quickly. There are differing opinions on how it will progress, but we'll certainly be watching and will keep you posted. Have you seen any other good examples lately? Here are a few: http://www.blogilvy.nl/?s=augmented+reality

Check out the below linked Augmented Reality Blog for constant updates.

Read more: http://www.augmentedrealityblog.eu/

Nestle Spain launches Web TV

SUN, 20 SEP 2009 00:00:00 GMT

Since its launch in December 2007, the BBC iPlayer - which lets Brits view BBC radio and television programmes from the last 7 days online - has enjoyed massive success, registering more than 500 million requests. A year after its launch the French catch-up TV site M6 Replay counts 1.5mio users... growing fast. And of course Hulu, which more than catch-up TV services gives USA citizens free, advertising supported access to over 1,500 TV episodes and 600 movies, has become the 2nd most popular video site in the US in only 18 months time. Yes, consumption of TV content online is now out of the starter blocks, facing a long but undoubtedly exciting marathon ahead.

Just a few brands in the world have understood the real opportunity uptake of long-form, TV-like content represents. You can obviously surround it with your advertising. You can add video content to your site and distribute it on the video platforms. But what about taking it further?

Many years ago BMW Films made us understand that well-produced, entertaining videos can not only get your target audience attention, but also drive word-of-mouth and product consideration. Budweiser launched an entire Web TV channel based on this premise... with high hopes and ambitions. In February of this year it was killed attracting only 153,000 monthly viewers instead of the 2mio it hoped for. Such traffic goals demand very attractive content, easy access and a great user experience, hard-working audience building efforts including content distribution... Bud.TV probably underdelivered on all 3 pillars.

While I never liked Bud.TV I remember featuring the Land Rover Go Beyond TV channel in quite a few presentations. Featuring 6 channels - places, people, adventure, sport, culture and Land Rover - the content was a good mix of programming from the Discovery Channel and original programming. Each video began with a Land Rover branding message. Plans were to add user-generated videos as well as gradually build traffic. Today there is no trace of the web TV channel anymore... not sure why... its approach definitely felt more sound.

That seems also be the case for Nestle-TV.es. Launched last week (OgilvyOne Barcelona developed the interface) it holds 6 channels featuring useful videos on nutrition, wellness, pet care, babies, Nestle promotions, and Corporate information. While the videos aren't highly entertaining or surprising, its content is what Nestle would have previously featured on its website. It includes pragmatic tips and advice such as recipes, how to give babies their first bath, how to clean your pet's cage, and how to introduce variety in your children's diet... now brought to live in the much more digestible and engaging format of video. There are 150 videos so far and there should be 50 more by the end of the year. While consumers can already vote, they will be allowed to contribute their own videos in the near future.

Read more: http://www.nestle-tv.es/

The web, the world and OgilvyOne Athens moonwalks

WED, 08 JUL 2009 00:00:00 GMT

"The Day the Internet Almost Died." I just love this title featured on the Wall Street Journal Blog a few days ago, introducing an article on how on June 25th the Web was nearly brought to a standstill.

When the news on Michael Jackson's sudden death broke, several sites buckled under the sheer weight of traffic. When CNN mentioned the LA Times as a source, its site was brought down by the traffic influx, receiving over 2.3 million page views in one hour.

Twitter went into a 5-6 minute delay with 5,000 MJ tweets per minute at peak. "We saw an instant doubling of tweets per second the moment the story broke," Twitter co-founder Biz Stone told the Los Angeles Times. "This particular news about the passing of such a global icon is the biggest jump in tweets per second since the U.S. presidential election." And an edit war on Jackson's page on Wikipedia ultimately forced the online encyclopaedia to freeze.

According to Akamai's Net Usage Index, which monitors Internet traffic, overall Web usage spiked to more than 4.2 million global visitors per minute at its peak. Normal traffic is around 2 million global visitors per minute.

Google Trends, which measures fast-rising searches on Google, rated queries related to Jackson's death as "volcanic." On Google, more than half of the top 100 searches were related to him as of midday Friday. Google News users had a tough time getting search results for "Michael Jackson" between 2:40 and 3:15 p.m. PST Thursday. At one point the service thought it was under attack and put out an error messaging that warned users "your query looks similar to automated requests from a computer virus or spyware application".

Although the Internet appeared to fare better during yesterday's Memorial service, the stats are still impressive. After all, not so long ago our only option to be part "live and audio/video inclusive" of such a global event would have been to have planted ourselves in front of our TV screen. Many people definitely did. But yesterday the Internet proved once again be an equal competitor to give us access to the content we so wanted to watch.

During most of the memorial global Web traffic was at least 19%, and as high as 33%, above normal. Akama, said it was the second-largest day on its network. The company reported nearly four million visitors per minute as of 10am pacific time, around the time the ceremony started at the Staples Centre.

CNN.com reported 9.7 million live video streams during the memorial. It attracted 81 million page views, 11.8 unique visitors and a peak of 781,000 concurrent live video streams. Yahoo said the ceremony was the single most streamed in its history with 5 million total streams. Ustream said the memorial was the "largest ever" event hosted by the site. It served 4.6 million video streams from around the world in partnership with CBS. Viewers taking part in the chat rooms left over 12,000 messages per minute... evidence for the next point.

As Mashable's Ben Parr says in an article on BBC News: "The web lets us connect and see the story from multiple views unlike TV. This is more than a turning point. It's about giving users more than one view as well as opportunities to not only be a consumer but a producer."

At Facebook, the world's biggest social networking site, a total of about one million users posted around 800,000 status updates related to online broadcasts hosted by CNN, E! Online, ABC and MTV. Michael Jackson's fan page counts over 7.5 million fans posting their views and comments, sharing links, pictures and self-made videos. Other unofficial fan pages count many millions members more. After 9 days MJ entered the top 50 "all time" Twitter trends.

And last but not least, the site eternalmoonwalk.com - created by a Belgian radio station and inspired by the Nike Football 'Join the Chain' and Google Mail 'Email is universal' campaigns - is inviting anybody to contribute a 6sec 'moonwalk from right to left' video. The resulting chain video already counts many contributions including our own OgilvyOne Athens - type 746 in the search box to see Panos and team in action.

Oh, to put things in a healthy perspective - the articles on this topic on CNN, BBC or WSJ also mention that MJ hasn't outperformed the Obama Inauguration. CNN then reached its all-time viewership record for a full day, almost 27 million video streams and Facebook said there were 1.8 million updates with the word "Obama" during the event. But if you listen to Reverend Al Sharpton moving speech at the Memorial commenting on Michael Jackson's impact as a person of color - "Those young kids grew up from being teenage 'comfortable fans of Michael' to being 40 years old and being comfortable to vote for a person of color to become the President of the United States" - MJ also had a hand in that result. Smile!

Read more: http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/technology/8139479.stm

Cisco's Digital Cribs

WED, 01 JUL 2009 00:00:00 GMT

Apologies for having completely - and I mean completely - disappeared from the digital radar. I fell into a 'recession workload' cage and have only found the exit today. Anyway, during my absence I did discover a few digital treasures. Some of them are not new, but are still running and running well.

Here's one. To make consumers aware of its new offerings in the consumer electronics space with TV set-tops, modem and home networking solutions, Cisco - with the help of OgilvyEntertainment - launched www.digitalcribs.com a few months ago. It's the home for a series of short documentaries on high-profile people such as DJ Paul Van Dyk - all living uniquely connected lifestyles in uniquely wired homes. In addition to the videos visitors of the site can explore their digital cribs featuring hot-spots highlighting the enabling technology solutions.

Okay, I might be a little biased as this is Ogilvy work, but being a digital power-user aspiring to one day live in a truly digital crib I think these movies certainly made me want to explore Cisco solutions. Brand consideration box ticked!

But it's all good and well to have great content that have the power to make consumers spend time with the brand, how did the target audience know about digital cribs? First of all, each of the featured characters have an audience on the internet already. That helped to get the word out. Next a competition for students was organized to create their own digital cribs movies. And a consumer-generated competition was added.

In the space of a few months, and with very little traditional media support, the destination website has received over 5M page views and in excess of 650K unique visitors.

Read more: http://www.digitalcribs.com

Smart way to distribute your brand

FRI, 22 MAY 2009 00:00:00 GMT

Long URLs are one of the horrors of today's web world. They hard to remember and to share. They look horrible in documents and often break in emails. And there's simply no room for them in Facebook status updates and Twitter posts.

To solve this a number of URL shortening services have been created. They shorten an indigestible link such as "http://www.ogilvy.com/widgets/vergecast_news_rss.php?com=1&id=7848" to something much simpler such as "http://tinyurl.com/pmqjcw" or even something more memorable such as "http://doiop.com/t-mobile" which allows you to choose your own keyword at the end.

The car brand Smart has now 'smartly' played into this trend by providing a service that allows "to park large url's into tiny spaces" with a branded tiny URL generator. It provides you with the exact same service but the start of the url instead of tinyurl.com or doiop.com will say so-smart.be.

If owning a Smart car makes sense for that busy city owner who often needs to park, this branded service by Smart does to.

Read more: http://url.so-smart.be/

T-Mobile puts flashmobs at the heart of advertising campaign

MON, 18 MAY 2009 00:00:00 GMT

2009 is clearly the year in which T-Mobile is turning the "21st Century Marketing"-corner, bringing its new advertising theme 'Life's for sharing' truly to life with maybe not an entirely innovative and unique, but certainly well executed idea.

About a year ago the mobile operator introduced the new strapline signing a range of executions all about challenging viewers to find a better deal for their money (see Campaign: http://tinyurl.com/obmoxn). But this year's approach goes well beyond traditional advertising.

The strategy seems to have a number of events at the heart that have real buzz value. They are the flashmob kind... in the words of Wikipedia: a large group of people who assemble suddenly in a public place, perform an unusual action for a brief time, then quickly disperse. They are about people sharing fun together and aim to get the audience involved. Subsequently the events are captured and turned into TV ads that have more attention value as they are newsy and feature people like you. These events are also turned into content distributed on the web to accelerate word-of-mouth and hence awareness.

If this sounds simple, I'm sure there are a number of tactics used to make this all work. Reaching out to key influencers, inviting consumers upfront to join the events, using the social destination platforms to distribute the event content in different edits (the final ad, the long version, the teaser version...) as well as inviting consumers to share their own versions... there must be quite a few more.

The first flashmob was created in January at London's Liverpool Street station. 350 dancers dressed up as everyday commuters performed a series of routines. The next day the 3-minute TV spot 'Dance', produced using hidden TV cameras within the station and capturing the spontaneous reactions of commuters as they watched the dance troupe perform, premiered during an entire ad break in 'Celebrity Big Brother' on Channel 4.Viewers could get extra footage of the making of the ad by pressing the red button on their remote.The next two weeks a 60-second version, followed by a series of ads which started to weave in more specific product and price plan information ran. T-Mobile also created a dedicated YouTube channel for users to upload videos and view humorous clips featuring celebrities being taught how to do the T-Mobile dance by dancer and choreographer Bryony Albert. (Also read more here: http://tinyurl.com/9novop)

The next flashmob took place on April 30th in Trafalgar Square. A few days before a video invite and flyers were distributed to get people to join the event. Over 13,500 attended the flashmob, which turned out to be a massive karaoke sing-a-long hosted by BBC Radio 1's Vernon Kaye, featuring rock star Pink. To involve the crowd T-Mobile handed out 2,000 microphones to let everyone participate and share a moment in Karaoke history. Again a TV spot version was recorded, but before it was released during Britain's Got Talent ad break, 3 teaser versions were released on the web including on the dedicated YouTube channel.

Viralblog.com does a great summary of this latest phase of the campaign including an interesting 'behind the scenes' video that mentions the footage will be used for ads across Europe. Check out the link to nickburcher.com blog that features the invitation flyer and a billboard at the flashmob making people aware that they might be featured in an advertising campaign... nice and critical permission-based touch!

And clearly the campaign goes one... with the YouTube channel announcing more Karaoke events to visitors, asking to share their mobile number. I'm sure that won't be all.

Read more: http://www.youtube.com/lifesforsharing

Weird characters in action for Vodafone India

SAT, 02 MAY 2009 00:00:00 GMT

A bunch of bizar egghead characters have invaded this year's season of the Indian Premier League (IPL).

Baptized the Zoozoos by Rajiv Rao, Executive Creative Director South Asia Ogilvy India, this family of creatures who speak a gibberish language and emote like human beings with big frowns or big grins appears across commercials - a new one every day - to promote a whole series of Vodafone Value Added Services. Explains Harit Nagpal, chief marketing officer, Vodafone India, "We're acquiring customers at a very fast pace, but a large number of them are unaware of the range of services we offer."

Currently some 10 films are on air, for service offerings such as Cricket Alerts, Beauty Alerts, Phone Backup, the IPL Contest 1, the IPL Contest 2, Chhota Credit, Vodafone Maps, Vodafone Call Filter, Live Games and Musical Greetings. Each film has the Zoozoos interacting with one another with the product story weaved in.

For instance, the Phone Backup ad (the first in the series) has several Zoozoos lined up to have their faces photocopied through a photocopier, while a tetris towards the end (the messenger in all the ads) announces how Vodafone allows for creating a phonebook backup.

Fifteen more films will make their appearance. Why so many? Media spends and visibility for brands peak during the IPL, so Vodafone wanted a piece of the pie. Further, Nagpal explains, the brand was in need of an idea that would work doubly hard, as it was planning to spend some four months' worth of marketing monies in one month. "So, we chose not to do just one or two ads, or viewers would get bored quickly, watching them over and over on the IPL," says Nagpal.

In the digital space, Zoozoos are currently featured on a specially created microsite - here, one can partake in quizzes and contests, including the "What kind of Zoozoo are you?" quiz. Each Zoozoo has a unique set of characteristics and traits allotted to it. The microsite also allows for goodies to be downloaded (including wallpapers, screensavers and ringtones), and offers details on the IPL. With a specially created YouTube channel on the site, the TVCs are provided there for people to watch and share.

A Zoozoo fan page has been created on Facebook. Fans have access to special tag-me images, Zoozoo sounds (such as Zoozoo laughter and music tracks) and ad previews. People are also following Zoozoos on Twitter and get updates whenever new commercials go on air.

Read more: http://missmalini.wordpress.com/2009/04/29/here-come-the-zoozoos/

Playing virtual Golf for Charity

MON, 27 APR 2009 00:00:00 GMT

For the past five years the Zurich Classic Golf Tournament has been raising money for children's charities. This year it's the taking the initiative to the digital world to get more people contributing.

HelpPoint for Kids is a golf relay game for a great cause and participation is so simple. Go to the HelpPoint website, create your own golfer, and tee off a message to up to five of your friends who in turn can tee off a message to their own 'golfing buddies'. Every time players have teed off a round of 18, two children's charities - Fore!Kids and Practical Action - will receive donations from Zurich.

Notice the great design by the hands of our colleagues of Ogilvy Frankfurt!

Read more: http://www.helppointforkids.com

Toilet Paper Brand goes mobile

MON, 20 APR 2009 00:00:00 GMT

AdWeek reported two weeks that the most popular brand application on the iPhone platform is the Virtual Zippo Lighter. Since its launch this app which features a simple lighter on the screen has been downloaded 3 million times, making it the most popular brand application on the iPhone platform.

But many branded applications will never know this level of success as new apps have to compete with the hundreds of iPhone applications launched every day by the world's energized developer community. Adweek reports that there are already 25,000 iPhone applications. Only the most original, entertaining or useful ones will break through the clutter... and numerous others are invented all the time to take its place. According to Pinch Media, an iPhone analytics company, less than 5 percent of downloaded iPhone applications are kept longer than a month.

So Procter & Gamble Charmin brand took another approach. It's sponsoring an existing application - with advertising on the app's website as well as banners within the app. SitOrSquat's site and iPhone application help consumers find the cleanest public toilets worldwide through user-generated listings and ratings of bathrooms - a 'Sit' rating implies that the bathroom is clean and 'Squat' means that it is not - as well as details on hours of operation, handicap accessibility, showers and availability of changing tables. Charmin banner ads such as 'Gotta go? Relax a?| we got your back.' or 'Just like home' link to a simple Charmin mobile landing page.

The Adweek article reports that another obvious challenge of iPhone applications is limited reach. There's only about 17mio iPhone owners. Recent data compiled by Bongo Wireless show it's the 24th most-popular handset in the US. On the other hand, many sources - as pointed out in one comment to the Adweek article - have highlighted how the iPhone is a huge driver of mobile internet usage. Admob's latest figures show the iPhone is responsible for 50% of US mobile web traffic and 33% of worldwide traffic. Moreover apps can be viewed on the iPod Touch as well, and the other mobile app stores from BlackBerry and Nokia are ready for take-off.

All in all, mobile apps don't seem to be such a bad investment. They don't cost that much to make - Zippo spent less than USD100,000 on its application, without any money spent on ads to promote it. True, sometimes a branded app can be so engaging, no need for paid media to get the word out... consumers will spread the word for you. But at Ogilvy we would definitely recommend a few things to accelerate the sharing and uptake, even if that might not always include traditional advertising but just promoting it on your site or on-pack, sharing it first with key influencers and your loyal consumers in the database, etc.

That doesn't mean I don't agree with Wayne Arnold, CEO North America of digital agency Profero who in the Adweek article says: "Brands tend to gravitate, often with poor results, to "shiny objects. Creating an iPhone app is jumping to implementation before you have a strategy." Great digital marketing isn't about cool stuff only. It's about putting engaging experiences that consumers want to spend time with at the heart of a comprehensive strategy to make consumers talk to your brand and talk to others about your brand.

Read more: http://tinyurl.com/cxahrf

Sir Martin pleads for collaboration between agencies and media, content industry

THU, 16 APR 2009 00:00:00 GMT

Sir Martin Sorrell, CEO of WPP, recently spoke at the leading media and content market MIPTV. As previously reported OgilvyInteractive and OgilvyEntertainment have partnered with MIPTV since 3 years for the exact reason that Sir Martin highlights at the end of his speech of which you can see a video excerpt on the below link.

With the pressure on cost in both the advertising and content production/distribution industry and as media fragmentation has it made it so much harder for both industries to reach and engage the consumer, there a tremendous opportunity for the media owners, content producers, talent companies, media and creative agencies to work together to develop attractive content across platforms that the consumer will engage with.

Not surprisingly, Sir Martin underlines the major change the media industry is now experiencing. He said:
** TV - in its traditional meaning - won't die. If you would start a FMCG company today, TV is still the most effective way to reach the largest number of consumers, in the shortest period at the lowest cost per thousand. But the domination of TV has ended.
** Newspaper and magazines will continue to erode significantly.
** The evolution of cinema, radio and outdoor situates itself in between.
** The importance of PC, mobile and video content will continue to rise. Sir Martin is clearly convinced that mobile will be a significant delivery channel of video content.

The latter is especially relevant for the BRIC markets which Sir Martin highlighted throughout his speech as key drivers of growth and hence transformation of the industry. He also expressed his belief in the ongoing importance of sustainability as consumers will want to continue to consume responsibly, and in the opportunity of media and advertising becoming significantly more addressable and measurable.

For more information on Ogilvy and MIPTV, check out www.ogilvy.com/miptv.

Read more: http://www.mipworld.com/Industry-insight/Advertising/videos/Trend-overview/

More time on web than watching TV for Europeans

WED, 08 APR 2009 00:00:00 GMT

Microsoft's latest report 'Europe logs on: Internet trends of today and tomorrow' analyses online behaviour across Europe, predicting that by 2010 web consumption will average 14.2 hours per week, while TV watching will average 11.5 hours per week. Today Europeans already spend on average 8,9 hours per week on the Internet.

TV program viewing increasingly won't happen on the TV screen only. The computer and mobile screen will play an important role. USC Annenberg School's Centre for Digital Future director Jeffrey Cole said television will still grow in importance, but its role will be different. "TV no longer refers to the big screen in the home but to audio and visual content that will be watched everywhere. It will become our constant companion as it escapes from the home for the first time via the mobile phone and netbook PC," he said.

Guardian newspaper only on Twitter

THU, 02 APR 2009 00:00:00 GMT

Consolidating its position at the cutting edge of new media technology, the Guardian announced that it will become the first newspaper in the world to be published exclusively via Twitter.

Sceptics have expressed concerns that 140 characters may be insufficient to capture the full breadth of meaningful human activity, but social media experts say the spread of Twitter encourages brevity, and that it ought to be possible to convey the gist of any message in a tweet.

As a Twitter-only publication, the Guardian will be able to harness the unprecedented news-gathering power of the service, with Twitters sending real-time updates on events as they happen.

A mammoth project is also under way to rewrite the whole of the newspaper's archive, stretching back to 1821, in the form of tweets.

Read more: http://www.guardian.co.uk/media/2009/apr/01/guardian-twitter-media-technology

IBM Paper on reaching the digital consumer

WED, 25 MAR 2009 00:00:00 GMT

About 18m ago IBM distributed a really interesting paper on the topic of 'The End of Advertising as we know it'. A new report was just published with the intriguing title of 'Beyond Advertising - Choosing a strategic path to the digital consumer'.

Here's what the flash summary says. Today, the distinctions between advertising and marketing have blurred, as new forms of communication combine the ROI-characteristics of direct marketing with the brand characteristics of traditional advertising. With digital consumers increasingly in control of their media experience and advertisers shifting their spend to more interactive, measurable formats, companies must move beyond traditional advertising to combine granularity of targeting and measurement with cross-platform integration. To adapt and succeed - especially in the current economic environment - content owners, media distributors and agencies need to build a new set of capabilities now: cross-platform innovation, greater insights, open collaboration and digital processes.

That says it all, doesn't it. While I'm not sure if the report provides enough detail of how agencies need to deliver on this - with little clarity on discipline rather than channel approach, the report holds a few great graphs and quotes to steal:
*** Consumers can no longer be considered the audience - they are simultaneously readers, editors and marketers, especially the younger demographics.
*** Mass marketing alone is no longer viable. To reach increasingly fragmented audiences requires approaches tailored for new platforms, new offerings and new experiences.
*** Increasingly, there is no distinction between digital and non-digital platforms, there is no distinction between ROI and brand. All platforms will become digital going forward, and all communications with a consumer need to be considered as an opportunity to drive both awareness and a call-to-action.

I couldn't agree more with this last quote. Amongst the 4 key roles digital can play across the marketing funnel, the opportunity to create more integrated experiences that solve awareness to repeated purchase and loyalty is definitely my favorite one. After all, in today's world if as a brand we managed to get consumers' attention, why wouldn't we attempt to continue the conversation.

Ogilvy employees can find the 2 papers attached on Truffles.

Read more: http://www-03.ibm.com/industries/media/us/index.html

GE windmills get noticed through Augmented Reality

SUN, 22 MAR 2009 00:00:00 GMT

Augmented reality is getting increasingly more buzz and we've seen all kinds of applications. Recently the baseball trading cards application got flagged as featured on www.t-immersion.com. By the way, this site's video gallery features many great examples smartly categorized in its digital marketing, events, consumer products... sections.

So it's great to see one of the most 'serious' categories and companies in the world to be creative with this technology. On a new GE Energy website promoting its Smart Grid windmill technology you can print out a special marker that looks like a solar panel and when keeping it in front of your webcam, it will bring to live smart grid on your screen... featuring even a cute scare crow. You can also blow into your computer's microphone to make the turbines spin faster.

Advertising that smartly uses technology to create an involving experience people want to spend time with is certainly one way to get your target audience notice your advertising more. P.S. I love the fact that the site also mentions how the experience was created...

Read more: http://ge.ecomagination.com/smartgrid/#/augmented_reality

An entertaining Schweppes Moment

FRI, 20 MAR 2009 00:00:00 GMT

As part of a campaign to reposition Schweppes as a soft drink for adults, Schweppes launched a website called the Schweppes Short Film Festival. Five directors were asked to create films aimed at 'a mature audience', resulting in a variety of short films on different themes and shot in different styles.

We assume the brief for the movies was pretty open with the exception that each one had to have a 'Schhh Moment'. Consequently all the shorts make reference to Schweppes at some point, however this product placement is subtle and clever. Well done!

The films were also scripted to allow 45-second commercials to be cut that could run on TV, aimed at pushing viewers on to the website http://www.schhh.eu/shortfilms/ where the full films can be viewed. On the site you can also go to the bar to discover adult versions of the Schweppes drink.

Obviously the movies have found their way to the web beyond the Schweppes website. 'Signs' quickly made it to YouTube's top 10 and today counts close to 1mio views.

So far the Schweppes Film Festival campaign has only played out in Eastern European territories, although is hoped to roll out internationally in the future.

A great example of quality well produced content can be a great way for a brand to tell its story. See more Ogilvy examples on www.ogilvy.com/miptv.

Read more: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uy0HNWto0UY&fmt=18

Benefits of QR codes undeniable

TUE, 17 MAR 2009 00:00:00 GMT

I love today's issue of AdAge Digital newsletter as it's filled with little facts that support principles of marketing in the digital age that I am passionate about.

Many of our clients ask us what they should do with groups or pages created for their brands by consumers... or should I say fans. The article "How Two Coke Fans Brought the Brand to Facebook Fame" describes how Coke was human, genuine and hence innovative in its approach in taking 'control' over the 3 million member Coke fan page created by 2 people on Facebook.

The "'Smoking Smarties' Videos Create Blaze of Unwelcome PR" article ends with useful tips on how brands can deal with positive or negative buzz created on the world wide web. And Peter Hershberg wrote a truly interesting reaction to recent reports showing that Facebook drives more traffic to sites than search does, one that our SEO experts would largely agree with. The "Facebook May Be Traffic Driver, but Won't Reap Search Dollars - Why Social Media Is Complementary to SEM" holds a few tricks on how a comprehensive SEO strategy can help play into the fact that the social sites tend to lead the search listings.

And I might not agree with everything in the article "Is Search the Online Equivalent of Trade Promotion?", but my answer to this question would come close to Yes. After all, while in pre-digital times we couldn't identify a consumer considering to buy our brand before he entered our stores or picked up his phone to call us, today we can... as he'll be searching for us, our solutions and services or browsing these on a review site.

But my favorite article is the "Marketers Say Hello to Long-Awaited Mobile Technology" one that lists not only a few examples of US advertisers using mobile capturing 2-D barcodes on their packaging or communication materials to drive response or extend the experience with the brand. Although everybody agrees that these barcode readers should be preloaded on mobile phones, it's good to see that the lack of standardization is not holding up advertisers moving forward. Rather than needing an application, Jagtag allows consumers to take a picture of the 2-D barcode and send it to a short code, with Jagtag sending back a URL, coupon or other media via multimedia messaging service.

Read more: http://adage.com/digital/article?article_id=135248

A great -change marketers' behavior- initiative

THU, 12 MAR 2009 00:00:00 GMT

In an effort to expose P&G marketing directors to the power of digital and help them see how today's world needs new marketing thinking, A-Procter & Gamble paired 40 digital media and agency executives with 100 of its North American marketing directors in a contest to sell Tide T-shirts for charity.

More than 2,000 Tide T-shirts were sold at USD 20/T-shirt. Participants were divided into groups and screens tracked team efforts by web hits, closure rates and final sales.

Approaches were varied as reported by AdAge:
*** One group got Global Marketing Officer Marc Pritchard, in a short-lived YouTube video, to offer an hour of his services advising a nonprofit on cause-related marketing in return for a 100-shirt purchase.
*** David Armano, VP-experience design at P&G digital shop Critical Mass, webcast the event through the agency website, alwaysinbeta.criticalmass.com.
*** Numerous participants blogged the proceedings to promote T-shirt orders.
*** Others resorted to more conventional promotion such as posting an offer on slickdeals.net.
*** TotalBeauty.com CEO Emrah Kovacoglu blasted an e-mail appeal for T-shirt orders to his site's registered users.

Among the lessons learned: Fewer than 150 media and marketing people leaning heavily on their social-media friends and followers, resorting to big-name incentives and spending a total of about USD 4,000 on digital media can sell more than 2,000 T-shirts.

Test drive the new Polo on your iPhone

TUE, 10 MAR 2009 00:00:00 GMT

To celebrate the launch of its new Polo which premiered at the Geneva Motor Show on March 3, Volkswagen launched a 3D racing game called 'Volkswagen Polo Challenge' on the Apple's App Store. The goal of this application is to position Volkswagen as an innovative brand and to generate leads, dealer contacts and test drives.

The Volkswagen application provides pure racing game fun with the new Polo on eight detailed, animated tracks for the iPhone and iPod touch. The difficulty increases with every course and only those who drive a best time will be rewarded with a new track. The realistic four-point driving physics and the innovative controls - steering is done by tilting the iPhone or iPod touch - are impressive.

Those who want to test drive the new Polo in real life, and not just virtually, can use the game menu to navigate to the nearest Volkswagen dealer via GPS and Google Maps.

"Volkswagen has employed mobile marketing activities for several years now and with growing intensity, for example mobile long-lead campaigns, mobile advertising, Bluetooth advertising, mobile games," said Markus Arand, head of newsroom for Volkswagen brand and product communications in Hamburg, Germany. "Recently we launched the Volkswagen mobile Internet platform that includes global information about Volkswagen in general, Volkswagen models and services especially for mobile devices," he said.

Read more: http://www.mobilemarketer.com/cms/news/gaming/2785.html

One in every 11min is spent on social networks

TUE, 10 MAR 2009 00:00:00 GMT

Research by Nielsen Online - called 'Global Faces and Networked Places' - shows that globally one in every 11 minutes spent online is spent on social network and blogging sites while in the UK that figure stands at every one in six minutes. It also reports that 30% of internet users across nine markets visit Facebook monthly - 47% when looking at the UK alone - and that "member communities" rank as the fourth most popular online category - after search, portals and PC software and before email - and are now visited by 67% of the global online population.

The 35-49 year old age group made up the biggest increase in visitors during 2008.

And social networking is going mobile. In the UK 23% of Brits visit social network sites through their mobile handset, an increase of 249% since last year, compared to 19% of Americans, up just 156%.

Read more: http://www.brandrepublic.com/News/888391/Social-network-sites-checked-personal-email/

Social Media for B-to-B Marketing

MON, 09 MAR 2009 00:00:00 GMT

Ogilvy New York and IBM launched the second phase of a campaign to build awareness and increase sales of IBM's Rational Team Concert among software developers. The campaign, which was the focus of an article in BrandWeek, incorporates social media tools to market its tech product to IT professionals. It uses a mix of video, email, social networking sites and Twitter to demonstrate for potential customers how a complex product aids developer collaboration.

Introduced last fall as the face of the campaign, "Mr. Fong" is a software developer who is lost in space and tries to reconnect with his team via YouTube videos, email messages, Facebook and MySpace profiles and Twitter. This time Mr. Fong's team members - Mr. Long, Ms. Song and Mr. Zong - use IBM's product to facilitate his return from space. "It's a tongue-in-cheek approach to reach software developers on a dry, esoteric topic," said Chris Landau, Creative Director at Ogilvy. "We saw social media as an opportunity that was germane to the topic itself: keeping people connected is what the software is all about."

A third phase in scheduled to launch in six months. Check out the campaign website at www.connectmrfong.com or read more by going to Adweek article below.

Read more: http://www.adweek.com/aw/content_display/news/e3i4c6e3d05307c6e5f51bbffcc85cbe8df

Castle Lite TV series is a success

MON, 09 MAR 2009 00:00:00 GMT

No wonder that Crossroads is in its third season. This TV series produced by Ogilvy Brand Activation Johannesburg for Castle Lite counts 9 episodes of each 3 minutes and is all about 'Making the right choice', exactly what Castle Lite's new brand promise is all about.
In every episode Dex Dube, a handsome and hardworking police officer faces a crossroad... a tough decision to make. Hence every episode, broadcasted on the N1 TV channel in South Africa SABC, ends with a cliff hanger, inviting TV viewers to help Dex make the right choice between 2 options. TV viewers vote via SMS - which obviously enters them in a prize draw - and the next episode depicts the scenario according the most popular vote.

The TV series is supported by advertising, radio show discussions and on-pack promotions. Last year it increased Castle Lite sales volume by 60% while the beer market on average in South Africa is only growing by 0.2%. It's a great example of how branded entertainment - an increasingly popular marketing skills which has brands develop their own entertainment properties that consumers voluntarily watch because it doesn't feel like advertising - can contribute to real sales results.

Read more: http://www.castlelite.co.za

The best job in the world

MON, 23 FEB 2009 00:00:00 GMT

What better way in the user-generated digital world of today to spend your USD100K marketing budget than making it the salary package for the best job in the world! Australian Tourism Board Queensland launched at the start of 2009 a campaign to find an Island Caretaker Great Barrier Reef. As the job application reads on www.islandreef.com:

The role of Island Caretaker is a six-month contract, based on luxurious Hamilton Island in the Great Barrier Reef. It's a live-in position with flexible working hours and key responsibilities include exploring the islands of the Great Barrier Reef to discover what the area has to offer. You'll be required to report back on your adventures to Tourism Queensland headquarters in Brisbane (and the rest of the world) via weekly blogs, photo diary, video updates and ongoing media interviews. On offer is a unique opportunity to help promote the wondrous Islands of the Great Barrier Reef. Living above the Great Barrier Reef is a pretty unique benefit, but the successful candidate will also be paid a salary package of AUD $150,000 for the six-month contract.

Interested candidates had until yesterday to apply with a video-submission. Today the site reports that 34,000 applicants entered from 200 different countries. In eight days Tourism Queensland will announce 10 candidates and one Wild Card candidate will be selected by visitors of the site.

For those who followed the buzz and the extensive media coverage - Britain's Telegraph newspaper reported in January that the site crashed after a sudden influx of traffic - let's envy not only the coolest job, but also the most viral campaign in the tourism industry so far!

Read more: http://www.islandreefjob.com/

Find the nearest ATM

MON, 16 FEB 2009 00:00:00 GMT

Following in the footsteps of Visa who just a few months ago offered customers of Chase bank a mobile application to not only receive account notifications, offers from merchants and the possibility to find the nearest ATM through GPS, ING bank in the Netherlands has now also introduced a location-based mobile application.

The ING Wegwijzer (ING Guide) also only works on a Google phone, leveraging its built-in compass that allows users not only to tell where they are but also which direction they are facing. It is also all about making it very easy for you to find the nearest ATM while you're on the move.

Mobile users have 2 options to find an ATM, based on the input of an address or based on their actual location. Results can be viewed in 3 different ways: 1) in a list 2) as an icon on a google-map 3) or with the help of your phone's camera. Just point the camera to somewhere around you and using Augmented Reality technology icons layered over the live viewfinder image will show the closest ATMs, literally pointing to the buildings that house the cash machines as well as telling you how far you're away from the cash machine.

To discover more, click the below link. The visa mobile app and a demo movie can be found on http://www.visa.com/mobile.

Read more: http://www.cmdglobal.com/database/I/ING/Mobile_money_map

UCG ad is No.1 on Super Bowl

TUE, 03 FEB 2009 00:00:00 GMT

Yesterday's Vergecast news item reported the adventures of Doritos in involving consumers in its marketing through user-generated ad competitions and other initiatives. At Sunday's US Super Bowl they aired 2 finalist submission of their Crash the Super Bowl competition promising that if the winning commercial took the top spot in USA TODAY's Ad Meter, beating the ad agencies, its authors - two unemployed brothers from Batesville, Ind. - would collect the USD 1 million bonus prize.

And they did. The off-the-wall commercial, "Free Doritos," featuring a guy who shatters a vending machine with his crystal ball after predicting free Doritos for everyone in the office, even beat two Budweiser ads who won the Ad Meter top spot 10 times in a row.

The second ad from the Doritos contest also finished high with the No 5 rank out of the 52 ads in the games.

Read more: http://www.usatoday.com/money/advertising/admeter/2009admeter.htm

Doritos consumers own the brand

MON, 02 FEB 2009 00:00:00 GMT

The economic climate of today seems not to have affected the biggest and most expensive advertising event on US television, the Super Bowl. While Fox who broadcasted this championship game of the National American Football League attracting more than 100 million viewers last year, assembled 250 million USD in advertising revenue in 2008, NBC collected 261 million USD this year.

The Doritos brand put two of its talented fans in the Super Bowl limelight by airing two finalists of its 'Crash the Super Bowl' competition: "Free Doritos" which was named the winner by consumer votes and "Power of Crunch" which also won one of the finalist spots amongst the 2000 submissions winning USD 25K.

The "Crash the Super Bowl" campaign is the evolution of the Doritos brand allowing consumers to be in control. In 2007, the Doritos brand aired its first consumer-created commercial during Super Bowl XLI, as part of the first Doritos "Crash the Super Bowl" challenge. That same day, the brand aired a second commercial to kick-off the first-ever consumer-created Doritos brand television ad campaign, in which all five of the Doritos "Crash the Super Bowl" finalists' ads aired on national television. Last year, Doritos launched the music career of one of its talented fans by airing her original song in a music video during its Super Bowl XLII air time as part of its second annual "Crash the Super Bowl" program.

In addition to the Doritos "Crash the Super Bowl" challenge, in 2007 the brand put consumers in control with programs such as Doritos "Fight for the Flavor," which invited Doritos fans to determine which of two new flavors survived on store shelves and which one was pulled. Then, the brand launched the Doritos "X-13D Flavor Experiment," where consumers had a chance to name a new mysterious flavor of Doritos tortilla chips, followed by "Unlock Xbox," which empowered fans to design the first-ever consumer-created Xbox LIVE(R) Arcade game.

In 2008, "THE QUEST" campaign gave Doritos lovers a unique opportunity to choose how and when to get engaged in a multi-faceted program that had online and real world challenges. Fans were in control of how they participated in "THE QUEST" in everything from guessing a mystery flavor to solving virtual puzzles and competing in real-life adventures. In addition, Doritos put control into the hands of its consumers through a programming partnership with MTV.

This year's user-generated competition is also not over yet as Doritos raised the contest stakes by putting up a $1 million bonus prize if a fan-made Doritos ad aired during the Super Bowl takes the top spot in USA TODAY's Ad Meter, beating the pros, to be revealed in tomorrow's edition of USA TODAY.

The brand also announced that it will continue to shine the spotlight on each of its five finalists and their budding careers beyond the Super Bowl by airing all five finalist commercials as its 2009 television advertising campaign. In addition to "Free Doritos" and "Power of the Crunch," the other finalists' ads -- "New Flavor Pitch," "The Chase" and "Too Delicious" will be at the center of Doritos' new campaign.(Source: PR Newswire)

Read more: http://crashthesuperbowl.com/

User-generated content growing

WED, 28 JAN 2009 00:00:00 GMT

Consumers are increasingly taking charge of the creation, distribution and consumption of user generated content - meaning digital content created by nonprofessional users including online video clips, social networking profiles, blogs, wikis, customer reviews, virtual world representations, postings to forums, shared photos...

Emarketer reports that by 2013, 155 million or 70% of US Internet users will consume some form of user-generated content (UGC), up from 116 million in 2008. The number of UGC creators will grow by similar proportions, reaching 115 million 0r 52% in 2013, up from 83 million in 2008.

And this is everybody's game. While the young demographics might be more active on social networks, photo and video sites, wikis and message boards, Technorati noted that most US bloggers are over age 35.

While most marketers are still struggling how to best deal with this phenomenon, and some are getting a little frustrated, more examples appear every day on how brands can engage with consumers on user generated platforms. I mean, if Israel can use Twitter and YouTube to share its point of view...

Read more: http://edition.cnn.com/2008/WORLD/meast/12/31/israel.youtube/

Get to Facebookers with polls

WED, 28 JAN 2009 00:00:00 GMT

Advertisers can try out a new advertising format to reach the elusive Facebook audience: the poll.

CareerBuilder is the first advertiser to test the new ad format. It shows CareerBuilder's Super Bowl ad and asks users to vote on which team will win the game. The ad shows the total number of votes and how many of the user's friends have voted. After voting, users see the breakdown of voting on Facebook. They can also see how their friends voted. When a user takes an action with an ad, Facebook sends notification of this to the user's friend network in their news feeds.

These engagement ads are shown in the upper right corner of the site's main page and within the news feed, where they are marked as sponsor messages. They are sold on a impressions-basis.

AT&T and the World Economic Forum are also lined up to use the polling ad unit, which Facebook plans to make available broadly following what it called an "initial test period" of a few months.(Source: Adweek)

Facebook soaring

MON, 26 JAN 2009 00:00:00 GMT

Just six months ago Facebook and MySpace were about the same size. In November 2008 Facebook drew 200 million unique worldwide visitors. In December, 222 million people visited the site says newly released Comscore stats, a 10.8% month over month growth rate. 22% of the total Internet audience went to Facebook in December.

Facebook now has nearly 100 million more worldwide users than MySpace. The page view difference is even more dramatic: Facebook had 80 billion monthly page views in December v. 43 billion for MySpace. By January 2010, at current relative growth rates, Facebook is also expected to overtake MySpace as the largest U.S. social network.

MySpace commented: "We are laser focused on building a sustainable global business which we measure by profits and revenue - not just eyeballs. In a tough economic climate, our international revenue is up 35 percent year over year and we continue to focus on those markets with the strong monetization opportunities. Additionally, MySpace continues to dominate the U.S. market - where the bulk of online advertising revenues reside - both in terms of monetization and user engagement with more than 76 million unique users and a 40% spike in engagement year over year."

Read more: http://www.techcrunch.com/2009/01/22/facebook-now-nearly-twice-the-size-of-myspace-worldwide/

Ogilvy and Martin Sorrell at MIPTV

MON, 26 JAN 2009 00:00:00 GMT

For the third year in a row Ogilvy will be a key partner of MIPTV, the leading media and content market taking place in Cannes from March 30th until April 3rd.

Demonstrating its thought leadership in branded content and in close collaboration with Unilever, OgilvyInteractive has entered the Content 360 Competition with a brief looking for ideas on how to engage with women through branded content. OgilvyInteractive is Ogilvy Group's cross-discipline digital marketing services enterprise, offering full service creative, marketing, consulting and analytic services in all digital media and new channels to create engaging brand experiences that deliver profitable customer relationship.

OgilvyInteractive is also sponsoring the 'Branded Entertainment & Creativity' track at the event, which will be concluded by Sir Martin Sorrell, CEO of WPP, tackling the theme "What screens will they watch -- and what will be on them?" His speech will turn on the growing convergence of TV, digital media and advertising, said Paul Johnson, head of the TV Division at Reed Midem, which organizes the MIPTV.

With its sponsorship OgilvyInteractive wants to make sure its at the forefront of exploring new advertising channels, formats and business models by partnering with the many TV networks, Content makers, New Media companies, Internet Players, Operators, Technology Companies, Social Networks... present at MIPTV, discussing how to reach the consumer today and tomorrow in the changing media landscape.

OgilvyInteractive also believes content is an increasing popular way to the consumer's heart. Branded content - according to the Branded Content Marketing Association the practice of taking the philosophy and message of a brand and translating that into entertainment properties that consumers want to engage with - and whether that takes the form of branded entertainment on the TV screen - web or mobile TV shows - advergames - or social network widgets, is a growing discipline agencies and advertisers need to master. Ogilvy has centers of excellence in NY and London in branded content - Ogilvy Entertainment - and is quickly growing this expertise around its network.

Last but not least, MIPTV and more specifically its Content 360 Competition allows to - in a web 2.0 spirit - make new connections with an entire industry of small and big companies specialized in inventing and implementing great consumer engagement ideas. This is the third year Ogilvy enters a brief in the competition. Last year its "Using the power of the brand for the power of the good" category received the most entries, outperforming even the popular BBC categories. This year's brief is even more exciting with Unilever partnering from the start looking for great ideas for brands such as Dove, Omo and Knorr to engage women and new mums with.

Hear CNBC Europe interview Paul O'Donnell, Vice-Chairman Ogilvy Group EAME and Chairman OgilvyOne EAME, on Ogilvy's sponsorship of MIPTV by going to the link below.

Read more: http://www.cnbc.com/id/15840232?video=707158946

Branded Music Hits

SAT, 24 JAN 2009 00:00:00 GMT

Last year in the US branded entertainment spending grew by 22%, trailing only video game advertising (50% growth), mobile advertising (30% growth) and the 'online video - social networking - widgets' category (40% growth). Around the world branded entertainment is getting more attention from brands - whether it takes the form of a branded TV show, a web series, or a mobisodes.

At this year's Midem, the music industy's annual event at Cannes, a lot of talk, panel discussions and announcements were about the growing involvement of brands with music. AdAge reports the following ones:

*** Coke revealed a branded song featuring Patrick Stump from Fallout Boy, Travis McCoy from Gym Class Heroes, Brendon Urie from Panic At the Disco, Cee-Lo Green (of Gnarls Barkley) and Janelle Monae. The track "Open Happiness" will be released digitally in March via Atlantic, and, in addition to its appearance in TV spots in over 100 countries, the performers will be printed on over 200 billion cans in France and the U.K. For the release, Atlantic records and Coke will split the proceeds of sales of the single, with Coke using a proportion of their share for their "Live Positively" campaign. Coke, which commissioned the song, will also retain ownership of the publishing rights, which, if the single takes off, could prove valuable.

*** Bacardi and British dance band Groove Armada announced a new online collaboration under which the band will release a new extended track via Bacardi's B Live global music site. Fans who register on the site will get the first MP3 for free and will be encouraged to share the track via a Facebook application, e-mail or a widget available for other social networks. Once they share the track with twenty friends, they will be sent the second track for free. According to coverage in Billboard, the sharing process is automated and the original user increases his or her share-count among a network of friends, up to three generations. So one friend could pass it on to several people, and those people could each pass it on to several more, with the original users share tally constantly increasing. As the process continues, the original user will get access to more tracks: track three becomes available after 200 shares of track one, and when that reaches 2,000, track four will be unlocked. The more first-generation friends, the quicker that total will be reached.

*** For the second year running, Grey Worldwide's senior VP-director of music, Josh Rabinowitz, has announced that client P&G is inviting delegates attending Midem to submit tracks for use in a in a new CoverGirl campaign. Last year Mr. Rabinowitz gathered tracks in a similar way for a Pantene campaign in summer 2008 that featured the song "Shine," co-written by Rosi Golan and Human, a New York-based music house. This year, CoverGirl is, according to the submission criteria, looking for a song that is "positive, emotional and encourages women to step it up -- take a chance -- be their own COVERGIRL."

From music download to stream

FRI, 23 JAN 2009 00:00:00 GMT

In the UK - Europe's strongest digital market - downloads account for only 13% of total music sales, with CDs remaining the dominant music format. Mulligan's research shows that only 9% of UK internet users purchase paid downloads, while 42% buy CDs or music DVDs.

And the success of the iPod has done little so far to boost download sales: 83% of European iPod owners say they do not regularly buy digital music, apparently preferring to fill their devices with ripped CDs - or illegal downloads.

But 24% of UK internet users listen to streaming music - for example, on-demand tracks via MySpace, radio content from the BBC iPlayer, or, increasingly, personalised playlists from services such as Last.fm. "Cloud-based music will most likely replace downloads to some extent," says Eliot Van Buskirk, who writes about music technology at Wired's Epicenter blog (blog.wired.com/business). "The younger demographic already thinks of YouTube and MySpace as the places to go to hear music right away, and devices such as the iPhone already provide access to thousands of customisable stations on Pandora, Last.fm, imeem and so on."

Significantly, cloud-based streaming services offer instant access to music without the need for download or purchase. "We definitely see a move towards access rather than ownership," says Christian Ward of Last.fm, the London-based (and CBS-owned) music-streaming and recommendation service, which has 25 million users. "Since we launched we've been working towards providing access to every piece of music ever made, wherever you are, and our iPhone app - plus recent partnerships with hardware device companies and mobile firms - helps us get closer to achieving that goal. You can have access to millions of tracks on the go, instead of the limited amount of files you have on your iPod, which is ultimately a glorified Walkman in comparison."

Social networking plays a big part in the appeal of streaming services. Last.fm is based around a music-recommendation engine, imeem is a music-centred social-networking site, and Pandora - currently unavailable in the UK due to licensing restrictions - generates playlists based on musical attributes catalogued by musicians. Spotify, another startup which offers web-based music streaming, lets people create collaborative playlists while offering a huge range of music: it will have U2's latest single ahead even of digital "shops".

But on the downside, streaming services have costs. Napster, which will launch a new web version this year offering unlimited streaming playback of its catalogue from any computer, is subscription-based, and costs from GBP9.95 per month. Spotify - currently in beta - charges GBP9.99 per month for a premium subscription (though it also has a free ad-supported version). Last.fm, imeem, Pandora and similar services such as Seeqpod and Blip.fm are also ad-supported and free to the end-user.

Mulligan thinks the future lies with ad-supported and subsidised services - where internet and mobile providers bundle music access into packages. "When you take out the pay aspect, usage goes up," he says. The Danish internet service provider TDC's Play service bundles unlimited free streaming and downloads into its subscription, and Nokia's Comes With Music also offers unlimited streaming and downloads for 12 months with the purchase of a specific handset. Sky is known to be planning to bundle music access into its broadband and TV packages. (Source: The Guardian)

Read more: http://www.guardian.co.uk/technology/2009/jan/22/digitalmusic-drm

Brands and Twitter

FRI, 23 JAN 2009 00:00:00 GMT

Thank you Mashable.com for sharing the 40 best Twitter brands. The article gives an overview per category - cars, travel, entertainment, finance, retail, and more big brands - of which brands tweet, who's behind the updates, how many followers they have, what they tweet about.

Most brand tweets are updated by one person. Many are still experimenting but nearly all claim it's a great way to be in touch with consumers, get feedback, and answer questions.

Some of most successful ones include:
*** On why Dell tweets: "Which Dell account... there are lots of them :-) Content subscriptions, deals and offers and then people connecting. All with one purpose: so people can connect with Dell in ways they want/meaningful for them."
*** Starbucks Official Tweeter is Brad Nelson and he's doing everything right... responding to DMs, replying to mentions of Starbucks, trying to help customers find resolutions to their problems, and putting out fires left and right. Stats: 31,616 following/30,270 followers
***Zappos Official Tweeter: CEO Tony Hsieh needs no introductions. His Twitter celebrity has been earned through diligently building up a reputation of stellar customer service and innovative web outreach efforts. Tony's famous for his Twitter replies. Stats: 36,893 following/32,562 followers
***why is JetBlue tweeting?: "Our goal would be to make ourselves available, help whenever possible, and to show that our brand is built by real people who care about our customers." Stats: 10,771 following/10,076 followers
*** Ford Official Tweeter: Scott Monty is the super social head of social media at Ford. According to Monty, Ford made the jump to Twitter when he came up with the "idea to tweet on behalf of Ford and to harmonize all of our accounts; i.e., every account starts with @Ford." Why Ford tweets: "It's part of a larger social media strategy to humanize the Ford brand and put consumers in touch with Ford employees." Stats: 8,425 following/8,494 followers

Read more: http://mashable.com/2009/01/21/best-twitter-brands/

Obama Mobile Marketer 2008

THU, 22 JAN 2009 00:00:00 GMT

One of the leading news publications covering mobile marketing, media and commerce - Mobile Marketer - has named Barack Obama the Mobile Marketer of the Year 2008 for all his mobile marketing efforts built on 2 simple platforms: the 62262 (spells OBAMA) common short code and the http://obamamobile.mobi or http://m.barackobama.com mobile sites.

The publication cites the following reasons for the win:
Obama used the mobile phone to truly 'engaging' with those who opted-in to messages.
Second, the messages - be they SMS text or video or interactive voice response or on the mobile Web site - were focused, simple and inviting. It was personal.
Third, the messaging came across as authentic. For example, Mr. Obama wasn't afraid to ask for help through his text messaging.
Fourth, mobile was a strategy, and not a tactic. Mr. Obama's mobile marketing team was sensitive to the time, place, appeal and device of the target audience. They used mobile as a targeted, mass medium.
Fifth, the mobile campaign was an integral part of Mr. Obama's multichannel efforts.
Sixth, the mobile effort generated ROI: foot traffic at primaries and rallies, contributions, and of course votes.
Finally, the overall mobile effort came across as genuine.

Some of Mobile Marketer's favorite mobile tactics included an SMS message to rally attendance when Mr. Obama was in town, asking for get-out-the-vote assistance at the primaries and in the general election, request for donations, announcing Joe Biden's selection as running mate to an estimated 2.9 million opted-in list of eager supporters, a simple thank-you message of "We-did-it-together" on Election Night, and the thank-you SMS message sent just minutes after Mr. Obama was elected on Nov. 4 night: "We just made history. All of this happened because you gave your time, talent and passion to this campaign. All of this happened because of you. Barack."

The below links leads to a nice overview of the new President's mobile strategy.

Read more: http://www.mobilemarketer.com/cms/opinion/editorials/2049.html

Ogilvy Digital Innovation Lab

THU, 22 JAN 2009 00:00:00 GMT

Interactive furniture?
Mobile phone dart games?
3D Television ads?
Interactive floor projectors?
The Ogilvy Digital Innovation Lab in London has them all. Read more in MobiAd News.

Read more: http://www.mobiadnews.com/?p=2753

Safe Sex goes mobile

TUE, 20 JAN 2009 00:00:00 GMT

UK teenagers are more concerned with getting respect from their peers than almost anything else. The Department for Children, Schools and Families wanted to reduce the level of teenage pregnancy and the incidence of sexually transmitted infections in 15-18 year olds by aligning condom usage with respect.

The Department's solution was to create the UK's first interactive mobile drama, entitled THMBNLS (thumbnails). The weekly made-for-mobile soap opera focuses on the lives of six teenagers and challenges the audience to watch, interact and share their opinions with the cast and other viewers.

Viewers can register online at www.thmbnls.co.uk or on WAP at www.thmbnls.mobi to have an episode delivered to their mobile every week for 22 weeks. The organization crucially wanted the show to be free, so negotiated with 5 UK mobile networks to ensure that all data charges were zero-rated. The cast is was made up from local youth groups who deliver genuine, non-preaching subtle safe sex messages that are relevant to young people.

Each 60 second episode follows Billy, Jakki, Gripper, Books, Mundy and Lupe and deals with an issue relating to using a condom and at the end of each episode the viewers can interact with the drama. Many of the episodes are personalized with the viewers' names appearing in characters' mobile phone books featured in the plot, on posters and graffiti featured in the drama. (Source: CMDglobal.com)

Read more: http://www.thmbnls.co.uk

Louis Vuitton store windows promote new site

TUE, 20 JAN 2009 00:00:00 GMT

Marc Jacobs has been a long-time admirer of the artist and designer Stephen Sprouse who, in the New York of the 1980s, pioneered the merging of downtown street wear with uptown high fashion, and whose graffiti had become an unmistakable signature on clothes and artworks. They worked together on a incredibly successful 2001 Louis Vuitton Spring/Summer collection of which the famous graffiti bags were quickly sold out and became collector items. Today Louis Vuitton has launched a new collection in hommage of Sprouse who died in 2004. Welovesprouse.com, developed by OgilvyInteractive Paris, is first and foremost a true tribute to Stephen Sprouse Legacy and the 1980s. It goes beyond products and Louis Vuitton and adds a 2009 twist: 3D navigation, amazing 80s music, video interviews of Stephen's friends Debbie Harry, Patricia Field and many more. Anybody can pay tribute by Leaving a Message and "scrawl the wall." The site is promoted through louisvuitton.com and online PR. But the most important traffic driver are undoubtedly the dedicated windows at the 420 worldwide Louis Vuitton stores, tripling site visits since they were launched.

Read more: http://www.welovesprouse.com

Chat Live on TV thanks to Cisco

MON, 19 JAN 2009 00:00:00 GMT

To demonstrate the power of the Human Network - or how technology allows us to achieve great things together - Cisco France today invites French consumers every week to its human network website to discuss - in words or video - a particular aspect about the role of technology in our daily lives with famous French blogger Versac.

Every Saturday, the six best contributors receive a Cisco webcam to participate in a live TV show featuring famous guests on the number 1 TV info channel in France, BFM. Check out the amazing multi-chat tool.

All episodes are of course available on the site as well. And if you want to, the twitter feed from Versac can keep you connected all the time.

A beta test in May and June of last year of 8 episodes was so successful that Cisco decided to roll-out 36 episodes on TV screens in France at the start of 2009. Developed by OgilvyInteractive Paris.

Read more: http://www.human-network.fr

13 Skills of the PR Pro of the Future

TUE, 13 JAN 2009 00:00:00 GMT

1. Create integrated marketing and communications strategy
2. Deploy live 'listening posts' online and offline
3. Design and deploy an advanced search engine optimization program
4. Plan and run a new media relations program inclusive of head-of-the-tail and long tail "media"
5. Identify & engage with influencers online and offline
6. Manage communities
7. Integrate new technologies into their own lives
8. Model measurement and performance metrics including new "engagement" metrics
9. Run quick pilot programs and evaluate on-the-fly
10. Train staff and clients continuously
11. Participate in conversations, not just 'messaging'
12. Create and execute content strategy including video programming (hifi and lowfi)
13. Use digital crisis management

Read more on John Bell's blog!

Read more: http://johnbell.typepad.com/weblog/2009/01/the-pr-professional-of-the-future-2009-edition.html

Obama.com still going strong

TUE, 13 JAN 2009 00:00:00 GMT

I suppose many were wondering how Barack Obama was going to follow up on the groundbreaking digital marketing strategy that won him ... well, a bigger title than just 2008 AdAge Marketer of the Year.

With the help of Chris Hughes, one of the founders of Facebook, Barack's team created what wasn't simply a way to earn more money from small donors than previously thought possible; but an Obama-specific distributed 'anytime, anywhere' social network that took advantage of and built upon the movement-like quality of the Obama campaign. As AdAge reports: "By the time other candidates on either side of the aisle got around to copying my.barackobama.com, they were too late to the party." The website itself was a rarity for political campaigns being invitation-based, intimate, personal as well as offering scale and momentum. P.S. 14% of Barack Obama's online traffic in August came from paid search.

The entire campaign combined great branding principles, with traditional marketing, influencer and niche marketing. And consumers acted upon the invitation to participate with much of the consumer-generated material being produced by professionals... Will.i.am's music video featuring celebrities reading an Obama speech top-listing on YouTube being one of the most famous examples (http://tinyurl.com/2upsz4).
AdAge highlights the amazing consistency across media, platforms, messaging and audiences. "They've managed to drive a potent, single-minded design and messaging coherence that should shame many national brands."

And now we can add continuity to the list. BarackObama.com is still selling to contributors who want to commemorate his victory by obtaining T-shirts, coffee mugs, pins and refrigerator magnets. New items have been added - such as a four-year calendar - with emails alerting the database. Obviously, we hope that the ongoing digital strategy will go beyond promotions... With the site was still getting more than 300,000 visitors daily, let's watch this space.

On-demand directly via your TV

FRI, 09 JAN 2009 00:00:00 GMT

Those who want to bring the wide world of Web video to their television screens usually need a separate device - a video-game console, DVD player or set-top box with Internet access. Now they will be able to take a more direct route. LG Electronics, the third-largest television manufacturer in terms of United States sales, has announced a line of televisions that can directly receive Internet video in addition to satellite and cable signals.

LG's line of LCD and plasma televisions will be called Broadband HDTVs and are expected to cost around USD 300 more than comparable models without Internet access, said Tim Alessi, director of product development at LG Electronics.

Owners of the televisions will not be able to browse the Web freely - the TVs' processors and memory chips are not up to that task. But the Broadband HDTVs will have access to a variety of specific video sites, include YouTube and Netflix - the well-known video retailer. The televisions will be able to stream any of the 12,000 films and television shows in Netflix's Watch Instantly library.(New York Times)

Consumers are the new publishers

FRI, 09 JAN 2009 00:00:00 GMT

With interruptive banners not being clicked on social networks, many consumer goods companies have been attempting more innovative formats on Facebook such as groups, profiles, and applications. But even these are not guaranteed to work.

After Kraft had seen little uptake of its Recipe Assistant that gives daily cooking tips with just 152 monthly active users, it decided to go into a different direction... by playing into consumers' holiday hearts and develop a cause-related Facebook application. Kraft donates six meals to hungry families through the Feeding America charity for each friend users convince to add the application. When a user adds the application, a notification is sent to friends via the News Feed, the ticker updating friend activities on the social network.

So far, the approach appears to be working. In less than two weeks, more than 25,000 Facebook users have added the Kraft application. That translates into 1.4 million meals donated. Kraft has promised to provide up to 3.2 million meals through the program. At its current rate, it is on pace to reach that goal-- with 50,000 application installations -- sometime next month.

The reason why this one works? The social status users achieve. If you want to integrate your brand into social media, there's needs to be a real benefit. As SocialVibe CEO's Joe Marchese rightfully said: "People are publishers of social content."

thedailyinfluence.com

THU, 08 JAN 2009 00:00:00 GMT

A new initiative of Ogilvy 360A? Digital Influence and Netvibes, the Daily Influence delivers Social Media, Word of Mouth, Public Relations and Marketing news and information updates into a single interface. Marketers can also customize one view to serve as a simple "listening post-lite" for their brand or their client to know what people are saying in consumer generated media.

The service was developed by Ogilvy PR's 360A? Digital Influence team in partnership with Netvibes, the ultimate RSS reader and widget platform. Netvibes universal widget architecture (UWA) made it simple to develop The Daily Influence as a best-collection of RSS feeds that can easily be customized by communications and marketing pros to be as useful as possible. Netvibes pioneered the concept of personalized startpages and maintains one of the largest widget networks in the world.

John Bell, Managing Director, 360A? Digital Influence, Ogilvy PR: "Especially in today's economy, marketers need every edge they can get managing their brands and business. The Daily Influence is a heads-up display for marketing in the social Web. It delivers real-time news, best-practice cases, and a simple collection of utilities that will help professionals listen to what is being said about their topics and brand."

Read more: http://www.thedailyinfluence.com

WWW = 186.727.854 sites

THU, 08 JAN 2009 00:00:00 GMT

According to British Internet Services company Netscraft, the Internet today counts 186.727.854 sites which is 30 million more than in 2007.

In 1995 the web consisted of 19.000 sites. The magic 1 million number was reached in 1997. In 2006 the cap of 100 million sites was breached. And while the growth is still impressive, it was still 40% in 2007 while only 17% last year.

Netcraft nevertheless also reports that a little less than half of these sites are active and that quite a few of sites only serve as redirects to pornographic destinations.

Tracking iPhone apps

THU, 08 JAN 2009 00:00:00 GMT

AdMob launched Download Tracking for iPhone applications. For the first time, advertisers can accurately monitor App Store conversion rates - clicks on an ad that lead to a completed download of the advertised application - enabling them to precisely measure their return from advertising on AdMob's network. AdMob has an unparalleled reach of more than 8.4 million unique iPhones and iPod Touch devices worldwide, as of December 2008.

Advertisers can use Download Tracking to view and track multiple applications and drill down to look at conversion rates by specific ad and for specific dates. AdMob's advertisers are already using this new information to write better ads, calculate their return on ad spend, tune their App Info pages, and develop better pricing strategies.

A limited group of iPhone applications began testing AdMob's Download Tracking in December, and the aggregate data already highlights some interesting trends:
** Free applications have an average conversion rate of 10 percent, significantly higher than the average 1 percent conversion rate for paid applications.
** Games generally have higher conversion rates than other categories of applications, up to a 100 percent improvement over non-game applications at similar price points.
** The App Store is an effective distribution platform for free applications. The average acquisition cost for free applications is under $1.00, significantly less than average application download costs on the PC Web.

AdMob served its first ad unit on an iPhone in September 2007 and launched its new global iPhone ad marketplace, with ads specifically designed for the device, in July 2008. AdMob has seen explosive growth in advertiser interest over the past several months and in December 2008 ran campaigns for companies including JC Penney, Marriott Courtyard, and Sony's Seven Pounds.

Read more: http://developer.admob.com/wiki/AppStoreDownloads

Budget-conscious consumers

TUE, 06 JAN 2009 00:00:00 GMT

Not only is the recession driving more consumers into their own kitchen, they are changing what they cook and how they decide what to prepare. According to comScore, food sites attracted 45.6 million unique visitors in September 2008, up 10% from 2007 - more than double the rate of total Internet growth in the US.

eMarketer reports that the leading US recipe site Allrecipes.com registered a jump in the number of site visitors and recipe searches, as well as a trend in the types of ingredients being searched when the economy began to falter earlier in 2008.

"We saw an 8% increase in searches for lower-priced ingredients like ground beef and less-expensive cuts of meat," Lisa Sharples, president of Allrecipes.com, told eMarketer. "We also noticed that more people overall were searching the site by ingredients instead of by recipe," she added. "Rather than searching a recipe and then buying those ingredients, users are buying ingredients that are on sale and then finding a recipe that uses them."

In response Allrecipes.com added a budget cooking section which is a collection of articles, videos and money-saving tips written by the editorial staff. Users are also invited to submit wallet-friendly recipes.

Wikipedia collects USD 6mio

MON, 05 JAN 2009 00:00:00 GMT

Whether this is evidence of online destinations having a hard time figuring out their business model or of the fact that people will pay for web services they like, Wikipedia has managed to assure its survival by collecting USD 6mio from 125.000 contributors (USD 4mio) and a few important donations.

Since July 1st 2008 Wikipedia's founder Jimmy Wales had launched a request on his site for users to donate money to support the daily operations of the online encyclopedia 'for the people, by the people'. According to Wales 150.000 editorial volunteers have contributed to more than 11mio articles on Wikipedia, in 265 languages - free information with no advertising. The site counts 275mio visitors every month.

Read more: http://wikimediafoundation.org/wiki/Donate/ThankYou/en?utm_source=2008_jimmy_thank_you&utm_medium=sitenotice&utm_campaign=fundraiser2008#appeal

TiVo is now selling ads

THU, 18 DEC 2008 00:00:00 GMT

TiVo, pioneer of the ad-skipping DVR, is looking to make money by selling sponsorships that appear when users hit the pause button.

Promotions on the Pause Menu will be displayed as a single line of text. Another line will link the viewer directly to TiVoa??s Universal Swivel Search, allowing users with broadband-connected DVRs to find related shows and other information. The new feature is available to TiVo Series2 subscribers.

Pause Menu ads can be displayed on the pause screen of a live or time-shifted program, and TiVo will offer options to target genres or keywords within a program description.

The company said it has signed two initial sponsors for the a??Pause Menua?? ads: Mercedes-Benz USA, which will promote its GLK sports-utility vehicle in early 2009 by targeting football viewers, and 20th Century Fox Home Entertainment, which plans to promote a DVD release.

Make search your own

TUE, 16 DEC 2008 00:00:00 GMT

Google is launching SearchWiki, a way to customize search by re-ranking, deleting, adding, and commenting on search results. With just a single click, you can move the results you like to the top or add a new site. You can also write notes attached to a particular site and remove results that you don't feel belong.

These modifications will be shown to you every time you do the same search in the future. SearchWiki is available to signed-in Google users. Google stores your changes in your Google Account.

The changes you make only affect your own searches. But SearchWiki also is a great way to share your insights with other searchers. You can see how the community has collectively edited the search results by clicking on the "See all notes for this SearchWiki" link.

This new feature is an example of how search is becoming increasingly dynamic, giving people tools that make search even more useful to them in their daily lives.

Watch how to use SearchWiki in this short video by clicking on the link below.

Read more: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t8Pl1H0dIXE

Blog influence on consumer purchases eclipses social networks

MON, 15 DEC 2008 00:00:00 GMT

BuzzLogic revealed the results of its 'Harnessing the Power of Blog's survey, a sponsored research study of more than 2,000 online consumers in the US conducted by JupiterResearch, a Forrester research company. The study aimed to uncover changing behavior around blog discovery and consumption, how blogs factor into consumer purchase decisions and the nature of blog influence on buying behavior.

The results suggest frequent blog readers (defined as consumers who read blogs more than once per month) use blogs as the top online navigation tool to discover other blog content, ranking higher than general Web search or blog search. Demonstrating a 300 percent growth in monthly blog readership over the past four years, the study also confirmed blog readers are strongly influenced by blog content when it comes to purchase decisions across a number of categories, and that blogs play a key role in ushering readers to the point of an actual purchase.

Blog readers do not appear to rely as heavily on search as a means to find new blogs as compared to consumers of traditional online media. According to the survey, one in five general blog readers (defined as consumers who have read a blog in the past 12 months) use blog links to discover new blogs. Further, the study suggests blogs are not consumed in isolation, but experienced as part of a connected conversation -- nearly half (49 percent) of blog readers and 71 percent of frequent readers read more than one blog per session.

Key findings include:

** Links more powerful than search: For frequent readers, links beat search as a navigation tool: 38 percent said blog links were the top tool for discovering new blog content as compared to 34 percent who voted for Web search.

** Links signal trust: For frequent readers, blog links appear to have similar impact as a trusted recommendation from a person (a response from 39 percent of survey participants).

** Blog search not yet mainstream: Blog search engines received the lowest ranking from respondents: 6 percent of general readers and 11 percent of frequent readers say they use these tools to discover new blogs.

** Blogs influence purchases: One half (50 percent) of blog readers say they find blogs useful for purchase information.

** Blogs sway more purchases among readers than social networks: More frequent blog readers say they trust relevant blog content for purchase decisions than content from social networking sites.

** Niche focus ups influence factor: For those who have found blog content useful for product decisions, more than half (56 percent) said blogs with a niche focus and topical expertise were key sources.

** Blogs go beyond tech: Outside of technology-related purchases, for which 31 percent of readers say blogs are useful, other key categories include media and entertainment (15 percent); games/toys and/or sporting goods (14 percent); travel (12 percent); automotive (11 percent); and health (10 percent).

According to the study, blogs factor in to critical stages of the purchase process, weighing most heavily at the actual moment of a purchase decision. When it comes to respondents who said they have trusted blog content for purchase decisions in the past, over half (52 percent) say blogs played a role in the critical moment they decided to move forward with a purchase. Blog readers also replied around blogs' influence as it relates to the following steps of the purchase process:

** Decide on a product or service: 21 percent

** Refine choices: 19 percent

** Get support and answers: 19 percent

** Discover products and services: 17 percent

** Assure: 14 percent

** Inspire a purchase: 13 percent

** Execute a purchase: 7 percent

For frequent blog readers, ads on blogs are on par with sponsored search results, one of the most prevalent and successful forms of advertising on the Web, and trust of blog advertising exceeds that around social networking site advertising. Twenty-five percent of these readers say they trust ads on a blog they read; paid search links also accounted for 25 percent of the responses. Nineteen percent say they trust ads on social networking sites.

** The study also suggests ads on blogs spur a number of activities:

** 40 percent of blog readers have taken action as a result of viewing an ad on a blog; 50 percent of frequent blog readers say this is the case.

** Top activities include: read product reviews online (17 percent); sought out more info on a product or service (16 percent); visited a manufacturer or retailer website (16 percent)

About this survey

A total of 2,210 individuals responded to the survey. Respondents were asked approximately 40 closed-ended questions about their behaviors, attitudes, and preferences as they relate to media and entertainment, including ten questions relating to blogs. The samples were carefully balanced by a series of demographic and behavioral characteristics to ensure that they were representative of the online population. Demographic weighting variables included age, gender, household income, household education, household type, region, market size, race, Hispanic ethnicity, online tenure, connection speed, and student status. Balancing quotas were derived from JupiterResearch's Internet population model, which relies on US Census Bureau data and a rich foundation of primary consumer survey research to determine the size and demographics of the US online population. The survey data are fully applicable to the US online population within a confidence interval of plus or minus three percent.

Branded Entertainment for chocolate

TUE, 18 NOV 2008 00:00:00 GMT

In order to engage young females, OgilvyOne Athens creates a branded entertainment campaign for Greece's leading chocolate bar, Lacta.

"Love at first site" is actually an interactive film, shot entirely on location at the Greek island of Paros, and in Athens.

It is a story of how Petros, a young Greek man and Joanna, an English girl on vacation at the island of Paros, fall in love 'at first sight', and spend a magic week together, only to break up and never see each other again. The story unfolds in 'flash back; and users get to experience the love story from the beginning. Only through their actions and correct choices can they progress the love story and bring the two heroes back together at the big finale, two years after the events at Paros.

The website is part of an integrated campaign aiming to engage 18-24 young women and men, the primary target group for "Lacta", one of the most renowned chocolate brands in Greece. The campaign is also promoting sales, by placing special "on-pack" codes, that users could then submit on the website and get tips in order to progress the story.

The website is enjoying great success in Greece, with some 70.000 visits in the first month, and a big fan base of 2.500 facebook users commenting on the storyline and its genuine romanticism.

You can help the love story unfold, just click the link below.

Read more: http://www.loveatfirstsite.gr/en/

If you missed the Monaco Media Forum...

MON, 17 NOV 2008 00:00:00 GMT

MMF brought together 12-14 November in Monte Carlo leaders of new and old media for two and a half days of high-level discussions about the future of online, broadcast and print communication. Aggressively global in outlook, this invitation-only event focuses on emerging opportunities in technology, distribution and content, as well as the implications for marketing and finance. Thanks to a partnership with YouTube, you can watch the 34 speeches and panels in full by clicking on the link below.

Read more: http://www.youtube.com/monacomediaforum

Social media to buy

WED, 29 OCT 2008 00:00:00 GMT

According to the Razorfish Digital Consumer Behavior Study (available on Truffles to Ogilvy employees), connected consumers are adopting social media and web 2.0 technologies with startling regularity, are actively building and refining their own trusted personal networks and are rapidly dabbling with emerging communication offerings like Twitter.

The Consumer Behavior Study also contains tips for marketers on the eve of a challenging holiday season, such as the importance of personalization and loyalty programs.

Amongst the key findings, 65 percent of connected consumers say that retail loyalty programs highly influence purchasing decisions. Websites that give personalized recommendations strongly influence connected consumers. Of the total surveyed, 65 percent said that they have made a repeat purchase on a site that issued an automated recommendation based on their previous purchase.

The report also contains several essays, such as Mad Widgetry, and Life After the iPhone, which examine the impact of web 2.0 and social media on consumer behavior across the digital world, as well as implications for marketers. The uptake of widgets, mobile devices and social media tells us that marketers need to design experiences for consumers across a world of fragmented digital media.

Not all online video viewers are created equal

FRI, 24 OCT 2008 00:00:00 GMT

A new commissioned study conducted by Forrester Consulting on behalf of Veoh Networks, "Watching the Web: How Online Video Engages Audiences" reveals that while some online video viewers still only 'snack' on short clips, there exists a large audience of young, influential, engaged viewers who watch a great deal of long-form online video and pay attention to the brand messages delivered to them in online video environments.

The study found that Engaged Viewers (viewers who watch more than an hour of online video a week) make up nearly 40% of all online video viewers and watch nearly 75% of all online video. Of these Engaged Viewers, those who spend the most time consuming and sharing long-form content:
** Are more likely to watch videos all the way through
** Pay more attention to online video more than they do TV
** Interact with and rate the videos they watch more frequently
** Are twice as likely to recall in-video ads and post-rolls than non-Engaged Viewers
** Agree more readily that advertising is fair and helps pay for their free experience
** Consider banner ads and ads that come in between videos (mid-rolls) most effective.

For Engaged Viewers, online video viewing is not a fad but rather a growing consumer habit: 61% of Engaged Viewers expect to spend significantly more time watching online video in the next year. The study also found that Engaged Viewers are young: while 13- to 24-year-olds make up only 15% of the online population, they represent more than 35% of Engaged online video viewers. In addition, Engaged Viewers watch an average of 6 kinds of video content - from animation to TV shows to movie trailers - during the course of a month.

The study further segmented Engaged Viewers into three sub-groups based on time spent watching video, types of videos watched, comfort level managing the video viewing experience, propensity to share videos, and amount of attention paid to online video compared to TV:
** Watchers, those who spend just over an hour watching video each week but, besides showing up to watch, don't engage the experience deeply by controlling playback or sharing videos
** Controllers, those who go one step further; these younger viewers take an active role in controlling their video experiences and feel that online video is important to their lives
** Connectors, though just 7% of online viewers, consume 20% of all online video and do 42% of all online video sharing.

The most desirable viewers - Connectors and Controllers - watch long-form video more often than Watchers do, so sites that offer a great deal of long-form video are the ideal places to reach them. Long-form video sites not only attract these viewers, but they also foster an environment that secures more viewer attention and engagement with advertising. Given that both Connectors and Controllers spend more time on long-form video sites, they are more apt to feel that advertising is a fair trade off to pay for online video services. Even more important, Connectors are significantly more likely to notice brands and feel ads are useful when presented with products they are interested in.

As online video viewing matures, advertisers can take advantage of the unique opportunity to reach valuable Engaged Viewers by starting with the following:

1. Think Advertainment, not Advertisement: Engaged video viewers are more open to enjoying the advertising they watch giving marketers an opportunity to create ads that are as entertaining as the video clips they are paired with. Make the advertising a part of this engaging environment by telling compelling stories rather than consistently repeating the same 30-second spot.

2. Active mindset = greater action: Engaged video viewers are more involved in every aspect of the viewing experience, including the advertising. In contrast, watchers who sit down to watch a 1-minute user-generated clip come to the screen with very different mindsets. Consider having multiple creative units depending on the mindset d propensity to engage with the medium.

3. Think about all the ad units on the page as a team: All viewers feel advertising can be annoying. But none of them said it had to be annoying. Engaged viewers respond to ad formats that don't intrude unfairly. Their preference for banner ads supports this. But banner ads can be supported by a comprehensive ad experience that ties display ads, sponsorships, and in-video ads together into a coherent package.

4. Target it and they will come: As more viewers spend more than an hour a week viewing online video, it's time for advertisers and the sites that enable them to start matching ads to viewers more intelligently. The easiest place to do this is with long-form content, where the choice of programming a??an episode of one's favorite tv showa?? says more about a viewer than a short clip about a dog on a skateboard ever can.

Methodology:Forrester Consulting conducted this study with more than 1,013 people who watch online video at least an hour each week. These responses were calibrated against Forrester's ongoing Consumer Technographics research to ensure response validity. Building on this insight, a sub-sample of 10 individuals who completed the online survey and gave explicit permission to be contacted for a follow-up interview were recruited to participate in 10 one-hour, phone-based in-depth interviews to discuss their experience with online video more fully. The combination of rigorous quantitative measures and qualitative insight paint a picture of today's engaged online video viewer.

Yahoo! geo-targets users on ZIP code

WED, 22 OCT 2008 00:00:00 GMT

Geo-targeting is a clever little feature that can analyze a user's search query, their Internet Protocol (IP) address and other user information to determine where they are and what ads to serve to them. While geo-targeting is usually seen as limiting your area to fewer clicks, one new geo-targeting feature can actually bring you more traffic. If you were trying to reach United States customers before, your choices were either to select the entire market - both the U.S. and Canada - or individually select each of the 50 states.

Up until recently, the geo-targeting functionality was built around Designated Marketing Area (DMA), regions determined by Nielsen Media Research, the Nielsen group who conducts the TV ratings surveys. However, some advertisers need even more focus, especially in more populous regions. Yahoo! now lets you zoom in on targeted cities and, in a beta feature, ZIP codes as well.

IAB Internet Advertising Revenue Report first half of '08

MON, 20 OCT 2008 00:00:00 GMT

The Interactive Advertising Bureau and PricewaterhouseCoopers released the IAB Internet Advertising Revenue Report a??available on Truffles to Ogilvy employeesa?? covering the first six months and the second quarter of 2008. Internet advertising revenues (U.S.) for the first six months of 2008 were $11.5 billion, setting yet another new half-year record that represents a 15.2 percent increase over the first half of 2007. The second quarter of '08 was up 12.8% over the same period of 2007 and showed a slight decline of 0.3% from the first quarter.

Search and Display-related advertising continue to set records. Search revenues totaled almost $5.1 billion for the first six months of 2008, up 24 percent from the $4.1 billion for the same period in 2007. Display-related advertising totaled close to $3.8 billion for first six months of 2008, compared to the $3.2 billion reported for the same period in 2007, showing about a 19% increase. Display-related advertising includes Display Banner ads, Rich Media, Digital Video, and Sponsorship.

Conducted by the New Media Group of PricewaterhouseCoopers, the results are considered the most accurate measurement of interactive advertising revenues with the data compiled directly from information supplied by companies selling advertising on the Internet. The survey includes data concerning online advertising revenues from Web sites, commercial online services, ad networks, free e-mail providers, and all other companies selling online advertising. First and third quarter revenue reports are estimates, with the actual figures being released along with second and fourth quarter data respectively. PwC does not audit the information and provides no opinion or other form of assurance with respect to the information.

Consumers' real online ad preferences

WED, 15 OCT 2008 00:00:00 GMT

iPerceptions, a leading provider of web-focused analytics, announced the results of a new study that delivers accurate insights into which types of online ads are popular with consumers. iPerceptions collected user-generated feedback from over 14,000 visitors to leading media sites during the month of August 2008 to paint a detailed picture of consumer advertising preferences based on their likelihood to click on different types of online ads.

The study found that, despite current buzz around video ads, marketers do not need to spend on fancy interactive ads in order to reach consumers. In fact, consumers are most likely to click on simple text ads (25% of respondents). Display ads follow in popularity, with 20% of respondents likely to click on right banners and 12% likely to click on top banners. A surprising finding of the study is that video ads are not very popular among most consumers; only 11% of consumers said they were likely to click on video ads.

And 25 to 34 year-olds show no special affinity for video, being just as likely to click on video ads as text, right and top banners. The only consumers who seem to be engaged by video ads are young people under the age of 25, a group that accounts for nearly one-third of the video-ad viewing audience.

The iPerceptions study also unearthed some important data about how income level and frequency of visits impact consumer ad preferences. As advertisers plan key media buys to boost sales during the upcoming holiday season, they would do well to plan marketing messages and targeting tactics around the study's finding that the likelihood that a person will click on an ad goes down as their income rises. On average, 40% of consumers likely to click on any ad make less than USD50K a year - and only 15% make over USD150K. The income gap is most pronounced with video ads, with 49% of consumers likely to click on video ads making less than USD50K a year - and only 13% making over USD150K.

Web marketers and publishers should also note that clicks come from loyal audiences. Across the board, 65% of consumers likely to click on online ads are weekly or daily browsers, and only 15% are first-time visitors and 6% are sporadic visitors.

Brands as connectors

TUE, 14 OCT 2008 00:00:00 GMT

To do business with the growing "Generation Virtual" population, companies will need to provide - or connect to - social applications to attract and engage customers, gathering information about their future wants and needs to lead them toward products and services, according to Gartner.

By 2010, more than 60 percent of Fortune 1,000 companies with a Web site will connect to or host some form of online community that can be utilized for customer relationship purposes.

"A key benefit of establishing a community is the amount of information an organization can gain about its customer base, which can be used for short-and long-term customer relationships," said Adam Sarner, principal research analyst at Gartner. Data can be collected and used for product development, customer feedback, loyalty management, customer segmentation, campaign targeting, and individual or group customer satisfaction management. This wealth of data can be used for marketing, in particular, as well as an entire customer-focused organization.

However, establishing an online community isn't without challenges. Gartner predicts that by 2010, more than 50 percent of companies that have established an online community will fail to establish mutual purpose, ultimately eroding customer and company values. To combat this, marketing organizations will need new skills to meet the needs of Generation Virtual.

Unlike previous generations, Generation Virtual (also known as Generation V) is not defined by age - or gender, social demographic or geography - but is based on demonstrated achievement, accomplishments and an increasing preference for the use of digital media channels to discover information, build knowledge and share insights. The definition of Generation V derives from the recognition that these common behaviors, attitudes and interests are starting to blend together in an online environment.

When doing business with Generation V, marketers will need to attract online personas by creating multiple, engaging online destinations and provide tools for Generation V individuals population to socialize and express their different personas. By creating these destinations, marketers can gain a deeper understanding of Generation V. Marketers should provide, or connect to, online destinations from selling-focused sites and community forums to brand-aware, persistent, 3-D virtual worlds to get customers to their sites and promote socialization in the community. From there, marketers can lead prospects to products and services while gathering relevant information about their future wants and needs.

Click-to-Buy on YouTube

WED, 08 OCT 2008 00:00:00 GMT

Google is taking the first steps to providing YouTube users with a kind of instant gratification, by adding "click-to-buy" links to the watch pages of thousands of YouTube partner videos. Click-to-buy links are non-obtrusive retail links, placed on the watch page beneath the video with the other community features. Just as YouTube users can share, favorite, comment on, and respond to videos quickly and easily, now users can click-to-buy products (like songs, books, and movies) related to the content they're watching on the site.

Starting by embedding iTunes and Amazon.com links on videos from companies like EMI Music, and providing Amazon.com product links, this is just the beginning of building a broad, viable eCommerce platform for users and partners on YouTube, to help partners across all industries - from music, to film, to print, to TV - offer useful and relevant products to a large, yet targeted audience, and generate additional revenue from their content on YouTube beyond the advertising served against their videos.

Partners who use YouTube's content identification and management system can also enable these links on user-generated content, by using Content ID to claim videos and choose to leave them up on the site.

These retail links are being gradually added to the library of music videos and are currently only available to users in the United States, but YouTube's goal is to slowly but surely expand the program to additional content and product partners, as well as international users.

Read more: http://www.youtube.com/t/contentid

Google's 2001 search index

MON, 06 OCT 2008 00:00:00 GMT

To mark its 10th birthday, Google has made available its oldest readily accessble search index for one month only, which users can browse the comparatively tiny search engine, including links to websites as they appeared in 2001.

A statement on the Google site said: "The world wide web and the world have both changed a lot since 2001. Searching Google's 2001 index illustrates both points in what we think is a pretty entertaining way.

"If you searched on 'Michael Phelps' in 2001 for instance, you were probably looking for the scientist, not the swimmer. 'Ipod' didn't refer to a music player, and 'YouTube' didn't refer to much of anything."

According to web experience consultant Webcredible, the index also provide a point of measure for the evolution of online marketing. The difference in the number of results thrown up when searching on the terms "search", "engine" and "optimisation" results between the 2001 version and the current Google is notable, growing from 12,300 in 2001 to 77.8m today, an increase of 632,520%.(Source: Brandrepublic)

Read more: http://www.google.com/search2001.html

Young girls get entertained more

MON, 06 OCT 2008 00:00:00 GMT

Girls age 2 to 14 are spending more time this year on entertainment related activities than they did in 2007, with more than half saying they spend more time using consumer electronics devices, and playing PC games and video games, according to 'Girl Power: Understanding This Important Consumer Segment', the most recent report from NPD Group.

The new report also delves into what they and their moms are buying for them, as well as the categories that engage them the most. It uncovers what categories are poised for growth as girls continue spend time and money on traditional toys and games, but are broadening their engagement with and spending on categories such as apparel, consumer electronics, books, music, movies, and video games.

Pre-schoolers age 2-5 are highly engaged with toys including plush/stuffed toys, dolls, fashion role-play, puzzles, and educational toys. First readers (age 6-8) are more inclined to play with board games, arts & crafts, and virtual world games. For pre-teen girls age 9-12, playing with traditional toys is still the activity of choice. Despite the natural progression away from traditional toys to games and electronics, many older girls report they are spending more time this year playing with traditional toys compared to last year.

According to the report, tweens (age 9-12) are migrating to computer and video games, especially virtual world online games. Socialization is gearing up among the pre-teens, and the advent of interactive gaming really hits home with these girls who are looking for friends from the confines of their homes. Young teens (age 13-14) are also gamers, but many girls this age are also now listening to music on portable digital music players and talking/texting on their mobile phones.

But not all activities are as age-specific as consumer electronics and video games. When looking at spending penetration, Fashion Apparel & Accessories, and Books, Music & Videos are the top two categories that maintain a high level of popularity across all age groups, and appear to be insulated from the age-factor. In terms of favorite gifts, gift cards are the top choice for most girls, with gift cards being purchased 50 percent of the time, though toys are often given to younger girls and apparel to older girls.

These results are based on an online survey fielded to female members of NPD's online panel who have a daughter age 2 to 14 in the household. The study is based on 1,541 completed surveys. Moms were asked to have their daughters join them while taking this survey. Final survey data is weighted to be representative of girls age two to 14.

Reach, frequency and ad effectiveness guaranteed

FRI, 03 OCT 2008 00:00:00 GMT

Forbes.com launched an extension of its ground-breaking Brand Increase Guarantee with the introduction of 'Total Guarantee;, the first program to guarantee marketers a combination of reach, average frequency and ad effectiveness.

With the Total Guarantee, marketers can specify how many individuals within their target audience they want to reach and the average frequency with which they reach them at the outset of the campaign. During the course of the campaign, ad server logs will be audited for reach and frequency by a third party auditing firm such as Ernst & Young. After the campaign's completion, ad effectiveness will be measured using the criteria set forth in Forbes.com's Brand Increase Guarantee. A minimum spend of USD1M over 90 days is required.

Forbes.com is the first and only Web site to guarantee advertising effectiveness for any sizable campaign on its site. The Brand Increase Guarantee, launched in 2003, offers marketers the opportunity to measure the impact of a campaign using an independent research firm. After the completion of an online media measurement program, if the marketer doesn't see a statistically significant increase in one of four brand metrics - awareness, message association, brand favorability or purchase intent - Forbes.com will return the money. To date, more than 100 companies have participated in the Brand Increase Guarantee.

Read more: http://www.forbes.com/adinfo/

BT online ad-targeting trial

THU, 02 OCT 2008 00:00:00 GMT

UK's biggest internet service provider BT is to restart a four weeks trial of a controversial internet advertising system that has outraged privacy campaigners. The system, known as Webwise, allows BT to potentially track and monitor every website that a customer visits, allowing it to build detailed behavioural profiles of web surfers based on their online activity. Participation is voluntary and requires web users' priorA consent.

Built by London-based advertising technology company Phorm, the system allows BT to insert its own highly targeted advertising onto web pages to earn extra money. While traditional internet advertising systems allow the owners of individual websites to see who is visiting them, Phorm's systems have much wider scope because they run in partnership with internet service providers themselves. This means that Webwise could have access to details of every website that customers visit, as well as every internet search they conduct and other personal information.

Last April, the Information Commissioner said that the Webwise technology did not pose a threat to users' online privacy, because it did not collect information that would allow customers to be individually identified. And because it was an 'opt-in' system, the commissioner said, it did not breach the terms of the Data Protection Act.

The earlier trials were an attempt to assess whether the system was compatible withA BT's technical infrastructure, while the latest pilot tests how effectively the system works with customers.

Read more: http://www2.bt.com/static/i/btretail/webwise/bt-webwise-trial.html

www.breastawarenessguy.org

TUE, 30 SEP 2008 00:00:00 GMT

How does ogling a gorgeous male model help save your life and raise money for a great cause? Watch the new viral Ogilvy London created for Cancer Research UK and 'Breast Cancer Awareness Month' and you'll find out!

120 women are diagnosed with breast cancer every day. So to encourage ladies to take note of this important issue, a viral film was produced demonstrating how to check your breasts - with a difference. To secure your undivided attention the subject of the demonstration is Tommy, our gorgeous breast awareness guy, so you can learn how to look after your own breasts while admiring his.

The film (supported by e-mail and display advertising) directs you to a microsite www.breastawarenessguy.org. Here visitors can have more fun with Tommy, get tips on being breast aware, find out what Cancer Research UK are doing to beat cancer and make a donation. As a special treat, donors will receive a fab digital desktop calendar with a stunning photo of Tommy for every month of the year.

Knowing the symptoms to look out for can help with early diagnosis of breast cancer. But being breast aware is only part of the solution. Cancer Research UK is the UKa??s largest funder of research into breast cancer and with the help of donations seeks new ways to prevent, diagnose and treat all forms of cancer.

Read more: http://www.breastawarenessguy.org

66% of TV households are digital

FRI, 26 SEP 2008 00:00:00 GMT

Digital penetration reached 54% of TV households in Western Europe at the end of 2007, up from 42% at end of 2006. This brought the total number of digital homes to 89 million - up more than 20 million during the year. Another 16 million will be added in 2008, bringing penetration close to two-thirds of TV households.

Longer term, Informa Telecoms & Media is forecasting 157 million digital homes in the region by end of 2013, giving 90% penetration. Despite this impressive penetration rate full digital conversion is only expected in four (Finland, France, Ireland and the UK) of the 15 countries included in the forecasts.

One of the region's main difficulties is that consumers in some of the more established cable countries, such as Germany, remain unconvinced that there are compelling reasons to upgrade to digital. Even so, while digital cable has been a little slower to take hold than expected, it now appears very well placed to make up for lost time a?? as the market consolidates into a smaller number of affluent companies that are committed to digital.

The capacity freed up by the turning off of analog transmissions (to create the much-vaunted 'digital dividend') will be exploited by a variety of different services, with HDTV via DTT and mobile TV two of the likely beneficiaries. Progress in promoting DSL/FTTH penetration has led to a good deal of activity in IPTV. There have already been some successful high-profile launches in this area, and the technology is now an established TV platform. IPTV is expected to experience fast growth in coming years, though the operators will have to counter entrenched opposition from the established cable and satellite areas. France has the largest IPTV market, led by France Telecom's Orange TV platform. Spain has overtaken Italy in second place. Telcos in other countries are quickly taking up the challenge, including Deutsche Telekom in Germany and BT in the UK.

Digital terrestrial television (DTT) is also finally taking off in several countries - not just in the UK where cheap boxes are available or in Italy where the government gave the technology a boost via subsidies for those buying settop boxes. DTT services in France and Spain are expected to be particularly successful over the next few years.

BA launches social network

FRI, 26 SEP 2008 00:00:00 GMT

British Airways has launched a social network called Metrotwin, which links Londoners and New Yorkers and is one of the biggest forays into social media by a major brand to date. The online community provides expert recommendations on the best restaurants bars, shops, neighbourhoods and other places in both cities. In addition, it helps users navigate the vast amount of internet information about the two cities and find the best content quickly.

It enables members to review, rate, save, create profiles, suggest a??twins', follow other members' recommendations and make their own maps and lists. The network also provides Amazon.com-style personalised recommendations based on user behaviour, and gives every place a score out of 100, which changes dynamically, based on user behaviour.

Chris Davies, the digital marketing manager at British Airways, said: "British Airways is a company which connects people and social media is about connecting people. We fly more people between London and New York than anyone else. Creating a community website about the best of what's on offer in the two cities we know best is a credible and useful tool."

BA is also planning to launch mobile phone applications linked to the network at an unspecified date.

(Source: Brand Republic 25/9/08)

Read more: http://www.metrowin.com

Great digital ogilvy work wins once again

THU, 25 SEP 2008 00:00:00 GMT

OgilvyOne Athens has won Gold in the International category at this year's MIXX Awards for the viral campaign 'Livefeeds', the most awarded Greek digital campaign ever.

The MIXX awards are organized by the International Advertising Bureau and are the only honor devoted exclusively to interactive advertising, and the only juried competition that recognizes excellence in both creativity and effectiveness.

The awards closed this year's highly successful MIXX Conference and Expo which was held for the 4th consecutive year in New York during the Advertising Week. Representatives from Ogilvy & Mather NY were at the ceremony to accept the award on behalf of OgilvyOne Athens.

Panos Sambrakos, Executive Creative Director of OgilvyOne Athens, stated: 'Once again we are proud for the fact that a Greek interactive campaign wins such an important international award. Our joy is even greater, because the ceremony coincides with the celebration of 60 years since David Ogilvy established Ogilvy in New York.'

Read more: http://www.mixx-awards.com/gallery

People love the DVR

MON, 22 SEP 2008 00:00:00 GMT

More than 80% of Americans say that they can't live without a Digital Video Recorder (DVR), according to a new survey of DVR owners commissioned by NDS. Other than the washing machine (97% of respondents) and the microwave oven (86%), no other household item is deemed more essential than the DVR (62%) in today's US homes.

And when it comes to essential technology gadgets, the DVR (81%) is second only to the mobile phone (92%), as the item Americans cannot live without. Intriguingly, the vast majority of respondents would rather give up their landline phone, dishwasher, radio, hairdryer and MP3 player than their DVR.

The survey - available on Truffles to Ogilvy employees - also reveals that owning a DVR can make for a happier, less stressful home life. 81% of respondents with families believe that having a DVR has improved family life - allowing for more time to eat dinner together, fewer arguments over what to watch and more family time around the television. Having a DVR also seems to improve relations between the sexes, with respondents who have partners saying that using a DVR has improved their relationship with their partner (79%).

Other report highlights include:
** 57% of American DVR owners watch more than three hours of live or recorded TV daily
** Male DVR owners watch more recorded TV on average than women (2.2 hours vs. 2.0 hours)
** 67% think that a DVR is much easier to operate than a video cassette recorder (VCR)
** 59% find that they are watching more interesting TV programmes since getting a DVR
** 83% agree that since getting a DVR they are more likely to find something to watch, when they want to watch TV
** More than half of DVR owners with a family found that they are now able to arrange more family TV time
** Nearly nine out of ten DVR owners think that having a DVR has improved how much they enjoy watching TV
** 52% of people who own just one DVR are so pleased with it that they would like to get a second one

Comparisons with the results from the same survey that was conducted simultaneously in the UK, Italy and Australia also make for interesting reading. A few highlights are:
** British DVR owners reportedly watch the least TV per day (3.7 hours), while the Americans watch the most at 4.7 hours a day. Americans in their 40s watch a whopping 5.4 hours a day
** Italian DVR owners care more about their hair than their DVR: British (70%), American (62%) and Australian (67%) DVR owners all rank the DVR as the third most important household item, while the Italians ranked the DVR in fourth place (59%) after the washing machine, the microwave and the hairdryer
** DVR owners with families in the other three surveyed countries place an even greater emphasis than the Brits on the power of the DVR to improve relationships between family members: 82% of Italians, 81% of Americans and 76% of Australians felt that this was the case, compared to 64% of Brits
** Around half of Italian (57%), American (44%) and Australian (49%) DVR owners with just one DVR are keen to get a second one, compared to just 30% of British DVR owners.

The survey was carried out by UK-based Consumer Analysis Group in July 2008. The survey involved 1,012 people aged 18-70 years old who have a DVR at home. Consumers in the UK (256), US (252), Italy (251) and Australia (253), were questioned using a mix of phone, street and online interviews.

Teens, video games and civics

THU, 18 SEP 2008 00:00:00 GMT

The first national survey of its kind finds that virtually all American teens play computer, console, or mobile phone games and that the gaming experience is rich and varied, with a significant amount of social interaction and potential for civic engagement.

Conducted by the Pew Internet & American Life Project, the primary findings in the survey of 1,102 youth ages 12-17 include:
** Game playing is universal, with almost all teens playing games and at least half playing games on a given day.
** Game playing experiences are diverse, with the most popular games falling into the racing, puzzle, sports, action and adventure categories.
** Game playing is also social, with most teens playing games with others at least some of the time and can incorporate many aspects of civic and political life.

Another major findings is that game playing sometimes involves exposure to mature content, with almost a third of teens playing games that are listed as appropriate only for people older than they are.

The full 76 page report is available on Truffles to Ogilvy employees.

Online TV grows in popularity

WED, 17 SEP 2008 00:00:00 GMT

Online TV viewing has been gaining in popularity. Nearly one-fifth of American households who use the internet watch television broadcasts online, double the viewership from 2006, the Conference Board and TNS report. The top two destinations for online broadcasts are the official TV channel homepage and YouTube.

Most consumers do not like a set schedule. Being able to watch broadcasts on their own time and at their convenience are the top reasons users tune in online. Other reasons include avoiding commercials and portability.

Nearly 72 percent of online households log on for entertainment purposes on a daily basis, and one in ten cites entertainment as the most important internet activity.

The top five types of shows viewed online are news, drama, sitcom/comedy, reality shows and sports, with user generated content following close behind. Among consumers connecting to online broadcasts, 43 percent tune into the news, 39 percent watch drama shows, 34 percent view sitcom/comedy shows, 23 percent watch reality shows, 16 percent view sports, and 15 percent view user generated content. Other categories attracting viewers include previews, additional content from favorite shows, soap operas, and advertisements.

Among online TV viewers, almost nine out of ten watch online broadcasts at home. About 15 percent say they watch internet broadcasts in the office, and 6 percent watch TV online from other locations, including the library or a friend's home.

The top methods for viewing broadcasts online are streaming video, used by 68 percent of online TV viewers, and free download, used by 38 percent of viewers. The top two destinations for online broadcasts are the official TV channel homepage, accessed by 65 percent of viewers, and YouTube.com, accessed by 41 percent of viewers. Other sites used for access include iTunes, Hulu, file sharing sites, social networking sites, and Limewire. Few consumers are willing to enroll in pay per download and subscription services.

The Consumer Internet Barometer is based on a quarterly survey of 10,000 households. A unique sample is surveyed each quarter. Return rates average 70 percent, which ensures highly representative data. Data is weighted as well to reflect the latest US household demographic information. The latest survey was conducted during the second quarter of 2008.

Are communities working for brands?

TUE, 16 SEP 2008 00:00:00 GMT

Online communities are proliferating as companies look to harness the collective wisdom and ideas of their employees, customers, and other constituents in order to innovate faster, reduce costs, and create the relationships that will grow their businesses and bolster their bottom lines.

Beeline Labs, Deloitte and the Society of New Communications Research have produced the first study of its kind to learn from the early experiences of more than 140 organizations on how theya??re managing communities, measuring success, and deriving business benefits. The survey and interviews examined online community initiatives at a mix of business-to-business and business-to-consumer companies, as well as non-profits, with communities ranging from fewer than 100 members to more than 10,000 members.

The study - available on Truffles to Ogilvy employees - surfaced valuable insights, lessons learned, and best practices for moving forward.

#1: Communities are about delivering game-changing results:
** Communities can increase revenue per customer dramatically, i.e., 50%
** Communities will increase product introduction success ratios
** Communities amplify everything you do- increasing effectiveness and decreasing costs

#2: The rise of the CMO 2.0?
** Communities should be an important part of the CMO's toolset (but for many large companies - there is an under-investment and scale problem)
** Companies should evolve the role of the CMO into Chief Community Officer (but that will require drastic changes in attitude and approach to marketing)
** If done properly, communities will transform the way marketing works (reduced costs, improved effectiveness, new opportunities)

#3: The need for new management thinking
** Mismatch between community goals and associated investments
** Major gaps between community goals and what is being measured
** Communities have yet to combine with major talent initiatives
** Communities will transform most business processes.

Read more on Truffles.

Media mobility key for Millennials

WED, 10 SEP 2008 00:00:00 GMT

Motorola announced further results of its research into the consumer technology decisions and media consumption habits of the "Millennial" generation (16-27 year olds). This new study of over 1,200 Millennials from five countries in Europe and the Middle East found that young adults are passionate about being in control of their rich media content and are heavily influencing older generations.

The study was commissioned to further understand the Millennials' viewing habits and how they move and share their content across devices. It found that not only do Millennials themselves engage with new technologies and services, they actively influence their parents' adoption habits: the majority of respondents stated that they influence the broadband (83 percent) or TV services (84 percent) purchased by their parents, even if they do not live at home.

Prime time to my time: TV is unsurprisingly still a favored form of entertainment. However, it is how, where and when we watch that is changing significantly. The traditional TV schedule is becoming a thing of the past:
** 78 percent of Millennials would prefer a TV programme to restart the moment they switch over to that channel
** Two-thirds (66 percent) would be interested in pausing TV in one room and restarting it in another. This compares to 86 percent of respondents in the United States when surveyed earlier this year
** Almost one in three (32 percent) prefer to watch programmes on their PC rather than TV set

Media mobility: significant numbers of respondents want to be able to access full-length movies and their favorite shows on the move, yet it is through shorter bursts of content that mobile entertainment comes into its own:
** Having the option to shift TV programmes from the set-top at home to a mobile device enticed 81 percent of Millennials, demonstrating strong interest in increased media mobility
** 75 percent indicate that watching movies while traveling is appealing
** 62 percent would be interested in watching 15 minute mobile versions of 30-minute TV programmes and 61 percent would be interested in a three-minute version of their favorite shows on their mobile device.

More from your media: Millennials influence older generations because their technology experiences run much deeper, with 63 percent of respondents acknowledging that their demands and expectations for rich media experiences are higher than those of their parents. Millennials do not passively digest content; they are increasingly looking to interact with what is on the screen:
** Over half of those surveyed would like to be able to interact with their TV and accessing information about the content they are watching
** 68 percent would be interested in learning about and possibly purchasing items featured in TV shows, with the highest appetite coming from the UAE where 81 percent of the sample expressed interest

There are strong signs that Millennials are adopting high-definition TV (HDTV), and the figures point to a strong growth potential:
** HDTV is popular throughout all markets surveyed, especially in Germany and the UAE with 53 percent and 58 percent saying they love HD content
** 43 percent of respondents have an HDTV set; the UK having the greatest market penetration with 54 percent owning an HDTV set
** Of the 57 percent of total respondents who didn't have an HDTV set, only a quarter said they did not want to get one

Findings are based on an online panel survey among over 1,200 members of the Millennial generation ages 16-27 in France, Germany, Spain, UAE and UK in August 2008. The survey was previously carried out in the United States among 1,000 Millennials.

Read more: http://blip.tv/file/908728

How connected people are

THU, 04 SEP 2008 00:00:00 GMT

Six degrees of separation has fallen to three due to the impact of social networking and developments in technology, according to a study carried out by O2. O2 commissioned social organisational specialist, Jeff Rodrigues, to examine the impact of technology on how connected people are. The research included over 50 hours of in-depth interviews with adults across three different age groups, (18-25, 35-45, 55+) and found that the conventional notion of six degrees of separation is out of date.

The O2 study reveals that within a shared "interest" network (i.e., hobbies, sport, music, religion, sexuality etc.), the average person is connected by just three degrees. Rodrigues finds that we are usually part of three main networks based on family, friendship and work. Outside of these we are, on average, part of five main shared "interest" networks based on a range of personal interests from hobbies, sport, music and the neighbourhood we live in, to religion, sexuality and politics. It is the growth of these shared interest networks and the influence of technology on them that has led to the reduction in the number of degrees of separation.

All respondents were asked to make contact with an unknown person from destinations selected at random from across the globe using only personal connections. By using their shared interest networks the participants were able, on average, to make the connection in three person-to-person links.

According to the study one of the key factors driving the reduction in the number of degrees has been the growth in the number and quality of connections we now have. Almost all (97 percent) of the respondents stated they felt more connected to people and networks now than they did 5, 10 and 20 years ago.

Email and mobile phones were the technologies that had the most significant impact in facilitating the reduction of degrees from six to three. Of those participating in the study that were asked to make contact with an unknown person, the majority (98 percent) chose to use either the Internet or their mobile phone, across all age groups. Texting was also seen as a universally important technology whilst social networking sites such as Facebook were highly rated by the youngest age bracket, but usage declined drastically the older in age was asked.

New consumer segmentation

TUE, 02 SEP 2008 00:00:00 GMT

A new consumer segmentation analysis from Mediamark Research & Intelligence (MRI) shows that 9 percent of U.S. adults belong inA the "Ads on Emerging Media Vehicles" segment, the group of consumers who sayA they are most interested in advertising delivered via such non-traditional media asA mobile devices and product placement in video games, movies and in TV shows.A The median age of this segment is 35.5, younger than the median age of theA other five segments.

Ads delivered via mass media are preferred by 17 percent of U.S. adults, and an additionalA 17 percent of consumers are most interestedA in ads delivered in print. Thirty-two percent of U.S. all adults are either disinterested in advertising delivered by any medium orA they have not been exposed to a particular ad platform.

The 9 percent of U.S. adults who prefer "Ads on Emerging Media Vehicles"A are far more likely than the average adult to agree with the followingA statements.
** A celebrity endorsement may influence me to consider or buy a product.
** I'm always one of the first of my friends to try new products or services.
** I follow the latest trends and fashions.
** Brand name is the best indication of quality.

Consumers, according to their interest in advertising across different media, fall into one of six segments:
** Ads on Emerging Media Vehicles: Most interested in ads delivered through non-traditional media including mobile devices and product placement in movies, TV shows and video games.
** Ads on the Road: Most interested in advertising on billboards, taxis, buses and trains, at bus stops and train stations and atop taxicabs.
** Ads in Mass Media: Advertising delivered through magazines and electronic media such as TV, radio and the Internet appeals the most to this segment.
** Ads on Paper: Most interested in advertising delivered through print, which they find informative, relaxing and/or inspirational.
** Ads at Events: Displayed at sports or entertainment events and through product placement in movies and TV shows.
** Ad Adverse: Most likely either to be not interested in or to have not been exposed to advertising in TV, radio, newspapers, magazines and the Internet.

Consumers trust ads on local online media

MON, 01 SEP 2008 00:00:00 GMT

Local media sites hold a distinct advantage when it comes to delivering results for advertisers, according to a new report by the Online Publishers Association (OPA).A The study finds that consumers trust advertising on local newspaper, magazine and television Websites, and are very likely to take action after viewing ads on these sites.

The results are part of "Local Online Media: From Advertising to Action," a new OPA report looking at consumers who get local information from online city guides, classifieds, magazines, newspapers, portals, television sites, user review sites or yellow pages. The study, which was conducted for the OPA by JupiterResearch, surveyed 2,069 local online content consumers selected randomly from NPD's online consumer panel.

The report a?? available on Truffles to Ogilvy employees a?? finds differences between media sites and other types of local online content sites when it comes to acting on local ads.A Consumers on all three types of local media sites a?? newspapers, television stations and magazines a?? are more likely to take action after viewing a local ad than visitors on all other local content sites. Newspapers rank first, with 46% of consumers taking action a?? including making a purchase, going to a store, conducting research a?? after viewing a local ad, as compared to 37% of consumers acting after viewing a local ad on a portal.A And consumers on these sites are desirable advertising targets.A Local magazine, newspaper and TV sites attract significant percentages (48%, 40% and 39%, respectively) of consumers who spent more than $500 online in the past twelve months.A Thirty-seven percent of portal visitors and 34% of the overall online population spend this amount in a year.

Trust is another important factor driving advertising success, and consumers express significant faith in advertising on local content sites.A Newspaper sites lead the way, with 56% of visitors expressing strong trust of the advertising found on these sites, followed by local TV station sites and portals. Moving beyond advertising, the OPA reports finds that satisfaction with local content is high overall, and portals and media sites each have strengths.A Portals lead in satisfaction among all local content visitors, followed by local newspaper and TV station sites.A However, local media sites have a significant lead over portals among frequent visitors (79% satisfied with local TV sites; 77% satisfied with local newspaper sites).A Sixty-five percent (65%) of frequent visitors to portals are satisfied.

The OPA report also identifies an important common trait of all local online content sites: an ability to attract high concentrations of influencers.A While 10% of consumers are considered "Influentials" according to research done by GfK Roper, 29% percent of A local online content site users say they are the first person people come to for recommendations about local restaurants and bars. Meanwhile, 26% of local online users say they are the first person people come to for local shopping recommendations, 23% for local entertainment recommendations, and 23% for local consumer electronics recommendations.a??

News audience blends online, traditional

WED, 27 AUG 2008 00:00:00 GMT

For more than a decade, the audiences for most traditional news sources have steadily declined, as the number of people getting news online has surged. However, today it is not a choice between traditional sources and the Internet for the core elements of today's news audiences.

The 2008 biennial news consumption survey by the Pew Research Center for the People & the Press (conducted by telephone from April 30 to June 1 among 3,612 adults nationwide) finds four distinct segments in today's news audience: Integrators, who comprise 23% of the public; the less populous Net-Newsers (13%); Traditionalists, the oldest (median age: 52) and largest news segment (46% of the public); and the Disengaged (14%) who stand out for their low levels of interest in the news and news consumption.

A sizable minority of Americans find themselves at the intersection of these two long-standing trends in news consumption. Integrators, who get the news from both traditional sources and the internet, are a more engaged, sophisticated and demographically sought-after audience segment than those who mostly rely on traditional news sources. Integrators share some characteristics with a smaller, younger, more internet savvy audience segment.

Like web-oriented news consumers, Integrators are affluent and highly educated. However, they are older, on average, than those who consider the internet their main source of news. Overall, Integrators spend more time with the news on a typical day than do those who rely more on either traditional or internet sources; far more enjoy keeping up with the news a lot than in any other news segment.

Integrators also are heavier consumers of national news a??especially news about politics and Washingtona?? and are avid sports news consumers. Television is their main news source, but more than a third cite the internet as their primary source of news during the day. This reflects the fact that a relatively large proportion of Integrators log on to the internet from work (45%).

Net-Newsers are the youngest of the news user segments (median age: 35). They are affluent and even better educated than the News Integrators: More than eight-in-ten have at least attended college. Net-Newsers not only rely primarily on the Internet for news, they are leading the way in using new web features and other technologies. Nearly twice as many regularly watch news clips on the internet as regularly watch nightly network news broadcasts (30% vs. 18%). This web-oriented news segment, perhaps more than the others, underscores the challenges facing traditional news outlets. Fewer than half (47%) watch television news on a typical day. Twice as many read an online newspaper than a printed newspaper on a typical day (17% vs. 8%), while 10% read both.

However, Net-Newsers do rely on some well known traditional media outlets. They are at least as likely as Integrators and Traditionalists to read magazines such as The New Yorker and The Atlantic, and somewhat more likely to get news from the BBC. Fully 82% of Net-Newsers get news during the course of the day, far more than the Traditionalists and the Disengaged, and slightly more than the Integrators. Nearly all who get news at this time go online for information (92%). Yet they do tap traditional sources at other times of the day; nearly two-thirds get news late in the evening and of these, more rely on television news than the Internet.

Despite sweeping changes in the news landscape, Traditionalists remain the largest segment of the overall news audience. Compared with the Integrators and Net-Newsers, Traditionalists are downscale economically a?? 43% are not employed and 60% have no more than a high school education. Television dominates as the favored news source among Traditionalists. And at each time of the day a?? whether morning, daytime, dinner hour, or late at night a?? overwhelming majorities who get news at these times cite television as their main source. Unlike the news Integrators, or those who mostly get news from the web, most Traditionalists say that seeing pictures and video, rather than reading or hearing the facts, gives them the best understanding of events.

Most Americans fall into the three core news audiences: Integrators, Traditionalists, or Net-Newsers. The fourth group, the Disengaged, are very much bystanders when it comes to news consumption. They are less educated on average than even the Traditionalists and exhibit extremely low interest in a?? and knowledge of a?? current events. Just 55% of the Disengaged get any news on a typical day, and just 20% know that the Democrats have a majority in the House of Representatives.

Since the early 1990s, the proportion of Americans saying they read a newspaper on a typical day has declined by about 40%; the proportion that regularly watches nightly network news has fallen by half.

These trends have been more stable in recent years, but the percentage saying they read a newspaper yesterday has fallen from 40% to 34% in the last two years alone. Newspapers would have suffered even greater losses without their online versions. Most of the loss in readership since 2006 has come among those who read the print newspaper; just 27% say they read only the print version of a daily newspaper yesterday, down from 34% in 2006.

The television news audience, by contrast, has generally remained stable since 2006, and the proportion regularly watching cable news in particular has increased (from 34% to 39%). The appeal of television news is seen in the large percentages of the news segments (particularly Integrators) that continue to watch: A majority of Integrators (56%) get news online on a typical day while an even larger share (66%) got news from television.

Cable news draws substantial numbers of viewers among Integrators and Net-Newsers. More than four-in-ten Net-Newsers (43%) regularly watch cable news, far more than the proportion that regularly watches network or local news. A majority of Integrators also regularly tunes in to cable news (53%); by comparison, just 37% say they regularly watch one of the nightly network news broadcasts.

Notably, radio news also is an important element in Integrators' news diet. Nearly half of Integrators (46%) listen to news on the radio during a typical day. While the Internet is the main news source for Integrators during the course of the day, about as many in this segment rely on radio news as TV news during the day (32% radio vs. 36% TV news).

Since 2006, the proportion of Americans who say they get news online at least three days a week has increased from 31% to 37%. About as many people now say they go online for news regularly (at least three days a week) as say they regularly watch cable news (39%); substantially more people regularly get news online than regularly watch one of the nightly network news broadcasts (37% vs. 29%).

Since 2006, daily online news use has increased by about a third, from 18% to 25%. However, as the online news audience grows, the educational divide in online news use a?? evident since the Internet's early days in the mid-1990s a?? also is increasing. Currently, 44% of college graduates say they get news online every day, compared with just 11% of those with a high school education or less.

Net-Newsers and Integrators take advantage of a range of web features to get the news. Roughly four-in-ten (39%) Net-Newsers and about a third of Integrators (32%) have gotten a news story emailed to them in the past week. And while 30% of Net-Newsers regularly watch news online, 19% regularly listen to news on the web. Net-Newsers and Integrators also rely on news and political blogs as a part of their news diet. Roughly a quarter of Net-Newsers (26%) and somewhat fewer Integrators (19%) say they regularly read blogs on politics or current events. Overall, only 10% of the public regularly reads political and news blogs.

Other Key Findings:
** In spite of the increasing variety of ways to get the news, the proportion of young people getting no news on a typical day has increased substantially over the past decade. About a third of those younger than 25 (34%) say they get no news on a typical day, up from 25% in 1998.
** A slim majority of Americans (51%) now say they check in on the news from time to time during the day, rather than get the news at regular times. This marks the first time since the question was first asked in 2002 that most Americans consider themselves "news grazers."
** Social networking sites are very popular with young people, but they have not become a major source of news. Just 10% of those with social networking profiles say they regularly get news from these sites.
** As in past news consumption surveys, the audiences for specific cable news outlets remain divided along political lines. Currently 51% of regular CNN viewers are Democrats, up from 45% two years ago. Nearly four-in-ten regular Fox News viewers are Republicans (39%), about the same as in 2006.
** Regular readers of magazines such as The New Yorker, The Atlantic and Harper's Magazine stand out for their high level of political knowledge. Nearly half (47%) answered three political knowledge questions correctly a?? the highest percentage of any news audience.
** Overall, 15% of Americans say they have a smart phone, such as an iPhone or a Blackberry. More than a third of smart phone owners (37%) say they get news from these devices.
** Believability ratings for national news organizations remain very low. If anything, believability ratings for major online news outlets a?? including news aggregators such as Google News and AOL News a?? are lower than for major print, cable and broadcast outlets.
** Though the audience for nightly network news broadcasts are smaller than they were a decade ago, regular viewers of these broadcasts are loyal. Nearly seven-in-ten (69%) say they would miss these broadcasts a lot if they were no longer available.

The full 128 pages report is available on Truffles to Ogilvy employees.

Intel and Yahoo! team up to bring Web to TV

TUE, 26 AUG 2008 00:00:00 GMT

A new partnership pairs a new chip from Intel that powers interactive TV features and Yahoo!'s online technology in an effort to bring online functionality and variety to television. The Widget Channel will allow users access to Web content on the bottom portion of a TV screen and work something like a picture-in-picture window of advanced TV sets. These small windows will let viewers chat with or e-mail friends, watch videos, track stocks or sports teams or keep up with news headlines or weather by using a TV remote control.

Widget TV services are being designed to run on a new class of Intel chips for consumer electronics that enables high-definition viewing, home-theater-quality audio, 3-D graphics, and the fusion of Internet and TV features.

Devices based on Intel's CE3100 chip are due in the first half of 2009, Intel said.

Read more: http://connectedtv.yahoo.com/

Mobile, Internet make young people happy

FRI, 22 AUG 2008 00:00:00 GMT

MTV and the Associated Press released the findings of an in-depth, seven-month study into happiness and young people: how happy they are, what makes them happy and what they're doing to ensure future happiness. Overall the study shows that young people (13-24) today are generally very happy, optimistic about the future and have goals in place to achieve a happier tomorrow. At the same time, the results paint a complex portrait of today's youth, with happiness varying greatly along racial lines, faith and family playing an important role in the pursuit of happiness, and younger sexually active respondents reporting much lower levels of happiness.

The Associated Press released its first report on the findings, offering an overview of the study's most compelling points and key themes. Select findings from these and other areas are highlighted below. Full findings of the study are available on Truffles to Ogilvy employees.

1) General Happiness: the study found that overall, most American young people (aged 13-24) report being happy with their lives and are optimistic about the future. Sixty-five percent of respondents say they are happy with the way things are going in their lives in general and 62 percent think they will be happier in the future than they are now. Only one out of five say they are unhappy. Young people who are non-Hispanic whites are happier than blacks and Hispanics by a wide margin: 72 percent of whites say they are happy with life in general, compared with just 56 percent of blacks and 51 percent of Hispanics.

2) Parents, Family and Relationships: parents are seen as an overwhelmingly positive influence in the lives of most young people. Remarkably, nearly half of respondents mention at least one of their parents as a hero. When asked "What one thing in life makes you most happy?" 46 percent of respondents say spending time with friends, family and loved ones. Thirty percent of blacks and Hispanics identified family as the one thing in life that brings them the most happiness, compared with 15 percent of whites.

3) Religion and Spirituality: religion and spirituality are an integral part of happiness for most American young people. Forty-four percent say that religion and spirituality are either a very important or the single most important thing in their lives, with more than one in ten reporting the latter. And those for whom religion and spirituality play a bigger role in life tend to be happier. Eighty percent of those who say spirituality is the most important thing in life say they are happy with life in general, compared with 60 percent of those who say that spirituality is not an important part of life at all.

4) Fortune and Fame: money and its relationship to the happiness of young people is a complicated issue. Almost no respondents mentioned anything financial or material as a source of happiness when asked an unaided question about what makes them happy. But many young people report financial woes as a source of unhappiness. In looking to the future, 70 percent say they want to be rich a?? and nearly half think it's at least somewhat likely they will be someday, but just 29 percent want to be famous. Only 17 percent think they will be famous.

5) Technology: mobile phones, the Internet and other technologies are integrally woven into the lives of today's young people and nearly two-thirds say they make people happier. Half of those young people polled say the Internet alone helps them feel happier. And contrary to popular views of technology as a source of stress, many young people would be more stressed out without technology, with nearly half saying they never turn off their mobile phones a?? even when they're trying to chill out.

The qualitative portion of the study was conducted by MTV and the DC-based research and consulting firm Social Technologies, began in January of this year and included extensive field research with small discussion groups in diverse American cities around the country. The quantitative part of the study was conducted by Knowledge Networks, Inc. on behalf of MTV and the AP. For this study, 1,280 young people aged 13 to 24 years old were interviewed in late April of this year. The margin of error for the poll is +/- 2.7 percent.

Accenture's global content study 2008

THU, 21 AUG 2008 00:00:00 GMT

Across the entire media and entertainment industry, new digital technologies and consumer demands for continuous access to high quality content is challenging traditional ways of doing business. This does not mean that traditional content and media are dead. Far from it.

But there's no denying the pace of change. A generation from now, people will rely on media and information much more than they do today. Cross-platform access to content a?? anytime, anywhere a?? will be the norm. As new technologies emerge, providers will adopt them readily. Disruptive players will force their way into the media and entertainment industry.

For the time being, however, "old" and "new" media will ride side-by-side. Each will fuel interest in the other. Digital will continue to enhance the consumer experience, enabling wider and more immediate distribution.

All industries eventually arrive at an inflexion point. The financial services industry had no choice but to embrace electronic trading. The travel industry was forced to accept its consumers shopping online for the best deals. The telecommunications industry had to come to terms with VoIP. Now the media and entertainment industry has reached this point.

There is some consensus over how the digital market is evolving, where the opportunities lie and what will drive revenues over the next five years. Consider the following findings from this yeara??s study a?? available to Ogilvy employees on Truffles:
** About 63 percent of companies are pursuing a multi-platform distribution strategy.
** More than one-third of companies expect to see significant revenues from social media and user-generated content within three years.
** About 84 percent of companies expect mobile rich media to become mass market, representing the largest growth opportunity for media and entertainment firms.
** About 52 percent of those interviewed see digital advertising eclipsing traditional advertising within five years.

The study also found that execution challenges appear to be slowing the market. Consider these statistics:
** More than 50 percent of the media executives we spoke to believe they know which capabilities they need to transform their businesses.
** But 59 percent are less than halfway along their transformational journey and are unprepared to meet the challenges of the digital marketplace.
** Increasing complexity in the business environment is causing executives to re-evaluate their capabilities.

More spent on U.K. Web ads than on TV spots

WED, 20 AUG 2008 00:00:00 GMT

In 2007, more money was spent in the U.K. on online ads than on traditional TV spots, according to Ofcom, Britain's Office of Communications. The U.K.'s online ad spend increased by 40% in 2007 and by 70% in each of the prior five years to reach $5.2 billion last year, while TV ad spending, at $6.5 billion, has remained essentially unchanged.

The report also highlights that 87% of households had digital television on their main sets by the end of March 2008, and 27% of UK adults owned a DAB digital radio. In 2007, mobile accounted for 40% of voice minutes and 3G connections accounted for 17% of total mobile connections. Around 60% of households (15 million) have a broadband connection and the UK's first next-generation broadband networks are beginning to emerge, offering a step-change in the speeds available.

New technologies are converging to transform industry structures and user behaviour. For example, 40% of UK households now buy communications in "bundleda??" packages a?? paying one fee for multiple services from a single provider.

Television consumption is changing as 23% of individuals claim to have access to a digital video recorder (and 88% of them claim to use it to fast forward through advertisements).

In the first half of 2008, mobile broadband is beginning to take off, representing a potential alternative to fixed-line broadband as users plug in USB dongles to their laptops to access the Internet via high-speed mobile networks.

This year's report also highlights that television is the medium which most people would miss if it was taken away, and that most TV viewing remains on the public service broadcaster channels.

In the radio section, we report that in 2007 analogue channels accounted for 82% of all listening, and that the BBC's share of total radio listening was over 55%.

The telecoms section details that the number of mobile minutes has risen by over 90% in the last five years a?? but that fixed-line call volumes have fallen by just 10% in the same period, and still account for 60% of all voice volumes. And while the Internet has transformed the world we live in, the 160-character SMS is the most widely used data application in the UK, with 44% of UK adults using text messaging on a daily basis compared to 36% who use the Internet.

The full 365 pages report is available for download on Truffles to Ogilvy employees.

Online TV services expand UK viewing time

TUE, 19 AUG 2008 00:00:00 GMT

Commercial broadcast TV had a record-breaking first six months of 2008. Total commercial impacts were up 6% on the same period last year a?? 15% growth over the last five years a?? according to the latest figures from The Broadcasters' Audience Research Board (BARB). During January to June, the UK watched 2.4 billion broadcast TV ads a day, an average of 42 per person. Within BARB's total figure, commercial impacts are also up for key advertiser audiences. ABC1s are watching 9% more TV ads, and 16-34s are watching 3% more.

The figures also show that the much-reported popularity of watching TV via broadcasters' web services a?? such as ITV.com, Sky Player, iPlayer, 4OD and Demand Five a?? seen in the first half of 2008, seems to be incremental to the broadcast TV that people have always watched. BARB's figures only measure domestic broadcast TV, and they show that people watched 3.77 hours of broadcast TV a day in the first half of 2008. This is 2% more than the five year average for the period and compares well to figures from ten years ago, when the average daily viewing was 3.65 hours a day.

In particular, commercial broadcast viewing is performing very strongly, up 4% on the same period last year and up 8.5% on the same period ten years ago. People in the UK watched an average of 2.34 hours of commercial TV a day during January to June 2008.

That both broadcast and online TV platforms are growing simultaneously underlines how they fulfill different needs for viewers and that they can co-exist and indeed promote each other. Recent joint research with the Internet Advertising Bureau showed how online TV services are primarily used as a means of catching up with the broadcast stream.

The growth in the first six months of 2008 builds on commercial TV's historic performance last year, when impacts reached an all time high with an increase of 3.9% versus 2006 a?? 11% growth since 2003. With growth set to continue, 2008 looks set to be another record year for commercial impacts.

The continued growth in commercial viewing and impacts has been fuelled by at least four influences: compelling programming, increased digital TV penetration (at nearly 90% of homes), a creative renaissance in UK advertising and some classic British weather. The wider choice of TV options that comes with digital TV and its technologies a?? like digital TV recorders a?? leads to an increase in TV viewing. The latest data from Sky's Skyview panel shows that households watch 5% more TV adverts when they get Sky+.

The full review is available for download to Ogilvy employees on Truffles.

Use of ad networks surges

MON, 18 AUG 2008 00:00:00 GMT

The IAB and Bain & Company announced the release of a benchmark study which suggests that online publishers are increasingly turning to sales intermediaries known as ad networks to sell off excess inventories. The use of ad networks surged from 5 percent of total ad impressions sold in 2006 to 30 percent in 2007, according to the newly released "Digital Pricing Benchmarking Study" available on Truffles to Ogilvy employees.

As online publishers continue to experience growth rates of 20-30 percent in ad revenue, the race to create new advertising opportunities has left publishers with an excess of inventory, which they are selling through ad networks at up to 90 percent discounts versus direct sales rates. The study finds the trend particularly foreboding for branded online publishers who traditionally earn between USD10-20 CPM (the industry term for the cost per 1,000 ad impressions advertisers pay) and therefore risk severe price erosion.

The reason for the rapid growth in the use of ad networks is two-fold:
a?? Interviews with online publishers, conducted as part of the study, indicate that the lack of adequate pricing tools and inventory management discipline contributed to the growth in available ad space. This is causing publishers to seek out ways to sell large inventories of unsold ads. Publishers often lack basic information on realized prices and inventory sold by client and channel, limiting managementa??s ability to make effective decisions.
a?? Large marketers continue to shift significant portions of their advertising budgets online and view ad networks as an effective way to achieve greater buying scale and drive down CPMs.

Another important finding of the study is that publishers who actively manage and use multiple ad networks can achieve higher revenues on display ads sold via networks. The benchmarking study finds publishers vary in their adoption of ad networks, the approaches used and the results attained but ,overall, finds that the keys for success for online publishers are having dedicated staff, better tools and metrics that allow constant vigilance in managing ad pricing, reported sell rates and channel conflicts.

The authors of the benchmarking study offer recommendations to both publishers and ad networks to pursue steps toward higher realized pricing and enhancing mutual benefits of collaboration. These include:
** Publishers must become more disciplined in managing ad inventory and deploy improved methods and tools to enhance yield management
** Ad networks should partner more closely with publishers to enhance the value of the relationship for both parties.

Other key findings from the benchmarking study include:
** Overall, online publisher revenues grew by a healthy 32 percent in 2007 versus 2006, yet ad network revenues grew more rapidly (in excess of 50 percent), as marketers boosted online spending.
** High demand for premium video inventory resulted in CPMs 2-3 times greater than display ads on average.
** Most publishers in the study lack information to closely measure the impact of cross-platform sales, though most indicate focus on using cross-platform to drive volume, not price.

The Digital Pricing Study was developed as a benchmark to explore the impact of online ad intermediaries on ad rates, profitability and ad inventory management for media companies (publishers). The study methodology included executive interviews and in-depth analysis of proprietary company data, including direct, ad network and cross-platform sales, pricing (CPMs) and impressions volume for seven leading online media publishers. The selection criteria included having leading brands, publishing premium content and selling advertising on a national basis.

Social networking explodes worldwide

THU, 14 AUG 2008 00:00:00 GMT

comScore released a study of worldwide usage of social networking sites, indicating that while the growth in new users in North America is beginning to level off, it is burgeoning in other regions around the world. During the past year, the total North American audience of social networkers has grown 9 percent, compared to a much larger 25 percent growth for the world at large. The Middle East-Africa region (up 66 percent), Europe (up 35 percent) and Latin America (up 33 percent) have each grown at well-above average rates.

During the past year, many of the top social networking sites have demonstrated rapid growth in their global user bases. Facebook, which took over the global lead among social networking sites in April 2008, has made a concerted effort to become more culturally relevant in markets outside the U.S. Its introduction of natural language interfaces in several markets has helped propel the site to 153-percent growth during the past year. Meanwhile, the emphasis Hi5 has put on its full-scale localization strategy has helped the site double its visitor base to more than 56 million. Other social networking sites, including Friendster (up 50 percent), Orkut (up 41 percent) and Bebo (up 32 percent) have demonstrated particularly strong growth on a global basis.

Facebook's recent ascension to become the top global social networking site has been spurred by its substantial growth across worldwide regions. Though its largest visitor base is still in North America (49 million), Facebook's growth in the region is a relatively modest 38 percent. In every other worldwide region, Facebook's audience has more than quadrupled. Europe is quickly catching up with North America as Facebook's largest visitor base with 35 million visitors in June, a 303-percent increase and a net addition of nearly 27 million monthly visitors versus a year ago. Other worldwide regions have seen even more dramatic growth on a percentage basis.

Serious games for marketing

WED, 13 AUG 2008 00:00:00 GMT

In recent years, corporate developers have created branded locations within Second Life. This study from One to One Interactive compares the content of 20 of Second Lifea??s top builds 10 corporate and 10 user created to discover how the next generation of builds can be improved.

Using content analysis, OtOi studied the 20 locations according to several criteria including production quality, publicity and advertising, social infrastructure, role of commerce and population density.

From this analysis, OtOi learned that the top corporate builds are as good as or better than user-created builds in some areas, while they lag behind in others. The full study is available on Truffles to Ogilvy employees.

Yahoo! new privacy rules

TUE, 12 AUG 2008 00:00:00 GMT

Yahoo! announced that it will offer users greater choice in how they manage their privacy online by enabling them to opt-out of customized advertising on Yahoo.com. This new option expands Yahoo!'s existing opt-out program for customized advertising served by Yahoo! on third party networks.

This new opt-out capability is expected to be available for consumers by the end of August.

Users will be able to access the opt-out in the Yahoo! privacy center, which is linked on the home page and nearly every page on the Yahoo! network. Users will also be able to access the opt-out through a link in the public service advertising campaign Yahoo! has been running with online ads across its network to educate users about customized advertising.

Branded content sites effective

MON, 11 AUG 2008 00:00:00 GMT

Across a wide range of advertising metrics, branded content sites outscored Internet industry norms for the Internet 41 out of 43 times, according to a new research report released by the Online Publishers Association (OPA). Additionally, "beyond-the-banner" forms of online advertising such as video, sponsorships and rich media also outpaced industry norms when placed on branded content sites.

The OPA report, "Improving Ad Performance Online: The Impact of Advertising on Branded Content Sites," provides an extensive analysis of ad effectiveness scores for branded content sites, particularly effective at improving two of the most difficult metrics to impact: brand favorability and purchase intent. When it comes to brand favorability, branded content sites provide a 29% improvement over average online advertising performance in MarketNorms*. For purchase intent, branded content sites provide a 20% improvement. With both measures, there is an even greater bounce among affluent audiences. Branded content sites are 24% more effective than overall MarketNorms at impacting purchase intent among those with household incomes of USD 75,000 or greater.

When it comes to beyond-the-banner advertising such as video or sponsorships, branded content sites also provide advertising advantages. The OPA analysis shows that video advertising on these sites provides an 82% brand awareness boost over MarketNorms' overall online video advertising averages and a 67% boost for improving brand favorability. Rich media ads on branded content sites provide a 28% brand awareness improvement over MarketNorms.

The full report - available on Truffles to Ogilvy employees - includes key additional points such as:
** Sponsorships on branded content sites are 42% more effective than the overall MarketNorms average and 36% more effective than on portals.
** 18-34 year olds are more responsive to ads on branded content sites: they are 33% more likely to form favorable opinions about advertised brands than when viewing ads on portals.
** The overall findings are consistent across advertising categories. For example, consumer packaged goods advertising on branded content sites gets a 26% lift in purchase intent over MarketNorms.

Search engine use steadily rising

FRI, 08 AUG 2008 00:00:00 GMT

The Pew Internet Project has released a report - available on Truffles to Ogilvy employees - detailing the search habits of Americans, and they confirm what many of us already know: the percentage of internet users who use search engines on a typical day has been steadily rising from about one-third of all users in 2002, to a new high of just under one half (49%).

With this increase, the number of those using a search engine on a typical day is pulling ever closer to the 60% of internet users who use email, arguably the internet's all-time killer app.

Underscoring the dramatic increase over time, the percentage of internet users who search on a typical day grew 69% from January 2002, when the Pew Internet & American Life Project first tracked this activity, to May 2008, when the current data were collected. During the same six-year time period, the use of email on a typical day rose from 52% to 60%, for a growth rate of just 15%.

These new figures propel search further out of the pack, well ahead of other popular internet activities, such as checking the news, which 39% of internet users do on a typical day, or checking the weather, which 30% do on a typical day.

Olympic Games online channel

THU, 07 AUG 2008 00:00:00 GMT

The IOC has launched an online Channel to broadcast the Beijing 2008 Olympic Games in 77 territories across Africa, Asia and the Middle East, including India, Republic of Korea, Nigeria and Indonesia. It now broadcasts a selection of Beijing 2008 Olympic Games clips as Video On Demand (VOD). The IOC's Channel is also available on YouTube throughout the 17-day period of the Games, geo-blocked within each territory where digital VOD rights have not been sold or have been acquired on a non-exclusive basis. YouTube will only sell advertising on the channel to any of the IOC's 12 exclusive sponsors.

For countries like the U.S., where exclusive rights to content have been bought, NBC will also be broadcasting the Olympics on the Web, with more than 2,000 hours of live content available on its Olympics site.

After online broadcast coverage was made available in a handful of territories for Athens 2004, and in 23 territories for Turin, Beijing 2008 marks the first time that digital media coverage will be freely available across the world provided by the rights-holding broadcasters and/or directly via the IOC's Channel. By offering an abundance of freely available content across media platforms around the world, including over the internet, the IOC believes it is limiting the risk of piracy infringements.

Read more: http://www.youtube.com/beijing2008

2008 video SEO playbook

WED, 06 AUG 2008 00:00:00 GMT

Search engine optimization (SEO) has been firmly established as a critical aspect of building and operating successful Web properties. Although SEO, or the lack thereof, is directly linked to a website's traffic profile, relatively few people have fully come up to speed on the mechanics of this impact. As a result, best practices within SEO are often regarded as an elusive 'black art' known only to a privileged few - especially when it comes to video.

The 2008 video SEO playbook white paper - available on Truffles to Ogilvy employees - demystifies the world of video search, and in doing so, provides a practical framework for video SEO that maximizes the value of video content.

Multi-platform advertising

TUE, 05 AUG 2008 00:00:00 GMT

There has been a lot of discussion lately about the value of advertising across multiple platforms. By examining media exposure and subsequent behavior of Integrated Media Measurement (IMMI) panelists in six markets, it was determined that advertising on more than one platform offers demonstrable benefits. The report found that:
** Multi-platform advertising increases reach over individual platform advertising, but the effect is not simply additive. IMMI data allow to identify how many unique panel members are being added (over television) by radio, and in some cases by theatrical trailers.
** By tracking panel member viewing activity after being exposed to ads for television shows and movies, IMMI determined the effectiveness (conversion rate) of multi-platform advertising for media.
** Six TV shows ran significant TV and radio campaigns before their new season premieres. For each of these shows, the rates of panelists that watch the program being promoted (conversion) are consistently higher among the segment exposed to a combination of platforms than among those exposed to one platform alone.
** For four cable shows, IMMI was able to quantify the impact of advertising on television, Internet, in-cinema, and Tivo Showcases. In all of these cases, IMMI find that exposure across more than one platform increases effectiveness.
** Of the movie releases tracked by IMMI in 2007, five employed significantly large multi-platform advertising with enough exposure to quantify the effects of campaigns. In almost every case the conversion for multi-platform was higher than conversion for a single platform - in some cases much higher.
** Further analysis of the data enabled IMMI to identify the effects of increased frequency, recency and targeting. These factors do not account for the increased effectiveness of multi-platform advertising.

This report (available on Truffles to Ogilvy employees) draws on data gathered from a panel of 3000 members in New York, Chicago, Houston, Denver, Los Angeles and Miami.

The art and science of search

MON, 04 AUG 2008 00:00:00 GMT

Search solves a basic marketing need - to connect buyers with sellers. As the appeal of search grows, so too have revenues and budgets. Global search revenues are expected to reach USD30.5 billion in 2008 according to a JPMorgan analyst report, increasing the pressure on marketers as competition for top position grows along with keyword prices. Search Engines accounted for 26% of upstream US Internet visits to all categories of websites in March 2008, underscoring the importance of search engines as a source of visits.

Many factors figure into a successful marketing campaign, but few will disagree that the foundation for search campaigns is built upon search term - or keyword - selection. This paper - available on Truffles to Ogilvy employees - offers processes and strategies to design an effective paid search marketing campaign and to develop the art of search term selection. It also provides search marketers with a step-by step guide for the planning stage of their search marketing campaigns.

The social Web analytics ebook 2008

FRI, 01 AUG 2008 00:00:00 GMT

This ebook gives a brief overview of the characteristics of the Social Web (also known as Social Media), but that's not its primary purpose. Rather, it reviews how all organisations can try and make the most of the unprecedented wealth of information afforded by the Social Web, the incredible facility to 'listen in' on conversations close to their heart, and to initiate and engage in this dialogue.

This ebook - available on Truffles to Ogilvy employees - is an introduction to Social Web Analytics (SWA, also known as Social Media Analytics), the driver for it, how it can be applied, the key vendors (including Kaava, Ogilvy's partner of choice) and their services.

SWA includes the application of search, indexing, semantic analysis and business intelligence technologies to the task of identifying, tracking, listening to and participating in the distributed conversations about a particular brand, product or issue, with emphasis on quantifying the trend in each conversation's sentiment and influence.

The modern media marketplace

FRI, 25 JUL 2008 00:00:00 GMT

This special report from the Progress & Freedom Foundation provides an objective snapshot of the health of America's media landscape. It examines the issue both from the perspective of consumer welfare and the health of various media industry sectors, revealing the following, amongst others:
** Device proliferation; rapid technological diffusion: Not only are more and more media devices available each year, but also new media and communications technologies are spreading throughout society faster with each passing year.
** Fragmentation of audience: the splintering or segmentation of the audience is driving intense competition in each layer of the media value chain. This fragmentation of audiences has created a battle among media providers for the increasingly scarce amount of consumer 'attention share.'
** User empowerment: citizens have been empowered to control their viewing, listening and reading practices. Today, the consumer - not the producer - of media dictates when, where, and how media content will be consumed.
** User-generated content/democratization of media: the combination of the Internet, blogs, and new digital media creation devices has given every man, woman, and child the ability to be a one-person publishing house or broadcaster and to communicate with the entire planet - and even to break news of their own. Although it is true their audience may be somewhat limited, they nonetheless have soapboxes to stand on that were not at their disposal in the past.
** Advertising shift: advertising dollars are increasingly flowing away from traditional media outlets (broadcasting and newspapers, in particular) and toward new media platforms (cable TV, the Internet, search providers, social networking sites, etc.). The proliferation of media outlets and the splintering of audience attention have fragmented the advertiser and classified market, meaning advertising is less likely to help sustain large-scale or cost-intensive media enterprises or journalistic endeavors.

The full 98 pages report is available on Truffles to Ogilvy employees.

Internet universal appeal

THU, 24 JUL 2008 00:00:00 GMT

Nearly a quarter of the world's population (roughly 1.4 billion people) will use the Internet on a regular basis in 2008. While the PC is currently the dominant means of gaining access to the Internet, IDC expects the number of mobile devices accessing the Internet will surpass the number of online PCs by 2012. Once on the Internet, users will continue to spend time on Web 1.0 activities like searching, shopping and sending email. But Web 2.0 activities, such as watching user-generated videos, posting blogs and participating in social networks, are quickly capturing the attention and time online of more and more Internet users.

Highlights from IDC's Digital Marketplace Model and Forecast include the following:
** Users will access the Internet through more than 1.5 billion devices worldwide in 2008, including PCs, mobile phones, and online videogame consoles. By 2012, the number of devices accessing the Internet will double to more than 3 billion, half of which will be mobile devices.
** China passed the United States in 2007 to become the country with the largest number of Internet users. China's online population is forecast to grow from 275 million users in 2008 to 375 million users in 2012.
** Nearly half of all Internet users will make online purchases in 2008. By 2012, there will be more than 1 billion online buyers worldwide making business to consumer (B2C) transactions worth USD1.2 trillion. Business to business (B2B) eCommerce will be ten times larger, totalling USD12.4 trillion worldwide in 2012. Worldwide spending on Internet advertising will total USD65.2 billion in 2008, which is nearly 10% of all ad spending across all media. This share is expected to reach 13.6% by 2011 as Internet ad spending grows to USD106.6 billion worldwide.
** Roughly 40% of all Internet users worldwide currently have mobile Internet access. The number of mobile Internet users will reach 546 million in 2008, nearly twice as many as in 2006, and is forecast to surpass 1.5 billion worldwide in 2012.
** The most popular online activities today are searching the Web, finding information for personal use, using Internet email, accessing news and sports information, and accessing financial or credit information. In addition to these activities, more than 50% of online users worldwide are using instant messaging and playing online games. The fastest growing online activities include accessing business applications, creating blogs, online gambling, accessing work-related email, and participating in online communities.
** Among mobile Internet users, the most popular online activities are searching the Web, accessing news and sports information, downloading music, videos, and ringtones, using instant messaging, and using Internet email. By 2012, downloading music, videos, and ringtones will become the number one activity among mobile Internet users worldwide.

TiVo, Amazon and impulse buyers

WED, 23 JUL 2008 00:00:00 GMT

TiVo and Amazon.com will give TV viewers the option of using their remote controls to purchase products related to TV shows they are watching, have just watched, or plan to watch, or items highlighted in commercials.

Subscribers can shop on TiVo through a "swivel search," which lets people buy products (DVDs, books, CDs) related to a search for a specific title, actor or director, or a related title, actor or director. There will also be a "product purchase" option on the TiVo delete screen, so after a show ends, TiVo subscribers will be given the option to delete the show from their hard drives, and at the same time, they'll be given the option to buy products that were promoted or featured on the show.

TiVo's purchase application appears only in advertising, blank screens between programs, or during program searches so as not to intrude on the shows.

If a viewer decides to buy an item, he or she can select the product and either complete the order immediately or add the product to his or her shopping cart for later checkout either on TV or online. The buyer's identity is confirmed by a PIN associated with the Amazon account.

Facebook unveils redesign

TUE, 22 JUL 2008 00:00:00 GMT

Facebook released a new, cleaner and simpler design, along with the opportunity for users to preview and test the next-generation features and functionality. Access to the new design will be limited at first and gradually become available to all of Facebook's more than 80 million users over the coming days.

Facebook's redesign aims to make user profiles more dynamic by giving more prominence to the newest information, and it is cracking down on applications that violate privacy or user-control guidelines. Facebook will offer members a cleaner and simpler set of the Web pages which make up personal profiles. These profiles, which can be organized into tabbed pages, let users share tidbits of their lives with select groups of friends or colleagues.

The moves are also meant to reassure members about privacy by helping them better understand how friends can see the personal information they publish. Facebook has been dribbling out details of these plans since early this year in an effort to reduce surprises for users.

Facebook, which began in 2004 as a socializing site for college students, has become the world's largest social network, overtaking News Corp's rival site MySpace.

Read more: http://www.new.facebook.com/

Asia Pacific digital marketing yearbook 2008

MON, 21 JUL 2008 00:00:00 GMT

Over the past year, the phenomenal growth in internet and mobile users has continued across the region. Increasingly, each market is developing distinct internet usage dynamics and market personalities beyond simply having different languages and cultures. For example, Indonesiaa??s online population has grown 900% since 2000, but still comprises only 8.5% of the total population. Australia, on the other hand, has virtually reached the saturation point, with 75.9% penetration a??second only to Singaporea??s 81.1% (the highest in the region and perhaps the world). Just 5.3% of Indiaa??s population is online, compared to the global average of 19.1%. China recently passed the United States as having the worlda??s largest population online, but still has massive expansion potential ahead with just 16% of its total population online. Hong Kong has the worlda??s highest mobile messenger usage, with 23% of global users.

The ways in which consumers and businesses use the internet is also becoming more diverse from country-to-country. Out of the universe of ways to use the internet a??including email, instant messaging, RSS, SMS, search, gaming, video, podcasts, blogging, music, photos, social media, mobilea?? the mix and usage of the various online and mobile elements are distinctly different in the various markets, as well as among different demographic groups.

Here are some examples drawn from this data in this Yearbook. The Chinese have wholeheartedly embraced social networking, and 80% say being online is an essential part of how they live their lives. Hong Kong men spend more time online than they do watching television, but Hong Kong women are more likely to blog (21% vs. 14%) and to book travel online. Almost three quarters of Australian internet users shop online, and more than a third have booked overseas holidays. The Japanese are the only people in Asia Pacific to use the internet as one of their main sources of news.

In Singapore, 62% of online users play games, 59% listen to music, 53% communicate with others, and 49% watch videos. Whereas more than half of all Indian internet users go online mainly to send email, with searching for information a distant second at 20% of users. Google leads in search regionwide, except for in China, where Baidua??s enormous usage not only makes it top the list but also propels it into the top three search engines worldwide. And the Chinese and Indians lead the list of those most likely to pass on promotional emails, at 74% and 72% respectively of users saying that was the case.

2008 will be the year that marketers put consumers back at the centre of the digital marketing equation, where they belong. New technologies have been the heroes of the digital marketing story to date. New platforms, solutions and techniques are continuously coming onto the horizon, each generating excitement and opportunities as well as concerns about such issues as spam, security and privacy. Web sites, email, rich media, search, mobile, streaming video, and social networking have all had their moment in the sun. However, as the power of digital media and its technologies have grown, some marketers have lost sight of the fundamental skills of understanding and meeting consumer needs. Now more and more advertisers and agencies are rediscovering the obvious: a??It's the customer, stupida??.

Marketers are becoming more sophisticated, and are starting to view tools such as mobile and social media not as new strategies in and of themselves, but as effective ways to reach target consumers as part of unified on- and offline marketing campaigns including print, TV and outdoor. Simultaneously, online publishers, mobile operators, and research houses are starting to offer real insight into distinct usage patterns in behaviour among men, women, youth, the wealthy and other demographic groups as each group reaches critical mass and the analytic tools become more powerful.

For all digital marketinga??s strengths in tracking and measurement, end users must not be regarded as simply a pile of data points to be harvested, sorted and targeted.

The rise of social media has demonstrated conclusively that the consumer is in control of everything from choice of platform and device used, to creating the content. And consumers are fickle and not about to be dictated to by media owners or advertisers. Take search, for example. Asia Pacific has the worlda??s highest use of search (45% of the total) and search accounts for the majority of advertising revenue, but is initiated by the user, not the advertiser. In the Asia Pacific region, referrals from friends and family members continue to be the number one way that people learn about new Web sites and content. China has 42 million bloggers -more than the U.S. and Europe combined- and if the Chinese blogging community were a country, it would have a larger population than all of Argentina.

Keeping the consumer at the centre of marketing will also continue to drive online and mobile advertising spending. In Japan, now around 10% of all ad budgets are spent online, and mobile comprises around 10% of that. Online ad spend in Singapore should overtake traditional media spend after 2010. Chinaa??s online revenues are expected to top US$3 billion by 2010 -double 2007 levels. But these are all just projections -none of us really know what media the customers are going to adopt, how quickly trends will shift, how theya??ll use media, and how credible new media will be as a marketing platform.

The full 60 pages report is available on Truffles to Ogilvy employees.

12 Billion videos viewed online in the US

THU, 17 JUL 2008 00:00:00 GMT

comScore released May 2008 data from the comScore Video Metrix service, reporting that U.S. Internet users viewed more than 12 billion online videos during the month, representing an increase of 45 percent versus year ago.

In May, Google sites once again ranked as the top U.S. video property with 4.2 billion videos viewed (representing a 35 percent share of all videos viewed), with YouTube.com accounting for more than 98 percent of all videos viewed at the property. Fox Interactive Media ranked second with 778 million videos (6.4 percent), gaining 1.3 share points versus April.

Yahoo! sites ranked third with 347 million (2.9 percent), followed by Microsoft sites with 246 million (2.0 percent). Hulu.com, a joint venture of NBC and Fox featuring full-length broadcast TV programs, debuted in the tenth position with 88 million videos being viewed (0.7 percent).

Nearly 142 million U.S. Internet users watched an average of 85 videos per viewer in May. Google Sites also attracted the most viewers (83.8 million), who watched an average of 50 videos per person. Fox Interactive attracted the second most viewers (60.8 million), followed by Yahoo! Sites (40.2 million) and Microsoft Sites (29.5 million).

Other notable findings from May 2008 include:
** 74 percent of the total U.S. Internet audience viewed online video.
** The average online video viewer watched 228 minutes of video.
** 82.2 million viewers watched 4.1 billion videos on YouTube.com (50.4 videos per viewer).
** 54.8 million viewers watched 703 million videos on MySpace.com (12.8 videos per viewer).
** 6.8 million viewers watched 88 million videos on Hulu.com (13.0 videos per viewer).
** The duration of the average online video was 2.7 minutes.

Travel online and search

WED, 16 JUL 2008 00:00:00 GMT

Online travel is one of the largest e-commerce categories, and also one of the most competitive, as leisure and business travelers alike have proved themselves eager to take advantage of the easily available information online in their search for the best deal. Last April, Hitwise captured data on 10,559 travel websites, which together accounted for 2% of all US Internet visits during that month.

As online travel shoppers become savvier and as technology for websites improves, it becomes increasingly important for travel website owners to understand the competitive landscape and how travel shoppers are navigating to travel websites.

This report - available on Truffles for Ogilvy employees - provides an overview of the online travel industry as well as an analysis of search engine trends including the growth of search engines as a source of visits, changes in query content, and analysis of the paid search strategies of leading airline websites.

36% of entertainment consumed online

TUE, 15 JUL 2008 00:00:00 GMT

Netpop Research announced new research underscoring the central role of the PC as a primary access-point for entertainment. Despite the arrival of summer's traditional pastimes - blockbuster movies, novels, and fashion magazines - teens and adults today are spending more time in front of computers.

In a typical month, desktop and laptop computers are the device-of-access for:
** 30 percent of time spent listening to audio content, e.g., music, podcasts, recorded books)
** 48 percent of time spent watching video content, e.g., TV shows, full-length films, short videos
** 37 percent of time spent reading print content, e.g. newspapers, magazines, books

Netpop research also reveals another key factor in the shift from traditional to digital media. "Communitainment" - or the social activities that support online entertainment content - is on the rise among Internet users. Among 13 to 34 year-olds, 60 percent regularly engage in at least one of the Communitainment activities measured in the study, spending an average of 78 minutes per weekday. This includes, for example, posting comments about a favorite TV show, or recommending a new album to a friend. Findings underscore the fans' increasing ability to affect the success or failure of a new film, song, game, graphic novel or any other content through the online equivalent of word-of- mouth.

This study was performed amongst 13 to 34 year-olds who access the Internet through a broadband connection.

Yahoo!'s new search platform

FRI, 11 JUL 2008 00:00:00 GMT

Yahoo! introduced a new open Web services platform, Yahoo! Search BOSS (Build Your Own Search Service), which gives third parties an unprecedented level of access to Yahoo! search technology, including the ability to re-rank and control the presentation of Web search results. Yahoo! Search BOSS, available as an API in beta, enables developers and companies to build world-class custom search experiences and disrupt the search industry.

BOSS extends Yahoo!'s Open Strategy by giving access to one of the most valuable assets on the Web, the Yahoo! Search infrastructure and technology. This builds on another recent launch of Yahoo!'s SearchMonkey developer platform, which opened up the Yahoo! search results page to allow site owners and developers to create enhanced search results.

BOSS provides developers and companies an unprecedented level of access to its algorithmic search infrastructure without incurring the significant costs required to build Web-scale search experiences. By using the BOSS platform, partners have the opportunity to provide industry leading search results. BOSS allows for control over the presentation and ranking of Web search results as well as unlimited queries per day. Its framework allows developers to blend Yahoo! Search results from Web, news and image indexes with any data source from across the Web. Over time, other Yahoo! Search indexes will become available.

Over the next several months, a BOSS monetization capability, using Yahoo! search advertising and potentially other models, will be made available for partners and developers to create a search revenue stream for their business.

BOSS will offer two options for companies and developers. Today, developers can begin using the BOSS API and the mash-up framework tools and see examples of how they could deploy BOSS on their sites by visiting the Yahoo! Developer Network site.

Read more: http://developer.yahoo.com/search/boss/

Emerging media growth

FRI, 11 JUL 2008 00:00:00 GMT

Growth in so-called emerging media platforms, including search, social media and gaming, is experiencing a slowdown, but is still projected to grow by 31.1% next year, according to a report from Interpublic's Magna Global. Some highlights from the report include:
** Search will grow by 24 percent to USD13.8 billion. Search will remain the dominant emerging media category, and its growth will slow only slightly compared to this year's forecast of a 26.5 percent gain over 2007.
** Online video will experience the fastest growth within the emerging media category, seeing gains of 45 percent to USD805 million next year. Still, compared to past years, that area is starting to slow, as in 2008, online video is expected to climb 54.2 percent; in 2007, online video gained 67.4 percent.
** Social media will grow by 37.4 percent to USD1.474 billion. But from 2006 to 2007, the social media space grew 141.7 percent, and then is expected to increase 60.8 percent by the end of 2008.
** Gaming will grow by 27.4 percent to USD296 million, mostly from online use, compared to 35.6 percent anticipated growth for 2008 and 51.9 percent in 2007.
** Mobile will grow by 42.6 percent to USD298 million. Still very healthy growth, but this year, Magna is calling for 74.2 percent gains, and 2007 came in 118.2 percent higher than the previous year.
** Despite the coming conversion to digital TV next February, 'advanced TV' will still have trouble attracting major marketers, Magna contends. Still, it should grow by 13.7 percent to USD183 million by next year.

The full report is available on Truffles for Ogilvy employees.

Google's virtual world

THU, 10 JUL 2008 00:00:00 GMT

Google Lively is the new virtual world created by the world's largest search engine and is billed as a "chat experience" using avatars. Google says, "You're about to embark on a chat experience in which you can communicate and express yourself using avatars in your very own space. Choose an avatar and use it to make friends and chat. Create rooms, decorate them to your liking, and make sure to invite your friends over."

For now, Lively is only available for Windows XP/Vista PCs running Internet Explorer and Firefox; Mac and Linux clients are on their way. While Lively is a custom platform Google has designed, it requires Flash in order to run embedded in a site.

Read more: http://www.lively.com/html/landing.html

More money online in the UK

WED, 09 JUL 2008 00:00:00 GMT

While both ZenithOptimedia and GroupM have both downgraded their forecasts for the 2008 UK advertising market due to the credit crunch - with both warning that total ad spend growth will be below 5% this year, the outlook for Internet advertising remains optimistic.

The internet is, however, expected to become the UK's single largest advertising medium next year. Zenith predicts that internet ad spend is will increase by 32.3% this year and 28.2% next, to reach GBP4.06bn in 2009, according to Zenith. The next biggest medium, newspapers, is valued at A#3.95bn in 2009.

GroupM forecasts that internet spend will rise by 27% this year compared to 2007 and by 20% next year, compared with 2008, noting that "the current ad slowdown is unlikely to affect the internet much".

The ethical pitfalls of buzz

WED, 02 JUL 2008 00:00:00 GMT

In 2002, Sony Ericsson hired dozens of actors to pose as tourists in 10 U.S. cities. Without disclosing their affiliation with the company, the actors asked passersby to snap pictures using a Sony Ericsson camera phone. The campaign was a controversial example of 'stealth' marketing, which the authors define as promotions that don't disclose a marketer's association with the sponsoring firm. A new paper examines several case studies of such 'covert' or 'buzz' marketing and lays out ethical guidelines centering on the idea that companies should never deceive or exploit people's generosity to deliver a marketing message.

Ogilvy-members can find it on Truffles.

Flash can be indexed

TUE, 01 JUL 2008 00:00:00 GMT

Adobe Systems is teaming up with search industry leaders to dramatically improve search results of dynamic Web content and rich Internet applications. Adobe is providing optimized Adobe Flash Player technology to Google and Yahoo! to enhance search engine indexing of the Flash file format (SWF) and uncover information that is currently undiscoverable by search engines. This will provide more relevant automatic search rankings of the millions of rich Internet applications and other dynamic content that run in Adobe Flash Player.

The openly published SWF specification describes the file format used to deliver rich applications and interactive content via Adobe Flash Player, which is installed on more than 98 percent of Internet-connected computers. Although search engines already index static text and links within SWF files, rich Internet applications and dynamic Web content have been generally difficult to fully expose to search engines because of their changing states = a problem also inherent in other rich Internet applications technologies.

Google has already begun to roll out Adobe Flash Player technology incorporated into its search engine. With Adobe's help, Google can now better read the content on sites that use Adobe Flash technology, helping users find more relevant information when conducting searches. As a result, millions of pre-existing rich Internet applications and dynamic Web experiences that utilize Adobe Flash technology, including content that loads at runtime, are immediately searchable without the need for companies and developers to alter them.

Yahoo! also expects to deliver improved Web search capabilities for SWF applications in a future update to Yahoo! Search.

Google's Affiliate Advertising Network

MON, 30 JUN 2008 00:00:00 GMT

Google rebranded Performics, the affiliate ad network that came along with its purchase of DoubleClick, as the 'Google Affiliate Network.' As with other affiliate networks such as Amazon's, participating Website publishers get paid a fee for each referral that results in a sale. Existing advertisers include Bank of America, Barnes & Noble, Citi, Target, and Verizon.

Read more: http://www.google.com/ads/affiliatenetwork/index.html

Web helps petrol crisis

FRI, 27 JUN 2008 00:00:00 GMT

Miami-based company MyGallons.com is offering the chance to pre-buy gasoline at the current price and fill up later when prices - presumably - are higher. While a few small, regional gas chains offer similar programs, MyGallons is rolling out its program nationwide, and its users can buy gas at around 95 percent of gas stations.

MyGallons customers sign up for an annual membership, which costs between USD 29.95 and USD 39.95, on the company's website which went live to the public earlier this week, after almost three months of testing with about 40 members.

MyGallons members receive cards that look and function much like debit cards. Once customers buy as many gallons of gas as they wish at a given price, they can redeem them when the price goes up - six months, a year or even more from their purchase date. The company has no time limit on redemptions.

Read more: http://www.mygallons.com/

Entertainment and media collaboration

TUE, 24 JUN 2008 00:00:00 GMT

Entertainment and media companies hoping to drive growth over the next five years will need to accommodate dramatic changes in devices, market and consumer behaviour through striking strategic business alliances, according to PricewaterhouseCoopers' Global Entertainment and Media Outlook: 2008-2012. The report also underscores the importance of continuing to extract revenues from traditional business segments while emerging technologies continue to solidify their consumer position. The highly anticipated annual report pegs global compound annual growth rate (CAGR) at 6.6% for the sector, anticipating it reaching USD 2.2 trillion in 2012.

Several critical technologies are now reaching tipping points that will deeply influence both the pace and direction of entertainment and media growth over the next five years. Broadband penetration continues to accelerate globally. Mobile is gaining ground quickly - adding subscribers and upgrading infrastructure to enable the next wave of mobile expansion, driven by Internet access, advertising and television. Modern movie houses, digital cinemas and 3-D upgrades are enhancing the cinema-going experience, while high-definition television subscriptions and a resolution of the high definition DVD format wars will invigorate digital living rooms. The impetus behind these new technologies is rarely established companies. The global broadband boom continues unabated, fuelling overall growth, and more than doubling again to 661 million households in 2012, a 16.4% compound annual increase.

While digital and mobile are driving growth, established and traditional business segments will continue to dominate revenues, with the exception of recorded music, where digital distribution will surpass physical distribution in 2011. Although digital and mobile distribution comprised only 5% of global E&M spending in 2007, these revenues will account for 24% of all growth throughout the industry during the next five years.

The Net Generation continues to set the pace and direction of change in the entertainment and media industry while exhibiting an influence that is driving new business models that are revolutionizing the relationship between companies and their customers. As they make these technologies regular components of their everyday lives, the Net Generation is also driving the technology engagement of prior generations, connecting older generations with the latest trends in emerging media technology.

What is more, this is truly a global phenomenon that companies are increasingly paying attention to. Consider: In the BRIC countries, people under the age of 25 comprise at least 31% of the countries' total populations - 43% in Brazil, 31% in Russia, 50% in India and 38% in China. Meanwhile, in the United States, people under the age of 25 represent 34% of the total population. The imperative, then, is that companies must expand their global reach to young people who will propel spending on Internet access and digital entertainment and media during the coming years.

Meanwhile, consumers over the age of 50 are creating a balance in the industry by devoting significant amounts of attention to the more traditional media of their generation as the Net Generation drives growth in digital and mobile entertainment. In every region of the world except EMEA, the 50+ population will see double digit growth rates and globally, this population will increase from 1.1 billion to 1.25 billion, a 13.1% rise through 2012. This growth will help sustain traditional formats even as this generation becomes increasingly interested in the platforms embraced by their children and grandchildren.

Strong consumer demand for a better mobile Web

MON, 23 JUN 2008 00:00:00 GMT

dotMobi, the company behind the .mobi Internet address designed specifically for mobile phones, and AKQA Mobile, announced the results of an extensive consumer study of mobile Internet usage and attitudes. The survey findings indicated a strong consumer desire for practical mobile content on phones. Rather than basic entertainment and ringtones, consumers stated that their most-wanted mobile activities included phone-optimized banking and travel planning.

Further illustrating the desire for utility-focused mobile Web sites, nearly 90 percent of consumer respondents stated that they would be more likely to choose an airline with mobile check-in facilities over one that did not offer them. Additionally, trust in the mobile Web was inherent throughout the results of the study. In demanding access to mobile banking and mobile commerce abilities for basic utilities such as groceries, plane tickets and books, consumers said they trust the mobile Web to keep their personal information secure, as opposed to the PC-based Internet, where security remains of utmost importance.

Other results from the mobile Internet usage and attitudes study include:
* Approximately 90 percent of the 2,000 respondents in the online panel provided by Research Now are interested in learning about the mobile Web, demonstrating a need for brands to make their mobile properties findable via mobile search, marketing and advertising campaigns. Fifty percent of respondents were unaware that there are mobile sites optimized for use on mobile phones and the vast majority - 86 percent of participants - said they were interested in knowing which sites are easily accessible on a mobile phone.
* Nearly 50 percent of respondents said that a poor experience on their initial use of the mobile Web made them "reluctant to access" either the site - or the Internet in general - on their mobile phones again.
* Only 2 percent of participants in the survey who have purchased a phone in the past six months chose an iPhone. This indicates that brands that don't optimize their mobile services for a variety of mobile phones will provide a substandard mobile Internet experiences for a vast majority of consumers.
* Poor site display and layout remain top reasons for mobile Web dissatisfaction among consumers.
* Almost two-thirds of participants stated that they would consider purchasing theater tickets, take-out food and travel tickets via a mobile phone.
* Finally, 63 percent of survey respondents said they would be more likely to give up their money than their mobile "smart phone" if they were mugged.

Time spent online to equal time spent sleeping

MON, 23 JUN 2008 00:00:00 GMT

With video entertainment choices expanding rapidly with the broader availability of Web video, Americans are consuming more video content than ever according to the Multiplatform Video Report released by Solutions Research Group.

The study found that an average American consumer aged 12 and older with Internet access now spends 6.1 hour daily with video-based entertainment, up from 4.6 in 1996. Of this 6.1 hours, 63.9% (nearly 4 hours per day) currently comes from traditional television, including live, DVR and video-on-demand viewing. Video games, web and PC video, DVDs and video on mobile devices account for the balance.

TV accounted for a lower share of video-based entertainment among younger Americans, coming in at 42.4% among those 12-24 (vs. 63.9% total population average). There was also a significant difference between men and women, with TV accounting for 70.4% of women's daily video-based entertainment diet, versus 57.7% for men. PC or online video use was similar, accounting for 10.1% of daily video time for men and 10.5% for women.

One of the most interesting aspects of the findings was the different 'prime time' periods in evidence for various media platforms. For example, PC and web video achieved its highest share mid-day during the week (12.3% share) and it was lowest after 6 pm weekdays and weekends. Prime time for video gaming was Saturday mornings while mobile video peaked during weekday mornings.

Total hours with video-based entertainment on all platforms is forecasted to expand nearly 35% to about 8 hours on average, as consumers use more screens in more places and video becomes ubiquitous on every screen at home and work and on-the-go. For context, this is close to the time spent sleeping nightly by an average American.

New York Times launches self-service advertising

WED, 18 JUN 2008 00:00:00 GMT

The New York Times and AdReady announced the launch of Self-Service Advertising, an online display advertising site that enables small businesses with budgets of less than USD 10,000 per campaign to easily create and manage online ad campaigns on NYTimes.com. This new alliance reflects a growing trend among publishers seeking to provide small advertisers with an efficient and cost-effective way to advertise online through targeted and optimized banner advertisements.

The Self-Service platform provides online marketers with creative intelligence and access to a database of successful, customizable display ads that can be uniquely modified with a proprietary customization tool. Marketers can create a Self-Service account on NYTimes.com and, by using the platform, easily design an ad and launch a complete, fully managed, scalable ad campaign on the site.

According to Nielsen Online, NYTimes.com had 17.9 million unique visitors in April and was the No. 1 newspaper Web site in the United States, a position it has long held.

Read more: http://www.nytimes.com/selfservice

Web impacts consumer behaviour in Europe

TUE, 17 JUN 2008 00:00:00 GMT

Fleishman-Hillard/Harris Interactive announced the results of the Digital Influence Index (DII) - a study designed to track and measure the influence and impact of the Internet on consumer behaviour and decisions in the UK, Germany and France. The research shows that the internet stands out as the most important communications medium in the lives of European consumers today. But there's a mismatch between the growing impact of the digital channel and the proportion of marketing and advertising resources organizations allocate to it, relative to other media. This study provides insights across a wide range of consumer behaviours and decisions that will help communicators be more strategic in their marketing mix.

Key findings include the following:
*** Across all three countries addressed by the study, the internet has roughly double the influence of the second strongest medium - television - and roughly 8 times the influence of traditional printed media. This shift in consumer influence indicates a need and an opportunity for companies to reprioritise the mix of communications channels they use to reach their customers.
*** Consumers use the internet in different ways to make different decisions. For example, consumers are more likely to seek opinions of others through social media and product-rating sites when making choices that have a great deal of personal impact (e.g., healthcare options or major electronics purchases). But they do use company-controlled sources when making transactional decisions on commoditised items, such as utilities or airline tickets.
*** While consumers see the clear benefits of the internet on their lives, they continue to have concerns about internet safety and the trustworthiness of some online information. In the UK, for example, 66% of online consumers say the internet helps them make better decisions, but just 28% trust the information companies provide on the internet.

Although most survey results were consistent across all three countries, use of the internet shows distinct national differences. Germany leads the three countries in Web research, for example, while UK consumers are the most likely to have created an online profile site on a social networking page.

Ogilvy employees may download the full details of the Digital Influence Index on Truffles.

IAB's video ad guidelines

WED, 11 JUN 2008 00:00:00 GMT

In order to simplify the digital video advertising buying and selling process, the Digital Video Committee of the Interactive Advertising Bureau (IAB) has developed these guidelines and best practices for the most common current in-stream ad formats, including linear video ads, non-linear video ads and companion ads.

These recommendations have been constructed for these ad formats in order to meet the following marketplace needs:
*** More efficient operations through a common set of creative submission guidelines
*** More efficient development of ads and players through minimum common creative guidelines, including click functionality and duration definitions
*** Easier digital video ad buying across multiple sites through minimum common ad sizes for overlay and companion ads
*** Better consumer understanding of ad interactions and environments through best practice recommendations for creative development and player environments

While this document's purpose is to develop more standardization in the most common areas of the digital video landscape, the IAB continues to encourage creativity and innovation in video ad formats. As with all IAB guidelines, this document will be updated as the dynamic digital video advertising landscape progresses and new ad formats become more widely adopted.

The full document is on Truffles.

A new model for news

TUE, 03 JUN 2008 00:00:00 GMT

The Associated Press and Context-Based Research Group collaborated on a report that unveiled key findings from their global anthropological study at the annual World Editors Forum in Sweden. The ethnography examines news consumption patterns of young adults between the ages of 18 and 34 in Britain, the United States and India.

Among the key findings was the fact that the subjects were experiencing news fatigue, meaning they were overloaded with facts and updates and had trouble connecting to more in-depth stories. Participants yearned for quality and in-depth reporting, but had difficulty immediately accessing such content. This experience was common across participants' race, gender and geographic location.

The complete report entitled, "A New Model for News: Studying the Deep Structure of Young-Adult News Consumption" is available on Truffles for Ogilvy employees

More control on mobile

MON, 02 JUN 2008 00:00:00 GMT

IBM released a new study which reveals 80 percent of consumers would prefer a service provider that gave them more choice in the applications and services available on their mobile device. The study, titled, "Go mobile, grow" produced by IBM's Institute for Business Value points to how consumer demand for customization and personalization will drive innovation and open standards in the mobile marketplace.

The mobile Web provides people with access to the Internet anytime and anywhere. The market for mobile Internet services is estimated to reach USD 80 billion by 2011, with increasing usage expected to fuel growth in both the provision of services and mobile Internet advertising.

At the same time, the number of mobile Internet users worldwide is projected to approach 1 billion, a 191 percent increase from 2006 and a compound annual growth rate of 24 percent. The ubiquitous availability of IP wireless broadband and more affordable advanced smart phones will change the way companies around the world operate and relate to their customers, employees and partners.

IBM surveyed nearly 700 consumers around the world on their preferences regarding the mobile internet. 69 percent of consumers reported they want devices that are open to personalization and configuration of applications.

The IBM survey found the mobile web will increasingly be used for utility and transactional services. For example, nearly 60 percent of consumers are interested in banking via mobile devices. Other utility services include e-mail, instant messaging, stock trading, news and information and general browsing. Also, entertainment applications are growing in popularity with the IBM study finding 53 percent of consumers interested in mobile TV and 45 percent interest in buying music via mobile devices.

Markets around the world will adopt the mobile Web differently. In mature markets, IBM consultants predict the mobile Web will extend and complement the personal computer. While in emerging markets like India and China, consumers are skipping their first PC purchase and going straight to high-end mobile platforms that deliver the same service. IBM consultants also predict that in semi-literate populations, people will use low-cost mobile phones, whose user interface will be voice-based, which will greatly expand their connectivity to people and data.

The full IBM study is available on Truffles for Ogilvy employees.

Women and social media

MON, 02 JUN 2008 00:00:00 GMT

BlogHer, one of the top women's online networks and the Web's number-one guide to blogs by women, announced the release of the BlogHer/Compass Partners 2008 Social Media Benchmark Study, which reveals compelling new insights into the power of the blogosphere and the significant role it plays in the lives of U.S. women.

The survey, conducted with Compass Partners, illustrates several surprising new trends in social media, specifically that 36.2 million women write and read blogs every week and approximately half consider blogs a "highly reliable" or "very reliable" source of information and advice about everything from products to presidential candidates. Fully 24 percent of women surveyed say they now watch less television because they are blogging instead.

Ogilvy employees can download the full study on Truffles

The Digitally Savvy consumer

TUE, 27 MAY 2008 00:00:00 GMT

In terms of purchasing patterns, Digital Savvy consumers are a luxury-oriented group. They are 56 percent more likely than the average consumer to own or lease a luxury vehicle; 175 percent more likely to have spent USD500 or more on men's or women's business clothing during the past year and 49 percent more likely to own a second home. Online, this consumer group is equally high-end in its shopping behavior.

More than half (54 percent) of the Digital Savvy spent more than USD500 online during the past year, and 35 percent spent upwards of USD1,000 during that timeframe. They are far more likely to spend online in high-end purchasing categories, such as automotive and travel, as well as every day items, such as books and clothing.

Active lifestyles and on-the-go living are the hallmarks of the Digital Savvy. They are far more likely to enjoy athletic leisure activities including basketball, yoga, free weights training and jogging. The Digital Savvy are 18 percent more likely to have longer commutes - one hour or more to work each way. Given this active lifestyle, they rely on mobile phones for communication and information. More than half (59 percent) of the Digital Savvy use their mobile phones for email. They are, on many levels, an active and "on the go" group and their digital savvy is a natural compliment to that lifestyle.

Demographically, the Digital Savvy are male, young and wealthy. Fifty-six percent of them are male and 77 percent of this consumer group is below the age of 44. They are 132 percent more likely than the average consumer to have an annual household income of USD150,000 or more. In fact, more than half (57 percent) of this consumer group has an annual household income of USD75,000 or greater.

More segmentation details, including a Digital Savvy Score distribution, are available in the full report which can be downloaded on Truffles by Ogilvy employees.

Microsoft offers money for search use

THU, 22 MAY 2008 00:00:00 GMT

Microsoft launched a new "cashback" search service that pays users a rebate for buying products they found through the company's Windows Live search engine. Live Search cashback is the latest attempt by the world's largest software maker to draw users to its online search engine, which is a distant third behind market leader Google and Yahoo!, with under 9.1% of the total pie.

A product search on Windows Live will call up links to online retailers offering that item. The user who buys that item from the retailer's site will get 2 percent to 30 percent of the purchase price back as a rebate. Consumers would have to sign up for a free Windows Live cashback account to participate in the program. Rebates would be issued after a 60-day waiting period to make sure there are no returned products. Microsoft will partner with more than 700 retailers including eBay, Barnes & Noble, Sears and Home Depot and will offer advertisers a cost-per-acquisition model of payment, meaning that they only pay for ads that lead to purchases. The current cost-per-click model charges advertisers for every click on a sponsored link associated with certain keywords.

Just six months ago Microsoft had 9.8% market share. Google, by contrast, has 61.6% and is growing steadily. Without search market share, Microsoft can't get search revenue market share. And it isn't just a matter of splitting up the pie. This is a winner-take-most market: having 9% of search doesn't mean Microsoft has 9% of search marketing dollars. Far from it - publishers go to Google to partner on ads, which means advertisers must go there to get inventory, and a very healthy auction system pushes up prices. So not only does Microsoft (and Yahoo! and everyone else) have much fewer queries than Google, they are also generating much less revenue per query as well.

Microsoft sees online search as a critical component to establishing an online advertising powerhouse. The company's effort to gain more market share in Web search led to its unsolicited offer to buy Yahoo! earlier this year. It withdrew a $47.5 billion offer a few weeks ago, but has re-approached Yahoo! with an alternative deal. A source familiar with the talks said Microsoft had offered to buy Yahoo!'s search business and take a minority stake in the rest of the company after selling off its Asian assets.

Ikea and The Sims

WED, 21 MAY 2008 00:00:00 GMT

Players of The Sims 2 will soon be able to add Ikea furniture to their virtual homes as part of a marketing deal between the Swedish company and Electronic Arts, the computer game's producer. EA has formed an unusual partnership with Ikea to make a selection of the retailer's furniture and home furnishings available to players of The Sims 2, sequel to The Sims - the life simulator that is the best-selling PC game series ever.

From June 27 Sims 2 players in Europe, the games franchise's biggest market, will be able to decorate their virtual homes with a Malm bed, a Leksvik coffee table and Ektorp sofa, or deck out their virtual home office with a Helmer drawer unit and Lack zigzag shelf.

The Ikea deal comes a year after EA announced a partnership with another Swedish company, H&M, which allowed Sims 2 players to dress the characters they create in the fashion retailer's clothes as well as enter a competition to create new designs. In its first year, sales of the H&M Fashion software pack reached 1m. EA also struck a deal with Ford to enable Sims players' characters to own a Focus or Mustang car. To date, 2.7m Ford add-ons have been sold.

With UK games industry turnover now outstripping film box office receipts, brand owners' interest in games as an advertising medium is growing fast. Until now, most activity has fallen into two categories: relatively unsophisticated in-game billboard-style advertising and traditional sponsorship. The EA/Ikea deal is showing potential for deeper and more subtle integration of game and brand.

Newspapers-web combo works

TUE, 20 MAY 2008 00:00:00 GMT

New consumer research commissioned by Google indicates that consumers frequently combine use of newspapers and the Internet to evaluate and make purchases, the Newspaper Association of America said. According to the study, among people who research products and services after seeing them advertised in newspapers, two-thirds (67 percent) use the Internet to find more information. Of that group, nearly 70 percent of consumers actually make a purchase following their additional research.

The research was the result of a wide-ranging study exploring the effectiveness of bringing new advertisers to the newspaper print environment through the Google Print Ads platform. Earlier NAA studies have shown that newspapers continue to serve as a major resource for U.S. consumers seeking advertising and shopping information.

The results of the study confirm a core marketing principle - consumers' exposure to advertising messages across mediums influences their subsequent research and purchasing behavior.

Additional data from the research includes:
*** Newspaper readers respond to ads in their newspapers. More than half (56 percent) of respondents either researched or purchased at least one product they saw in the newspaper in the last month.
*** Newspaper advertising drives Web traffic. Of those who said they researched at least one product they saw in the newspaper, 67 percent said they conducted research online, compared with 48 percent who visited a store, 23 percent who called a store and 23 percent who asked a friend.
*** Use of newspapers and the Internet reinforces consumer confidence. Around half of respondents (48 percent) said that seeing a product in the newspaper after seeing it online would make them trust the product more and be more likely to purchase, illustrating the value of reaching the same customer through multiple media. More than half of that group (52 percent) said they would be more likely to purchase the product.
*** Of the more than half of respondents who said they either purchased or researched a product after seeing a newspaper ad in the last month, 42 percent reported they purchased a product and 44 percent said they researched at least one product (with some overlap between the groups).
*** Overall, nearly 30 percent of Internet-using newspaper readers went online to research at least one product that they saw in the newspaper (on average, they researched nine).

Targeting about-to-go-viral videos

MON, 19 MAY 2008 00:00:00 GMT

One of the greatest aspects of YouTube is how it has democratized the way in which videos are discovered and promoted. On any given day, a video from a top-tier content creator or an ordinary YouTube user can become the next big thing.

YouTube's product and engineering team tapped into this core ethos by creating an algorithm that determines which YouTube partner videos are quickly becoming popular on the site and about to go viral. The algorithm looks at several factors, such as acceleration of views, favorites, and ratings activity, and then allows advertisers to target their ads specifically to these videos on YouTube.

Lionsgate was the first advertiser to partner with YouTube in the pilot of this product, by using buzz targeting to promote the release of the film "The Forbidden Kingdom", placing it at the center of the experience that millions of people have on YouTube every day.

Yahoo!, WPP form ad-trading partnership

FRI, 16 MAY 2008 00:00:00 GMT

Yahoo! has struck an advertising partnership deal with WPP Group that will let WPP buy ads on Yahoo's online ad exchange. As part of the agreement, WPP agencies, working through 24/7 Real Media, will develop a proprietary media trading platform that connects to Yahoo!'s Right Media Exchange. WPP agencies will work with 24/7 Real Media to integrate their proprietary targeting capabilities into the platform and develop custom trading strategies, which can be seamlessly executed via the Right Media Exchange on a highly targeted and cost-effective basis.

WPP will also work with Yahoo! to develop a WPP marketplace, giving WPP's agencies even greater access to inventory, visibility across the market and insight into value. WPP intends to draw inventory for the WPP marketplace from Yahoo!'s owned- and-affiliated networks and 24/7's Global Web Alliance. The marketplace would also be open to third-party publishers.

How to monetise the conversation

WED, 14 MAY 2008 00:00:00 GMT

Communities of purpose are the business units of the 21st century. This notion, should you accept it, has profound and far-reaching implications not only for the future of publishing but also for advertising, marketing, production and the very process of the creation of value. It has implications too for how companies should organise to benefit from the new way value is created.

This paper - available for Ogilvy-members on Truffles - seeks to explain why these communities of purpose are of such value and why enabling their rapid, real-time evolution unlocks the key to value creation. It will consider why this has the potential to be the greatest explosion in value ever created. And it will propose solutions in which content, conversation and communities of purpose provide the cornerstones.

Microsoft Messenger TV

TUE, 13 MAY 2008 00:00:00 GMT

Microsoft has launched a new online service which will allow users to watch video clips at the same time as a network of friends and chat via Windows Live Messenger. The new service called Messenger TV will offer a range of clips on MSN Video including MTV shows and music clips from providers such as Sony BMG.

Microsoft hopes the ability to watch clips with friends on different computers will create a new social experience and attract users who already spend hours on social networks. In practice, the system works a lot like the recently sandboxed feature of YouTube which allows a similar real-time chatting during viewing: it's like sitting on a digital couch and chatting with your friends as you watch TV.

The service will launch in 20 countries including many European countries, New Zealand, Australia, Singapore, Brazil, Canada and Mexico but not the United States.

Google Friend Connect

MON, 12 MAY 2008 00:00:00 GMT

Websites that are not social networks may still want to be social and now they can be, easily. With Google Friend Connect, any website owner can add a snippet of code to his or her site and get social features up and running immediately without programming - picking and choosing from built-in functionality like user registration, invitations, members gallery, message posting, and reviews, as well as third-party applications built by the OpenSocial developer community. Visitors to any site using Google Friend Connect will be able to see, invite, and interact with new friends, or, using secure authorization APIs, with existing friends from social sites on the web, including Facebook, Google Talk, hi5, orkut, Plaxo, and more.

Google Friend Connect has been developed to lower two barriers to the spread of social features across the Web. First, many website owners want to add features that enable their visitors to do things with their friends, but the technology and resource hurdles have been too high. Second, people are tiring of needing to create new logins and profiles and recreate their friends lists wherever they go on the web. Google Friend Connect offers a solution to both these issues.

All site owners interested in learning more about Google Friend Connect and signing up for the wait list can click on the link below. In the weeks ahead, Google will be turning on more sites, adding more social applications, and integrating feedback from site owners and developers.

Read more: http://www.google.com/friendconnect

Women and men on social networks

FRI, 09 MAY 2008 00:00:00 GMT

A Rapleaf study of 30 million social network users worldwide found that women generally have more friends on social networks than men. However, when Rapleaf divided male and female users into several categories based on the number of friends in each person's network, men were more likely to be "Super Connectors", ie. having numbers of friends in the thousands.

Women, on the other hand, were found to have slightly less friends in their networks yet spend more time on them. Women dominated the Social Networkers and Connectors categories, the number of friends they had ranging from 1 to around 1,000.

Rapleaf's study appears to show that women are more likely to have smaller groups of online friends yet have a closer and more nurturing relationship with them, whereas men collect friends freely or use social networking as a business networking tool. Study findings that men were the dominant gender on LinkedIn seems to support this.

Of the people surveyed, 53.57% were female and 46.43% were male. A full 85% of respondents were from the US.

Lego enters the virtual world

THU, 08 MAY 2008 00:00:00 GMT

Lego Universe joins an established trend where toys and video games are cross-promoted; to launch next year as a massively multiplayer online game, or MMOG to those in the gaming community, Lego Universe will let players create online versions of themselves and interact with each other.
< br>Lego Universe will blend real-world style environments with characters and buildings made of digital plastic pieces. A forest would have less bricks in the background, while a city would lend itself to being made nearly entirely with bricks.
< br>Each player's avatar will be a customizable digital version of Lego minifigures, the tiny characters included with most Lego kits that also feature in existing Lego video games such as Lego Star Wars. Just like with Lego Factory, users will also be able to order the physical versions of their online creations and have them delivered to their door.

Lego Universe will initially launch as a PC game, available in stores or as a download, and may eventually be available on other gaming platforms. It will operate as a pay-as-you-go subscription service. Most social online worlds have their own currency or monetary system, and Lego Universe will also require users to spend virtual money to buy virtual bricks. But rather than winning or beating an opponent, players build capital by spending time in the game.

Read more: http://universe.lego.com/

Ogilvy Paris and HK win Webby Awards

WED, 07 MAY 2008 00:00:00 GMT

The Webby Awards is the leading international award honoring excellence on the Internet. Established in 1996 during the Web's infancy, the Webbys are presented by The International Academy of Digital Arts and Sciences, a 550-member body of leading Web experts, business figures, luminaries, visionaries and creative celebrities.

Reflecting the tremendous growth of the Internet as a tool for business and everyday lives, last year's Webby Awards expanded the mission of the Webby by honoring excellence in Website, Interactive Advertising, Online Film & Video, and Mobile categories.

The Webby Awards presents two honors in every category -- The Webby Award and The People's Voice Award. Members of The International Academy of Digital Arts and Sciences select the nominees for both awards in each category, as well as the winners of the Webby Awards. However the online community, determine the winners of The People's Voice by voting for the nominated work that you believe to be the best in each category.

With nearly 10,000 entries from all 50 US states and over 60 countries worldwide, the 12th Annual Webby Awards is the biggest in its history. And the Ogilvy Paris team won the Webby Award in the Fashion category with its Louis Vuitton Core Values work - http://journeys.louisvuitton.com

Ogilvy Hong Kong also won the webby award in Mobile advertising with the 'Motorola say Goodbye' campaign - http://210.48.79.8/awards/hkia/index.htm - and Ogilvy New York was a nominee in the Mobile Gaming category for DHL - http://www.wwpl.net/webbys2008/dhl/stackit.html. Congrats to all the teams!!!

Read more: http://www.webbyawards.com/

User ad targeting optional on MySpace

WED, 07 MAY 2008 00:00:00 GMT

MySpace will give users the option of whether they want to participate in a targeted advertising system that mines their profile's information. MySpace's HyperTargeting system will look at a person's interests listed on their public profile and then classify the user into particular interest-specific categories; advertisers will then be able to target categories of users that may be most receptive to their campaigns.

But in a nod to the growing concerns over how personal information is handled by social networks for advertising, people will be able to opt out. MySpace will also not collect and store other personal information on users.

HyperTargeting will first be rolled out in the U.S. and then likely to the U.K. In preliminary tests, the HyperTargeting system resulted in a 300 percent increase in the number of click-throughs on an ad.

With 200+ million registered users worldwide, MySpace remains the top social networking site.

Google TV Ads

TUE, 06 MAY 2008 00:00:00 GMT

Google TV Ads, a flexible, all-digital system for easily and efficiently buying more accountable and measurable TV advertising - which has been an invitation-only beta test since June 2007 - is now available to all US-based advertisers.

First, you'll need a TV commercial. If you don't have any, Googlea??s Ad Creation Marketplace provides you with the tools to connect with pros who will provide scripting, copywriting, editing, production and voiceovers for your ad; and for a limited time, Google will cover the cost of creating your TV ad through the marketplace up to USD2000.

In other words, Google now provides anyone with a credit card and an internet connection with the ability to create a television commercial and monitor the success of their campaign using a simple online tool. There are of course better options out there, but it's available to everyone and therein lies its appeal.

Read more: http://services.google.com/tvads/demos/productdemo/index.html

Morgan Stanley reports

MON, 05 MAY 2008 00:00:00 GMT

Unlike previous editions, social media dominates Morgan Stanley's Internet and Mobile trends report, and there are a ton of interesting stats including mobile (42 pages out of 72) and international analysis.

Here are a few of the insights:
*** YouTube + Facebook page views are greater than Google or Yahoo! page views (and may be bigger than both combined)
*** 6/10 top Internet sites are social and none were on the list in 2005
*** YouTube has 258 million users, 50% visit weekly or more
*** 50% of Facebook users log in daily, 95% of Facebook users have used at least one third party application
*** 14 million photos uploaded daily on Facebook

Ogilvy-members can find the full report on Truffles.

Social media still growing

WED, 30 APR 2008 00:00:00 GMT

The latest survey from Universal McCann shows no signs of a pause in the explosive growth of social media. Video clips, blogs, podcasts, social networks and RSS are all essential components of the online media diet. To help provide a more complete picture, the analysis in this report - available for Ogilvy-members on Truffles - puts the results into context in two ways: market by market universe estimates and penetration of usage among all 16-54s.

Next generation image search

MON, 28 APR 2008 00:00:00 GMT

At the International World Wide Web Conference in Beijing last week, two Google scientists presented a paper describing what the researchers call VisualRank, an algorithm for blending image-recognition software methods with techniques for weighting and ranking images that look most similar. Although image search has become popular on commercial search engines, results are usually generated today by using cues from the text that is associated with each image.

Despite decades of effort, image analysis remains a largely unsolved problem in computer science. The research paper, "PageRank for Product Image Search," is focused on a subset of the images that Google has cataloged because of the tremendous computing costs required to analyze and compare digital images. To do this for all of the images indexed by the search engine would be impractical. Google does not disclose how many images it has cataloged, but it asserts that its Google Image Search is the "most comprehensive image search on the Web."

The company said that in its research it had concentrated on the 2000 most popular product queries on Google's product search, words such as iPod, Xbox and Zune. It then sorted the top 10 images both from its ranking system and the standard Google Image Search results. With a team of 150 Google employees, it created a scoring system for image relevance. The researchers said the retrieval returned 83 percent less irrelevant images.

Moms buzzing about brands

THU, 24 APR 2008 00:00:00 GMT

New research released by BabyCenter, the largest online resource for expectant and new parents and market research company, the Keller Fay Group, reveals that today's pregnant women and new moms engage in one-third more word of mouth conversations per day than the total public or women and almost two-thirds of these conversations include brand recommendations. This group has an average of 109 word of mouth conversations per week about products, services and brands, most of which are positive and considered highly credible by other moms.

The BabyCenter/Keller Fay Word of Mouth Marketing Study, conducted in the first quarter of 2008, shows that 60 percent of conversations among this group carry with them a recommendation to buy, try or consider the brands under discussion and positive brand sentiment outweighs negative by a 10:1 margin. The credibility of word of mouth measured higher for pregnant and new moms than for the total U.S. public or women in every category measured. Among the mom segment, word of mouth about shopping, retail and apparel is highly impactful, with 69 percent likely to purchase based on what was heard.

The study showed that moms have much more on their minds than toys and car seats. Half or more of all moms surveyed report having at least one conversation per day about technology, financial services, health care, food/dining, media/entertainment, packaged goods, shopping and retail experiences. In fact, eight of the top ten most talked about brands listed in the study are retailer, consumer electronic or soft drink brands. On average, pregnant and new moms engage in seven conversations per week about technology and eight conversations per week about both beverages and shopping-related topics. Within these conversations they mention five technology brands, six beverage brands and eight retailer brands on average.

The majority of discussions about brands and products occur in person, but much of this talk is stimulated and informed by content moms have been exposed to through media channels such as the Internet and TV. Among pregnant and new moms, the Internet is the #1 driver of word of mouth, beating out all other forms of media, including TV, magazines and outdoor.

The study also found that pregnant and new moms are more likely to qualify as word of mouth influencers. Close to 1 in 5 pregnant and new moms were identified as word of mouth leaders or Conversation Catalysts(TM), based on their recommending behavior and size of social network. This number is 60 percent higher than the total public and 45 percent higher than total women.

Study Methodology: The Keller Fay Group interviewed a sample of 1,721 pregnant women and new mothers in January 2008. Respondents completed an online survey probing specific details about their conversations about brands, across 14 categories, during the 24 hours that immediately preceded the survey. Respondents were asked to report on any form of conversation, whether it occurred face to face, over the phone, or through the Internet. Respondents were recruited via a combination of the BabyCenter 21st Century Mom Panel, BabyCenter's website, and an external panel. Qualified respondents were women age 18 and older who are either pregnant, and/or have a child or children five years and under, and/or are trying to get pregnant. Comparisons to the total public and total women are drawn from TalkTrack(R), Keller Fay's ongoing study of the nationa??s word of mouth conversations.

MySpace ad platform

WED, 23 APR 2008 00:00:00 GMT

MySpace announced the beta launch of the Community Builder advertising platform. The new platform giving advertisers the ability to build, maintain and customize brand profiles while also providing guaranteed valuable analytics to help them gauge campaign performance and make real-time adjustments to maximize effectiveness.

This new platform should enable marketers to fulfill long-term communication strategies with consumers who engage in and friend their communities. It's an opportunity to connect with users faster and easier than ever before.

he Community Builder platform is available in two versions, 'Self-Service' and 'Full-Service', enabling advertisers to effectively choose the solution that is most relevant for the brand and community depending on the level of customization required. Both versions give advertisers 24/7 access to update community elements (blogs, bulletins), increased analytics (via Hitbox) and increased profile functionality, giving them the control to create and maintain brand momentum with users in an unprecedented way.

Self-Service is aimed at advertisers who are familiar with MySpace and who have advanced design coding skills (CSS and XHTML) with the time and resources required to maintain a community.

Full-Service, in contrast, is a complete solution provided by MySpace for advertisers who require a premium in-house production solution with a fully-customized level of service that fully utilizes the wide variety of in-house MySpace experts in user experience, community design, and interactive element solutions (including sweepstakes and contests).

The Community Builder advertising platform will be available in the US and builds upon MySpace's industry leading advertising model, which includes customized communities, multi-platform integrated marketing campaigns, and the new advertising platforms HyperTargeting and SelfServe which empower users such as small business owners, bands, and politicians to purchase, create and analyze the performance of ads throughout the MySpace network.

China No. 1 Internet market

TUE, 22 APR 2008 00:00:00 GMT

China, already the world leader in mobile phone use, has surpassed the USA as the No. 1 nation in Internet users. The number of Chinese on the Internet hit more than 233 million as of March, according to estimates from official Chinese statistics by the Beijing-based research group BDA China. The longtime Internet leader, the USA, which founded and developed the network of computers, had 216 million users at the end of 2007, according to Nielsen/NetRatings.

IAB report on UGC and social media

MON, 21 APR 2008 00:00:00 GMT

The IAB has released a report that helps marketers, agencies and publishers better understand how these platforms have fundamentally altered the digital experience for consumers and advertisers. The report defines UGC (user generated content) and social media, provides a detailed overview of the latest advertising opportunities, and details case studies of campaigns that have successfully utilized UGC and social media.

Ogilvy employees can find the full report on Truffles.

US YouTube visits up big time

FRI, 18 APR 2008 00:00:00 GMT

Hitwise announced that for the month of March 2008, YouTube accounted for 73.18 percent of all U.S. visits among a custom category of 68 online video websites. MySpaceTV received the second highest percentage of visits with 9.21 percent followed by Google Video with 4.06 percent.

The Online Video category accounted for 1.09 percent of all U.S. Internet visits in March 2008, a decline of 7 percent compared to March 2007. Despite the decrease in U.S. visits, the amount of time spent on the websites increased 7 percent for the week ending April 5, 2008. Hulu.com, which came out of beta the week ending March 15, 2008, was the 22nd most visited website in the category for March 2008 receiving .22 percent of visits to the category.

Break.com was the most visited independent online video website for March 2008 receiving 1.82 percent of all U.S. visits to the category. MetaCafe received .98 percent followed by Daily Motion with .96 percent of visits.

Ads in the new widget economy

TUE, 15 APR 2008 00:00:00 GMT

mediaFORGE is putting the conversation in conversational media with the official debut of its new interactive ad platform for running engaging widget campaigns as display media. mediaFORGE widgets are fully customizable based on specific marketing goals and objectives, and most importantly, they can socialize existing advertising assets.

mediaFORGE adds an entirely new social dimension to banner ads by incorporating a widget as an engagement engine. As visitors roll over the ad, a flash-based widget appears that allows users to interact with content -whether it's shopping, browsing personalized specials, buying last-minute deals, viewing videos or pictures, or listening to music.

Not only are mediaFORGE widgets-ads immersive, they are also downloadable to the desktop or embeddable within social networks.

Read more: http://www.mediaforge.com/

Search engine users behavior

MON, 14 APR 2008 00:00:00 GMT

In December 2007 and January 2008, iProspect partnered with JupiterResearch to develop and field a survey containing questions about the behavior of search engine users. The objective of the survey was to uncover data that would enable search marketers to better understand how search engine users behave when they conduct different types of searches and are presented with different types of search results within the three largest search engines (in terms of market share): Google, Yahoo! and MSN.

The survey focused largely on search engine user behavior as it pertains to a??blendeda?? search results (coined a??Universal Searcha?? by Google in May 2007) that are now presented to search engine users by all three major search engines (initiated within MSN in July 2007 and within Yahoo! in October 2007). The results of this survey and subsequent analysis by iProspect comprise this document - the iProspect Blended Search Results Study - in which iProspect also provides actionable advice to search marketers on how to capitalize on these findings.

Beyond its focus on blended search results, the survey also sought to uncover several other search engine user behavior trends. In order to accomplish this, it included a number of questions that were also asked in previous surveys. Trending information within the iProspect Blended Search Results Study is derived from these previous studies.

See the full report on Truffles.

IAB issues video ad guidelines

MON, 14 APR 2008 00:00:00 GMT

In its continuing strategy to enhance marketplace efficiency the Interactive Advertising Bureau (IAB) announced the release of a set of 'Digital Video Ad Format Guidelines'. These guidelines and best practices address the most widely used current in-stream ad products, including linear video ads, non-linear video ads and companion ads. They were created in order to meet the following marketplace needs:
*** Simplifying digital video ad buying across multiple sites through minimum common ad specifications for video, overlay and companion ads
*** Achieving more efficient operations through a common set of creative submission guidelines
*** Increasing consumer understanding of ad interactions and environments through best practice recommendations for creative development and player environments.

These guidelines are part of the IABa??s ongoing effort to improve marketplace understanding of the role of digital media in the marketing and media ecosystem. They update and supersede the IAB Digital Video (Broadband) Ad Creative Guidelines, released in 2005.

Members of the industry including advertising agencies, advertisers, online publishers and technology vendors are encouraged to read the proposed guidelines and submit comments on the IAB site at www.iab.net/DV_guidelines. The comment period will last for thirty days. Following a review of the feedback, the guidelines will be finalized and publicly released.

Paul O'Donnell on Branded Entertainment

FRI, 11 APR 2008 00:00:00 GMT

CNBC Europe interviewed Paul O'Donnell, Vice-Chairman Ogilvy Group EAME and Chairman OgilvyOne EAME, on Ogilvy's sponsorship of MIPTV.

MIPTV featuring MILIA uniquely brings together TV networks, Content companies, New Media companies, Internet Players, Operators, Technology Companies, Social Networks... discussing how to reach the consumer today and tomorrow in the changing media landscape. That is a conversation as an agency Ogilvy wants to be part of... especially as it explores new advertising channels, formats and business models. Moreover, content is an increasing popular way to the consumer's heart. Hence Ogilvy believe that branded entertainment is a growing discipline agencies and advertisers need to master.

Hear more about Ogilvy's view in the CNBC interview by clicking on the link below.

Read more: http://www.cnbc.com/id/15840232?video=707158946

UK Web ad spend to exceed TV

FRI, 11 APR 2008 00:00:00 GMT

The Internet will usurp television as the biggest advertising medium in Britain by the end of 2009, according to a report published by the Internet Advertising Bureau (IAB), PricewaterhouseCoopers and the World Advertising Research Centre.

The report said the Internet was the biggest driver of overall advertising growth in 2007, with the entire sector in Britain experiencing 4.3 percent growth to 18.4 billion pounds. Online ad spend had a market share of 15.3 percent, up from 11.4 percent in 2006, but behind display press advertising at 19.9 percent and TV at 21.8 percent.

Display online advertising, such as banners and video, grew 31 percent while paid-for search marketing was "maturing, but not slowing" as marketers and brands learned to secure a greater return on their investment through "key phrases" and accurate targeting.

Advertising spend on search grew 39 percent, in line with overall growth, to 1.6 billion pounds, while its market share remained largely the same at almost 58 percent. Classified advertising showed 54 percent year-on-year growth.

Yahoo! new web ad system

WED, 09 APR 2008 00:00:00 GMT

Yahoo! detailed plans for its forthcoming Web advertising management system that gives its ad sales-partners access to online ad space both on Yahoo and other major sites. The widely anticipated system, known as AMP!, aims to simplify the process of buying and selling online ads for advertisers, ad agencies, fast-growing ad trading networks and Web site publishers.

AMP! from Yahoo! will enable advertisers and publishers to connect with each other and their exact target audiences across the increasingly fragmented Internet, in a way that's not possible with current solutions. AMP! will deliver a faster, easier, and more automated and integrated way to create, buy, and sell advertising and do so across a transparent global marketplace.

The AMP! platform will ultimately help marketers buy across search, display, local, mobile, and video inventory - all from a single, integrated interface. It will have the ability to deliver highly relevant advertising to consumers across the entire Web, driving better results for marketers. It will provide a suite of tools that easily allows precise geographic, demographic, and interest-based targeting across a vast network that includes Yahoo! owned-and-operated inventory and more than 600 U.S. newspapers in the Newspaper Consortium. An open platform available to any participant, AMP! will ultimately include Yahoo!'s network of premium publishing partners, agencies, ad networks, and thousands of other smaller publishers from across the web.

AMP! will be introduced in stages starting in the third quarter of this year. The move also is a response to major competitors Google and Microsoft, which have each acquired major competitors in the market for sales of online display ads used by corporate brand marketers.

Read more: http://advertising.yahoo.com/amp/

Consumers on behavioral targeting

TUE, 08 APR 2008 00:00:00 GMT

Consumer privacy organization TRUSTe announced the results of a study conducted by global market insight and information group TNS regarding American Internet users' knowledge, attitudes and concerns about behavioral targeting and its implications on their online privacy.

Overall results indicate a high level of awareness that internet activities are being tracked for purposes of targeting advertising, and a high level of concern associated with that tracking, even when it isn't associated with personally identifiable information.

Behavioral targeting has become a hot button issue recently, as industry enthusiasm for delivering customized experiences and improved marketing metrics runs up against consumer privacy concerns and calls for greater transparency around emerging tracking and targeting techniques.

Based on the results of the survey, lack of transparency may factor into privacy concerns. 71 percent of online consumers are aware that their browsing information may be collected by a third party for advertising purposes, but only 40 percent are familiar with the term 'behavioral targeting'. 57 percent of respondents say they are not comfortable with advertisers using that browsing history to serve relevant ads, even when that information cannot be tied to their names or any other personal information.

An overwhelming majority (91 percent) of respondents expressed willingness to take necessary steps to assure increased privacy online when presented with the tools to control their internet tracking and advertising experience, suggesting a need for added education, transparency and choices for behavioral targeting. Nearly two-thirds (64 percent) would choose to see online ads only from online stores and brands that they know and trust and 44 percent of respondents would click buttons or icons to make that happen.

To the contrary, a similar proportion of consumers (42 percent) say they would sign up for an online registry to ensure that advertisers are not able to track browsing behaviors, even if it meant that they would receive more ads that are less relevant to their interests. This division poses a serious dilemma for BT practitioners and industry privacy advocates, because consumers say they want more relevant advertising, but don't want to be tracked in order to get it.

For the TRUSTe behavioral tracking study, TNS conducted an online survey among a randomly selected sample of American adults whose households belong to TNS's online consumer panel. In total, 1,015 interviews were completed between February 1 and 5, 2008. The data were weighted by region, market size, age, gender and household size, composition and income, to reflect the demographic composition of the online adult population in the continental U.S.

Innovation Lab at MIPTV

MON, 07 APR 2008 00:00:00 GMT

One of the sessions at MIPTV highlighted the importance of a collaborative process between media, advertisers, agencies and small partners to come up with bigger, better ideas to engage audiences. The BBC last year brought 40 companies together in four Innovation Labs to come up with multi-channel content ideas. This collaborative process has been critical to their internal transformation from a tv screen owner to a cross-platform content maker and distributor.

Discussing the process of innovation, Matthew Locke- former BBC and now doing Innovation Labs at Channel 4, underlined how important it is to take participants outside - in a dedicated environment where they concentrate all of their time and attention to the idea. He is committed to a process where you give a partner the opportunity to come not with an idea, but with their insights and talent to contribute to brainstorming.

Dale Herigstad, Schematic, a creative interactive agency partnering with GroupM, says innovation is at the heart of how they work - with lots of group ideation opportunities within their agency. Their design teams are multi-discipline, information architects - creative people - business people, going through a process together of ideation, prototype, test and repeat! Rapid prototyping is key to assure success. Schematic position themselves as interface experts across screens - they look for example at the distance between a screen and its viewer and change experience accordingly. One of the examples they showed is how they integrate tv episode content within a game environment. Or how to integrate live sports broadcasting in an EA sports game. They also analyze all the moments before the content viewing and after as opportunities to interactic with consumers.

Matt Harsh, innovation expert, said that innovations need to be about 3 key things: playing into untapped user needs, creating great user experiences, and harnessing all the capabilities in your organization.

Jonathan Kingsbury - former BBC and now at Nesta - says it's key to create a culture of innovation. Key to the success of innovation is diversity and working with small creative partners. The more you recruit small, left-field partners the more you'll get practice and be receptive to innovation. Then create geographical/organizational spaces to support innovative thinking but assure you integrate it in the rest of the company, make it part of the norm.

Pursuing an experiment on how to integrate a more collaborative way of working to achieve innovation as part of its way of working, Ogilvy is organizing the first Innovation Lab at MIPTV with the finalists of the Content 360 Competition. Read more by following the link below. Frank Boyd, innovation lab moderator, says key to pitching ideas is to put the user experience central.

Adobe to deliver TV shows

MON, 07 APR 2008 00:00:00 GMT

Adobe Systems has started public trials of software that will deliver ad-supported subscriptions to TV programs, including CBS "CSI," "Survivor" and "Big Brother". Adobe has established partnerships with media companies including CBS and MTV-parent Viacom, which will provide their programming through Adobe AIR media player. Adobe AIR (Adobe Integrated Runtime) 1.0 is a free runtime environment that lets developers use Web technologies such as Adobe Flash, Adobe Flex, HTML and Ajax, to build rich Internet applications that deploy to the desktop and run across operating systems. It is currently available for Macintosh and Windows.

Read more: http://www.adobe.com/products/air/

Virtual business world

MON, 07 APR 2008 00:00:00 GMT

IBM will become the first company to host private regions of the virtual world Second Life on its own computer servers. IBM employees will be able to move freely between the public areas of Second Life and private areas which are hosted behind IBM's corporate firewall. This will enable the company to have sensitive discussions and disclose proprietary information without having the data pass through the servers of privately held Linden Lab.

IBM has long been one of the corporations most engaged with Second Life; more than 6,000 IBM employees have created the Second Life characters called avatars, and the company signed a pact with Linden Lab last year to explore interoperability between different virtual worlds.

It marks a new focus by Second Life's parent company, Linden Lab, on providing software and services to corporate customers who want to use the virtual world for collaboration and teleconferencing.

Online video ads vs TV spots

THU, 03 APR 2008 00:00:00 GMT

In hopes of overcoming a lingering perception among consumer packaged goods marketers once and for all that online media is just as - and possibly more - effective than traditional television advertising, Google released the findings of a study comparing online video ads very favorably with traditional TV commercials. The study, conducted with Harris Interactive, only looked at the effectiveness of 30-second TV commercials, and executives said that video ads created specifically for online platforms might be even more effective.

For the study, Google tested the impact of running 30-second commercials from three major packaged goods categories - beverages, salty snacks, and skin care - on three different video platforms: conventional television, YouTube, and embedded in online content.

The study found that the commercials performed equally in all the major attributes on each of those platforms, but that embedded video ads might actually perform slightly better in terms of their ability to influence purchase intent.

While the study did not test the impact of video ads crafted specifically for online video outlets, Google said it would likely show even better results given the contextual influence of such advertising. Google also plans to test the impact of video ads on other 'screen' platforms, including mobile and hand held devices, in the near future.

Yahoo! Shine for women

TUE, 01 APR 2008 00:00:00 GMT

Yahoo! is introducing a new online destination focused on women's daily lives, the latest in a string of sites that include ones for gadget enthusiasts and food lovers. The new site, called "Shine", offers nine categories ranging from Fashion & Beauty to Parenting. It syndicates material from popular lifestyle publishers including Conde Nast and Hearst.

The site is aimed at roughly 40 million women between the ages of 25 and 54 and aims to make Yahoo! more relevant to this demographic, which is highly appealing to brand advertisers.

Yahoo!'s media strategy has been to create consolidated thematic sites designed to appeal to mass audiences (the company introduced Yahoo! Tech in May 2006 and Yahoo! Food in November 2006). According to market research firm Hitwise, Yahoo! Tech ranks in the top five of U.S. technology media sites and Yahoo Food ranks in the top 10 of food lifestyle sites.

Yahoo! has hired an editorial team - the ladies of Shine - to publish original stories on a daily basis as well as to select user blog posts to feature prominently on the site. Shine also offers items from existing Yahoo! sites covering food, astrology and health.

So what you won't find on Shine: Advice on how to please your man and diets that urge you to "lose 10 pounds fast!" What you will find on Shine: Why buying an expensive "It Bag" is a waste of money; how to make a meal in 30 minutes; how to make a face mask out of last night's 30-minute meal (okay not really but you get the idea), how to de-stress at your desk; sharp, opinionated takes on the news; and finally, that you aren't alone in your "Dancing with the Stars" obsession.

Read more: http://shine.yahoo.com

Australians surf more than watch TV

MON, 31 MAR 2008 00:00:00 GMT

The amount of time Australians are spending online has, for the first time ever, surpassed the amount of time spent watching television - 13.7 hours per week surfing the net, while average television viewing was around 13.3 hours per week. These and other results were released as part of Nielsen Online's 10th Australian Internet and Technology Report which looks at the profile of Internet users, online behaviours, ownership of technologies and media consumption habits.

The report revealed an increase in cross media consumption, with more than half (58%) of Australians Internet users saying they have watched TV while online and 48 percent have used the Internet while listening to the radio.

Overall, men were larger consumers of various forms of media than women with the exception of books and online radio - men spent 2.5 hours per week more online and 1.5 hours more per week watching television than women, while women spent around an hour more per week reading and 1.6 hours more listening to the radio online.

In terms of access to technology, Australian Internet participation has reached maturity with only a one percent increase of uptake in the past 12 months to 80 percent. This is well above the global Internet participation rate of just 20 percent. Of those Australians who have yet to trial the Internet, 17 percent expect that they will use the Internet within the next 12 months, with the largest current barriers to Internet uptake being lack of interest and a lack of computer.

The majority of Australian Internet users access the Internet from home (92%), while only around one third (34%) said they accessed the Internet from work. The most popular online activities undertaken regularly were email (98%), banking (72%) and accessing news, sport and weather updates (72%). Growth areas in online activities in the year ahead are expected to be accommodation bookings and instant messaging, both of which are predicted to growth by around 20 percent.

The Nielsen Online report also found that broadband uptake in Australia is now reaching maturity, with broadband connections now found in 84 percent of Australian Internet users' homes (up 10 points in 12 months and up 30 points in two years). Based on expected uptake, Nielsen Online predicts penetration of this technology should grow to 90 percent by the end of 2008.

Mobile phone ownership is also reaching saturation levels, with 92% of Australian Internet users now owning a mobile phone. The range of reported mobile handset capabilities has shown strong increases since last year, however, actual use of these functions still trails, with lower proportions actually using such capabilities (the main exception is camera functionality which is widely used by 84% of those that have it). For example, just under half (45%) of those with a mobile Internet capable phone have used the device to go online. Based on anticipated uptake of mobile Internet activities, the biggest area of mobile content access growth is expected to be in mapping/directions information, expecting a 144% rate of growth to reach 39% by the end of 2008.

YouTube's video analytics tool

FRI, 28 MAR 2008 00:00:00 GMT

In a move to provide better data to its users, YouTube has added a free feature that will show video creators when and where viewers are watching their videos. With this, the company hopes to turn YouTube from an online video site into a place where marketers can test their messages. YouTube executives suggest that marketers can use the tools in several ways.

A movie studio might run several versions of a trailer to see what is catching on where, and if a humorous spot is catching fire in Texas, might start running that trailer as a TV ad in the state. During a YouTube test of the feature, a band uploaded its music performances, determined which states it was popular in via Insight, and planned a tour around that.

This program, called YouTube Insight, provides a detailed view of a video's popularity, both over time and geographically, broken down by state. (Internationally, YouTube Insight is not as insightful, providing only popularity by country.)

With the Insight information, video creators can dig into the specifics of a video's performance and find, for example, that it peaks on Fridays in winter months, or it has taken several weeks to get traction - information that can help better promote their work. The information, presented as a color-coded map and a graph of a video's popularity, is accessible through a link from a video creator's account page on YouTube. The company will update the data once a day.

In a couple of weeks, YouTube will start providing even more information, showing video creators where their viewers have come from. As for now, you can find currently available metrics by clicking under the 'About this Video' button under 'My account > Videos, Favorites, Playlists > Manage my Videos.'

Demographic bidding now available

THU, 27 MAR 2008 00:00:00 GMT

In January, Google invited AdWords advertisers to join a beta test of demographic bidding, a feature that helps you target your ads to users of a particular age group (such as ages 18-24), by gender, or to combinations of those groups.

You can use demographic bidding whether you are using contextual or placement targeting and with both CPC and CPM bidding. You can refine your reach based on users' gender and age on certain sites in the Google content network such as MySpace and Friendster, whose users provide that information about themselves. AdWords receives the data in anonymous and aggregate form from participating partner sites, which means that users can't be personally identified.

Here's an example of how demographic bidding works, according to Google: suppose you sell women's basketball shoes and want your ad to be seen by 18-24 year-old females. You could raise your bids to increase the frequency with which those users see your ads. You can also restrict your ads from certain users if you think they're not meeting your ROI goals. In the case of women's basketball shoes, you might find that the male, 18-24 year-old demographic is receiving a significant number of impressions but not clicking-through or converting well, and decide to restrict that group.

Overall, demographic bidding gives you more control over the demographic groups who see your ads. You can also use demographic reports, available in the AdWords Report Center, to get insight into how your ads perform for specific demographics. These metrics can help you decide how to adjust your bid modifiers and restricts to reach the audiences that give you the most clicks and the best ROI.

Lastly, it's helpful to know that demographic bidding and demographic site selection are two separate ways of targeting your ads. Demographic site selection, found in the AdWords Placement Tool, helps you find and target entire websites that, in general and based on comScore data, have the audience you're trying to reach. On the other hand, demographic bidding lets you modify your bids or restrict your ads' visibility based on the age and gender of the users viewing your ads on participating sites in the Google content network.

Building social applications across the Web

WED, 26 MAR 2008 00:00:00 GMT

Representatives from Google, Yahoo! and MySpace outlined the initial plans for the OpenSocial Foundation, a new nonprofit organization whose purpose is to provide common "plumbing" that lets social applications run on many different Web sites without requiring duplicate work from either developers or the Web sites.

Google first announced OpenSocial in October as a response to the plethora of announcements on behalf of social networking sites that they would follow in Facebook's footsteps and create developer platforms of their own. With so many disparate developer strategies, the social media landscape could grow even more fragmented, and Google launched the OpenSocial API (and later the Social Graph API) as a means to provide some connectivity.

Major players like MySpace, LinkedIn, Bebo and Plaxo, along with a host of smaller social networks (many that are unknown), all opted to participate in the new initiative.

Facebook adds privacy controls

TUE, 25 MAR 2008 00:00:00 GMT

Facebook is introducing new privacy controls that will give more than 67 million active users worldwide the ability to preserve social distinctions between friends, family and co-workers online.

Facebook members will be able to control access to details about themselves they share on the site at a group-level by creating and managing lists of friends that are granted different levels of access to such information. The group privacy controls take advantage of "friends lists," a feature the company introduced in December that help members organize friends in their network into groups. These private lists allow users to target messages to selected friends or filter what personal details those groups see. Users can create up to 100 different "friends lists."

In addition, the company confirmed recent reports it is working on a new instant messaging chat feature that runs inside Facebook, allowing users to hold spontaneous back-and- forth chat with their friends on the site.

Online Hollywood Reporter Launched

MON, 24 MAR 2008 00:00:00 GMT

The Nielsen group, which owns the entertainment newspaper, The Hollywood Reporter, has launched an English language website, www.THR-Asia.com, to cater to its audience in the Asian region. As the daily's global online edition, www.hollywoodreporter.com, was launched in 1995, it seems that the paper is now targeting local markets separately.

"The launch of THR-Asia.com reflects the increasingly global and interconnected nature of the entertainment community. This move further advances our goal to be the first in taking the global pulse of the business of entertainment and serving readers and advertisers across the world with the most relevant information and insights delivered on every platform," Eric Mika, senior vice-president and publishing director, The Hollywood Reporter, said in a release.

The home page of the site features entertainment related news, reviews of films, box-office collection figures, videos, polls and interviews from seven Asian countries, China, Hong Kong, India, Japan, Korea, Singapore and Thailand. Each country has its own section and home page on which a user can read the entertainment news related to that country. However, reviews of global films are featured across all country specific pages. The Indian section has reviews on Bollywood films such as Ashutosh Gowariker's Jodhaa Akbar.

The site is currently using ads powered by Google Ad Sense as a means of monetisation. However, on the international site, THR uses paid content and advertising as its business model. The paid content includes news analysis pieces, research driven features and archived stories, which are only accessible to subscribers.

Read more: http://digital.agencyfaqs.com/perl/digital/news/index.html?sid=20549

Branded content has longer shelf life

THU, 20 MAR 2008 00:00:00 GMT

"Brands should own entertainment rather than rent it," declared our colleague Doug Scott, senior partner-executive director of Ogilvy Entertainment, kicking off Advertising Age's second annual Digital Marketing Conference. Doug was one of the four panelists who explored the changing models for commercial content, both creative and distribution-oriented.

"When you look at what the traditional marketer spends, the average 30-second spot in the industry is probably pushing $1 million or more. But the shelf life of that is roughly six months."

The shelf life of short-form branded content, however, can be several years. "The ownership of that content allows you to really mold the message you're looking to carry out there. There are a lot of co-investments taking place right now between brands and production companies. The movement you're seeing takes place on both coasts, from a brand and content standpoint."

Virtual Telephony is the New Buzz

THU, 20 MAR 2008 00:00:00 GMT

Virgin Mobile's entry into India through a tie-up with Tata Indicom has virtually kicked off the entry of mobile virtual network operators (MVNO) into the country.

MVNOs provide cellular services but do not own either the radio spectrum or the network/ infrastructure that consists of switches, microwave backbone, towers and so on. Mostly, they buy bulk minutes from the spare capacity of existing cellular operators and offer their own tariffs and services under their own brand and marketing efforts.

MVNOs are not yet allowed to operate in India and therefore Tata-Virgin tie up kicked up dust the moment it was announced a few days ago. The reason: Virgin is arguably the most well known MVNO in the world. It was the first such operator to launch the services in UK in 1999. Since then, it has been eyeing the world's fastest growing cellular market but could not get a foothold because of the policy constraints.

So, it has found a way around it. The Tata-Virgin tie-up has been presented to the government as a franchise arrangement where Tatas would pay Virgin for using its brand and Virgin, in turn, would work more as a dealer-cum-sub brand of Tata Indicom. The purpose: This sub-brand would fill in a big gap that Tata Indicom has had in its marketing efforts - the youthful image. Tata's lost out to the youth segment and lagged behind the likes of Bharti Airtel and Vodafone in tapping the crucial spendthrift segment.

Preview of Ogilvy at MIPTV

TUE, 18 MAR 2008 00:00:00 GMT

Check out the below link and get a preview of what MIPTV is all about. Make sure you look beyond the many program and show descriptions but find articles on Ogilvy's involvement and branded content on pages 12, 14, 26 and 56... and more interesting stories on mobile tv, iptv and much more.

MIPTV featuring MILIA uniquely brings together TV networks, Content companies, New Media companies, Internet Players, Operators, Technology Companies, Social Networks... discussing how to reach the consumer today and tomorrow in the changing media landscape. That is a conversation as an agency Ogilvy wants to be part of... especially as it explores new advertising channels, formats and business models. Ogilvy aims to bring the consumer, advertiser and the agency perspectives to the table.

Moreover, content is an increasing popular way to the consumer's heart. Hence we believe that branded content - according to the Branded Content Marketing Association the practise of taking the philosophy and message of a brand and translating that into entertainment properties that consumers want to engage with - and whether it takes the form of branded entertainment on the TV screen - web or mobile TV shows - advergames - or social network widgets, is a growing discipline agencies and advertisers need to master. Ogilvy has centers of excellence in NY and London in branded content and is quickly growing this expertise around its network.

Finally, MIPTV featuring MILIA and more specifically its Content 360 Competition allows to - in a web 2.0 spirit - make new connections with an entire industry of small and big companies specialized in inventing and implementing great consumer engagement ideas. Ogilvy entered a brief in this competition and got the most entries, 108 from all corners of the world, looking for cause-related marketing campaign ideas for brands such as BP, Ford, Fanta, Dove and Amex.

Read more: http://miptv.immanens.com/en/pvPage2.asp?nu=1&skin=mip&puc=002049&pa=1

Amazon adds Facebook to wish list

TUE, 18 MAR 2008 00:00:00 GMT

Amazon.com debuted two Facebook applications, Amazon Giver and Amazon Grapevine, that facilitate gift-giving by circulating Facebook users' wish lists and other information on Amazon activity among friends. The applications also make purchasing Amazon's products from Facebook easier, further blurring the line between social networking based on recreation and communities centered on commercial pursuits such as shopping.

Using an opt-in mechanism in Amazon Giver, Facebook users can make their Amazon shopping wish lists available to their friends on Facebook. Friends can combine the wish list data with information gleaned from the likes and interests their friends list on their Facebook profiles.

Amazon Grapevine allows users who opt-in to the program to broadcast their Amazon activity such as when they add to their wish lists, write reviews, or tag products, via news feed updates.

Amazon is no newcomer to the use of social networking tools. The company has long encouraged its users to review products, join discussion groups related to certain classes of products, and share photos.

Read more: http://apps.facebook.com/amazongiver/

AOL buys Bebo

MON, 17 MAR 2008 00:00:00 GMT

AOL has acquired social networking site Bebo for $850 million in cash with the intention to marry AIM (AOL Instant Messenger) and ICQ with a proper social network. The goal is to allow people to both express themselves and extend existing relationships. AIM users have 100 buddies on average. Bebo's platform allows those users to share and distribute media as well.Bebo is the second largest social network in the U.K. (its largest market) after Facebook. Recent Comscore data says Bebo has 22 million unique visitors and 11 billion page views; AOL said Bebo users spend an average of 40 minutes a day on the site in a press briefing. The company claims 40 million users.

The deal must clear U.S. and EU antitrust hurdles before it closes. It comes just one week after AOL's launch of Open AIM 2.0, an initiative that allows the developer community greater freedom to access the AIM network and integrate AIM into its sites and applications, and the announcement by Apple of a downloadable AIM application for the iPhone.

Building on its number one position in third party display with Advertising.com, AOL has spent nearly $1 billion on online advertising acquisitions, including ADTECH, buy.at, Lightningcast, Quigo, TACODA and Third Screen Media to create Platform-A. Platform-A is the top display ad serving network focused on helping marketers build brands that perform online. In Web content, AOL's revitalized network of sites has experienced five months of consecutive page view growth and key categories like Music, Television, Moviefone, TMZ, Money & Finance, News, Living and Body are all in the top four in their respective categories.

As part of its international growth plans, AOL has launched 17 international web sites over the last year and has plans to expand to 30 countries outside the U.S. by the end of 2008. In addition, AOL teamed up with HP last September to include localized versions of the AOL.com portal and other AOL services as the default setting on HP computers shipped in the United States and around the world. Bebo, which has announced plans to launch in five countries this year, will be featured prominently in AOL's international expansion efforts after the deal is closed.

Since its inception, Bebo has established a radical new vision for online media and engagement marketing, combining community, self-expression and entertainment, enabling its members to consume, create, discover, curate and share digital content in entirely new ways. Bebo global users have high engagement levels spending an average of 33 minutes a day on the site. Its Open Media platform ushered in a new way for Bebo users to experience content online, while giving global media companies like MTV, CBS, BBC and more than 400 others, a new way to promote, distribute and monetize their programming. "Engagement Marketing," is Bebo's initiative for brands to build long-term relationships with their target audience. Today, brands from Apple to Nike use Bebo as a platform to establish ongoing conversations with consumers.

Build your own YouTubes

THU, 13 MAR 2008 00:00:00 GMT

YouTube is giving away tools that let Web developers tap the underlying database functions of YouTube, in effect allowing users to build their own YouTubes. The move goes significantly beyond the current access to YouTube videos in which any Web user can copy and embed selected videos onto their own Web pages.

YouTube said its latest customization offerings allow anyone building a Web site or Internet-connected software program to upload videos straight to YouTube. They can fetch video feeds, comments, responses or playlists from YouTube.

Web site developers can let users rate videos or add them to a favorites list embedded within their own sites. They can also customize and control the Flash video software through which videos are viewed. By adding underlying features and functions of YouTube, developers can also enable users to publish videos directly from their mobile phone devices or encourage new users to share videos to the Web site, as if they were on YouTube itself.

NBC and News Corp. launch Hulu

WED, 12 MAR 2008 00:00:00 GMT

After four-and-a-half-months in public beta, the video site, co-founded and jointly owned by News Corp. and NBC Universal, is launching officially. Now anyone will be able to stream TV shows and movies - all free and ad-supported.

The site launches broadly with more than 50 content partners, providing 250 TV series and 100 full-length feature films. The site started with content from NBC Universal's network and cable properties, Fox, as well as MGM and Sony (SNE) Pictures Television.

Hulu isn't just a destination website - the company also distributes its shows, along with the matching ads to partner sites such as AOL, Yahoo!, Microsoft's MSN, Comcast's Fancast and Myspace. This is part of that whole "give em what they want, when they want it" theory of new media distribution. And to extend that approach one step further, Hulu encourages users to clip and share pieces of the content on its site. But in an anti-YouTube approach, ads follow those clips wherever they go - whether they're embedded on your blog or social networking page.

Similar to traditional TV, viewers will have to watch a few ads to view the programs. Two formats are being used. One is similar to a standard TV ad program. It will display a small number of ads before or during the programming. Taking advantage of the interneta??s interactivity, some of these may also include a component that prompts a viewer to choose which of several ads theya??d prefer to watch (e.g. Do you want to watch the ad for Big Mac, the Quarter Pounder or the Happy Meal). A second ad format will show a two to three minute commercial. Once it ends, the rest of the program will be shown commercial free.

As it has been the case since the beta testing phase, viewers watch the videos through a flash application in their browser. The good news is: there is no software to download and the flash-based player is very well designed. Better news, they wona??t need to go to the Hulu site either. One of the novelties of Hulu is that their content (and player) can be embedded elsewhere.

Read more: http://www.hulu.com/

Google does TV advertising

TUE, 11 MAR 2008 00:00:00 GMT

Google invited some Adwords members to test out Google TV Ads Beta, which lets advertisers upload or mail a 15, 30, 45, or 60 second TV ad to be run on regular TV sets. This development comes after Google entered the newspaper ad placement and radio ad placement business.

Google's measurement tools, which help reveal the consumers behaviour, will:
*** show how many impressions were shown (1 impression here means 1 view per screen)
*** let choose a CPM rate to bid against other ads in that slot
*** let run national, local, or demographic based TV campaigns
*** schedule ads based on day, time and network
*** estimate how many people tuned in to the ad.
*** tell how long viewers watched the ad for on average
*** show what point in the ad most viewers were lost.

See the demo by clicking on the link below. It's quite impressive.

Read more: http://services.google.com/tvads/demos/demo1/

Another stellar Verge Event NY

MON, 10 MAR 2008 00:00:00 GMT

A gathering of nearly 400 leading marketers, media, technology innovators and agency representatives will gather tomorrow at Ogilvy New York's 4th annual Verge digital summit at the TheTimesCenter at the New York Times new headquarters to discuss new ways of thinking about how brands connect with consumers.

The day-long conference will feature 33 speakers representing a diverse group of digital visionaries. Themed "Dada, Data, Alpha, Beta," Verge 2008 examined the new digital landscape as seen from the vantage points of "Dada" or creativity in all its forms, "Data," and how it is changing the art of storytelling making it dynamic and participatory; "Alpha" the brand loyalists, early adopters and the social networking trailblazers; and "Beta" today's world of constant evolution.

Ogilvy-members around the world can follow the event through the webcast via Truffles, starting at 9am NY time.

Read more: http://truffles.ogilvy.com

Branded Entertainment expands

MON, 10 MAR 2008 00:00:00 GMT

In the US spending on branded entertainment grew 14.7% to an all-time high of $22.3 billion in 2007, nearly doubling in size over the last five years as brand marketers continue to shift budgets from traditional advertising to alternative marketing strategies, according to research released by PQ Media.

Branded entertainment is projected to expand another 13.9% in 2008 to $25.41 billion, despite slowing overall economic growth owing to brand marketers seeking strategies and media that engage youth and influential demographics, provide return-on-investment metrics and an influx of record political campaign spending on alternative media in this contentious election year, according to the PQ Media Branded Entertainment Marketing Forecast.

Branded entertainment refers to marketing strategies that integrate products into entertainment venues that typically provide high engagement and interactivity. Branded entertainment includes three major segments: event sponsorship and marketing; product placement; and advergaming and webisodes. No longer confined to just TV and film, branded entertainment marketing represented approximately 8 cents of every marketing services dollar spent in 2007, according to PQ Media.

Key trends impacting each segment of branded entertainment include:
** Spending on event sponsorship and marketing, the largest segment of branded entertainment, rose 12.2% to $19.18 billion in 2007, as companies invested in marketing campaigns designed to create powerful and lasting brand impressions and experiences among consumers. Event sponsorship and event marketing attract new customers by using face-to-face engagement, which is lacking in many traditional advertising and marketing strategies;
** Paid product placement spending grew 33.7% to $2.90 billion in 2007, and at a compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of 40.8% from 2002 to 2007.
** Spending on advergaming and webisodes increased 34.8% to $217.0 million in 2007, fueled by efforts among marketers to reach the elusive 18- to 34-year-old demographic, which is watching less television and spending more time on the internet playing videogames and downloading videos. Advergaming and webisodes, while the smallest branded entertainment segment, is the fastest growing, climbing at a 51.7% CAGR from 2002 to 2007.

Yahoo! unveils 2 online video ad formats

FRI, 07 MAR 2008 00:00:00 GMT

The two new formats include one in which an ad that appears either before or after a video contains a cue for the viewer to mouse-over the video window. Doing so displays a message in a semi-transparent overlay on the video ad. The message prompts the viewer to click through to the advertiser's site for more information.

Along with the above "clickable" ad, Yahoo! introduced a three-second splash ad that appears when a video is launched, but then becomes a banner ad above the video window. When clicked, the banner pauses the playing video and launches an interactive ad.

Yahoo! has made the new ad formats available in the United States on all videos across the portal's network.

Half of Americans go for online news

FRI, 07 MAR 2008 00:00:00 GMT

Two thirds (67%) of Americans believe traditional journalism is out of touch with what Americans want from their news, a new WE Media/Zogby Interactive poll shows. The survey also found that while most Americans (70%) think journalism is important to the quality of life in their communities, two thirds (64%) are dissatisfied with the quality of journalism in their communities.

Meanwhile, the online survey documented the shift away from traditional sources of news, such as newspapers and TV, to the Internet - most dramatically among so-called digital natives - people under 30 years old.

Nearly half of respondents (48%) said their primary source of news and information is the Internet, an increase from 40% who said the same a year ago. Younger adults were most likely to name the Internet as their top source - 55% of those age 18 to 29 say they get most of their news and information online, compared to 35% of those age 65 and older. These oldest adults are the only age group to favor a primary news source other than the Internet, with 38% of these seniors who said they get most of their news from television.

Overall, 29% said television is their main source of news, while fewer said they turn to radio (11%) and newspapers (10%) for most of their news and information. Just 7% of those age 18 to 29 said they get most of their news from newspapers, while more than twice as many (17%) of those age 65 and older list newspapers as their top source of news and information.

Web sites are regarded as a more important source of news and information than traditional media outlets - 86% of Americans said Web sites were an important source of news, with more than half (56%) who view these sites as very important. Most also view television (77%), radio (74%), and newspapers (70%) as important sources of news, although fewer than say the same about blogs (38%).

The survey finds the Internet not only outweighs television, radio, and newspapers as the most frequently used and important source for news and information, but Web sites were also cited as more trustworthy than more traditional media sources - nearly a third (32%) said Internet sites are their most trusted source for news and information, followed by newspapers (22%), television (21%) and radio (15%).

Other findings from the survey include:
*** Although the vast majority of Americans are dissatisfied with the quality of journalism (64%), overall satisfaction with journalism has increased to 35% in this survey from 27% who said the same in 2007.
*** Both traditional and new media are viewed as important for the future of journalism - 87% believe professional journalism has a vital role to play in journalism's future, although citizen journalism (77%) and blogging (59%) are also seen as significant by most Americans.
*** Very few Americans (1%) consider blogs their most trusted source of news, or their primary source of news (1%).
*** Three in four (75%) believe the Internet has had a positive impact on the overall quality of journalism.
*** 69% believe media companies are becoming too large and powerful to allow for competition, while 17% believe they are the right size to adequately compete.

The Zogby Interactive survey of 1,979 adults nationwide was conducted Feb. 20-21, 2008, and carries a margin of error of +/- 2.2 percentage points.

Explore amazing websites

THU, 06 MAR 2008 00:00:00 GMT

irie.be is an international webdesign portal featuring cutting-edge websites, ideas that hold water and images that last. The site is only showcasing webdesign that stand out in all aspects and function as an inspirational resource for creatives all around the world. The goal of irie is to create the very best and intense collection of design quality in webdesign. and at the same time giving designers a web2.0 application to search, order and rate the latest trends and efforts.

Read more: http://irie.be

Asia Pacific digital marketing yearbook

THU, 06 MAR 2008 00:00:00 GMT

2007 will be remembered as the year the balance tipped. For the first time, Asia Pacific takes the global lead in some key aspects of the digital marketing mix. Both the total number of broadband users and market penetration is highest in Asia Pacific. The region boasts the largest number of Internet users, surpassing the US and Europe, and mobile penetration remains higher than anywhere else in the world.

Ogilvy-members can find more info on the yearbook on Truffles.

Digital convergence shaping media industry

WED, 05 MAR 2008 00:00:00 GMT

With private equity on the sideline, 2008 Merger & Acquisition activity in the Entertainment and Media (E&M) industry will likely be dominated by strategic buyers, according to PricewaterhouseCoopers' E&M Transaction Services practice, revealing that 2007 deal volume surpassed that of 2006.

Digital convergence and the growing importance of the Internet and online media led E&M companies to strengthen their digital platforms, triggering much of the deal activity in 2007.

Ogilvy-members can find the full report on Truffles.

US online advertising grew by 27%

TUE, 04 MAR 2008 00:00:00 GMT

As consumers spend more time on the Internet, companies are redistributing advertising dollars from traditional media to online media to follow this trend. In its quarterly wrap-up report, IDC says total U.S. Internet ad spending in the fourth quarter of 2007 (4Q07) grew nearly 28% over the same quarter in 2006 to USD7.3 billion. For the full year 2007, online ad revenue grew 27% year over year to USD25.5 billion.

IDC research also found that Google's net U.S. market share declined for the first time in two years due to slower growth in domestic fourth quarter sales. The market leader's net U.S. Internet advertising market share was down 0.5 percentage points to 23.7% last quarter compared to 3Q07. Google's estimated net U.S. Internet advertising sales (excluding the traffic acquisition costs they pay out to the partners in their networks) grew by a little more than 40% in 4Q07, but its year-on-year growth rate in the quarter before had been 50%.

High definition to Rich Media

TUE, 04 MAR 2008 00:00:00 GMT

DoubleClick announced a new high-definition (HD) video feature to enable advertisers to create and deliver online ad campaigns with High Definition-quality video in full screen. DoubleClick Rich Media enabled HD Video through support of the latest Adobe Flash technology, which improves video performance while decreasing video file sizes for video used in online rich media ad campaigns.

The new DoubleClick Rich Media HD Video feature with support for Adobe Flash Player 9 makes it possible to launch full screen video in HD quality from within a banner ad unit without degradation of quality or excessive download times. With this feature advertisers can showcase their message in HD Video within a DoubleClick Rich Media campaign.

Epson is the first company to implement DoubleClick Rich Media with HD Video.

Read more: http://www.dartmotif.com/gallery/examples/epson-with-hd-video.asp

IAB privacy guidelines

MON, 03 MAR 2008 00:00:00 GMT

The Interactive Advertising Bureau announced the release of new interactive advertising privacy guidelines that are designed to ensure users' control over the use of personal information by interactive media and advertisers while at the same time guaranteeing continued improvement in the delivery of relevant marketing communications to consumers. The guidelines were approved by the IAB's Board of Directors today at the start of "Ecosystem 2.0-Driving Growth in Digital Marketing," the organizationa??s annual meeting last week.

The privacy principles are high level concepts of consumer notice, choice and data security which will serve as a roadmap for all industry actors who collect and/or use data to deliver relevant ads online or via other platforms.

IAB said its members will follow five basic privacy principles henceforward:

1. CONSUMERS SHOULD BE PROVIDED MEANINGFUL NOTICE ABOUT THE INFORMATION COLLECTED AND USED FOR INTERACTIVE ADVERTISING
All companies that gather and store information for interactive advertising purposes should explain their practices in a consumer-friendly manner. Many leading companies have long embraced this goal via privacy policies, other forms of notice, and education, and should continue to enhance those efforts to keep pace with marketplace developments. In the online environment, consumers visiting a particular Web site should be provided meaningful notice of the types of individual information collected for interactive advertising purposes, the technologies employed to collect such information, and how such information is used, including that other companies operate on the site and may collect such information. In addition to providing notice through easily accessible links to privacy policies and similar disclosures, companies can use other strategies and techniques to further increase and enhance consumer education and awareness of information collection practices.

2. CONSUMERS SHOULD BE INFORMED OF THEIR CHOICES REGARDING INTERACTIVE ADVERTISING AND EMPOWERED TO EXERCISE THOSE CHOICES
Consumers should be given information about the choices they have concerning the collection and use of information for interactive advertising purposes. Businesses collecting or using information about individual consumers for interactive advertising purposes should provide choice, where appropriate, to that individual. Consumers also should receive relevant education regarding cross-industry opportunities to opt out of the collection or use of individual information or other methods to exercise choice.

3. BUSINESSES SHOULD IMPLEMENT APPROPRIATE INFORMATION SECURITY PRACTICES AND PROCEDURES
Any company that maintains information for purposes of interactive advertising should provide reasonable security for that data. Such protections should be based on the sensitivity of the data, the nature of a company's business operations, the types of risks a company faces, and the reasonable protections available to a company. Companies should require that business partners who collect or use such data on the company's behalf also adopt appropriate information security procedures.

4. BUSINESSES SHOULD BE RESPONSIVE AND ACCOUNTABLE TO CONSUMERS
Consumers should have a readily accessible means to express concerns and complaints regarding adherence to these principles, and businesses should respond appropriately.

5. COMPANIES SHOULD EDUCATE CONSUMERS ABOUT THE BENEFITS OF INTERACTIVE ADVERTISING
Businesses that collect or use information about individual consumers for interactive advertising purposes should continue to enhance and communicate that value proposition to consumers.

Time shifted TV viewing

FRI, 29 FEB 2008 00:00:00 GMT

Nearly 80 million Americans (43% of the online population) have watched one of their favorite TV shows on the Internet, up significantly from 12 months ago when that figure was just 25%. A full 20% of the American online population said they watch TV on the web on a weekly basis, and that's ahead of the 14% who say they take advantage of cable's video-on-demand offerings.

These findings come from Digital Life America tracking study conducted quarterly by Solutions Research Group. The company interviewed 1,150 Americans aged 12 and older in November 2007, to take advantage of the fall sweeps with its strong first-run prime time content, and capture a realistic picture of multi-platform TV viewing.

Other findings:
*** "To watch a specific show" was the main reason cited for 21% of all visits to major network websites in November 2007. Of the major network sites, abc.com received the highest user experience score among those who streamed a TV show, with 52% rating their overall experience as 'excellent', followed by fox.com (44% 'excellent').
*** Those who viewed one of the leading 20 prime time shows in the past 24 hours (titles such as Greya??s Anatomy, House, Survivor-China and 17 others) were asked to identify the source of viewing. Overall, 25% of prime time viewing was time shifted using a DVR, broadband, mobile or similar. Among viewers 18-34, one-third (34%) of viewing was time-shifted. And among 18-49 households with a DVR, a remarkable 55% of the leading 20 shows were time-shifted.
*** If a household has a DVR and broadband, DVR is the preferred means of time-shifting. DVR users are becoming more aggressive in skipping commercials - 65% say they 'always' skip commercials compared to 52% a year ago.

Microsoft tests web ad analysis

THU, 28 FEB 2008 00:00:00 GMT

Microsoft said it would test a new way to measure the effectiveness of Internet advertising in a challenge to an industry standard that has helped Google and Yahoo!.

Microsoft's "Engagement Mapping" is due to begin in beta form on March 1 and departs from a standard that ties sales, leads and traffic to the last ad that a user clicked on online. Instead, it attempts to take into account all the Internet interactions that lead a consumer to buy a product and give advertisers a more accurate assessment of how to plan a campaign online. Microsoft's Engagement Mapping approach conveys how each ad exposure - whether display, rich media or search, seen multiple times on multiple sites and across many channels - influenced an eventual purchase. Initial results are expected to be available before the end of the second calendar quarter of 2008.

Based on the Engagement Mapping concept, Microsoft announced the beta of Engagement ROI, an online campaign reporting and optimization solution that will undergo testing by national advertising clients and agencies, including Neo@Ogilvy. Engagement ROI evaluates and assigns measurable value to a consumera??s interaction with ads, giving advertisers and publishers a more complete picture of online behavior.

Japan social network Mixi expands

MON, 25 FEB 2008 00:00:00 GMT

Japan's most popular online networking site, Mixi, plans to establish a subsidiary in Shanghai to tap China's fast-growing Internet market. Internet users in China reached 172 million in 2007 and the figure is expected to reach 200 million by 2010, making it the world's biggest Internet market by user numbers.

Mixi.jp is Japan's second most visited Web site after Yahoo! Japan's portal site. It has 13 million users, or around 10 percent of the population, and gets 11.8 billion page visits a month.

Mixi.jp users can create an account for no cost through invitation of other users and can view user profiles or post blog entries, photos and video clips. The site can be accessed by computers or mobile phones.Still, Mixi might find it difficult to break into the Chinese social networking site market, just as overseas companies have had trouble establishing a foothold in Japan. China's social networks 51.com, Tudou.com and Rox.com.cn, already have a large local following.

Google sells display ads in videos

MON, 25 FEB 2008 00:00:00 GMT

Google plans to start selling ads to appear in Web videos and has signed up 20 customers, as it aims to do for videos what it has done for text. Partners include YuMe, an online video advertising network, Brightcove, an Internet TV platform, and comedy site MyDamnChannel.

Brightcove, whose customers include CBS, Time Warner and Discovery Communications, will begin offering the technology to its clients. YuMe will serve InVideo overlay adverts as part of Google's AdSense for video beta advertising program.
Google has traditionally used AdSense for text-only advertising but said the video program extends its offer to targeted, contextually relevant video graphical ads and text overlays.
Google has been working on ways of developing advertising revenue for online video since it bought YouTube, the video-sharing site, in November 2006.

Read more: http://www.google.com/ads/videoadsolutions/demos.html

Deloitte media predictions 2008

FRI, 22 FEB 2008 00:00:00 GMT

2008's Media Predictions cover the obstacles ahead for online advertising,A a novel reinvention of the e-book,A the growing influence of media and consumer electronics on the environment andA the complimenting relationship between internet TV and its broadcast cousin. Also covered are theA growing challenges in online piracy,A the impact of digitisation on cinema,A possible reinstatement of tangible music,A traditional media in an online world,A growth in off-shoring in the media world and continued travails of convergence between technology and media.

This study examines 10 emerging trends sure to have a major influence on the media sector:

1. obstacles ahead for online advertising - one barrier may be the growing antipathy to the online advertisement itself

2. e-reference to replace ebook - while there is significant benefit from digitising the world, not all texts become more useful or more valuable when digitised

3. the living room may become Public Enemy Number One - the media and consumer electronics industries should consider how the carbon footprint of the living room can be reduced without the need to revert to antiquated technology, such as CTR tubes and analog transmission

4. traditional TVA lives on thanks to Internet TV - the global traditional television sector, despite the occasional shock, should remain in good health throughout the year, and there is a good chance that Internet television will have contributed to traditional television's fortunes

5. overcoming online piracy may not mean the end to counterfeit content - while 2008 may be the year in which the media industry manages to start to control one form of piracy - the overall campaign against piracy needs to be sustained

6. the movie theater becomes more than just movies - the movie theater's run of strong performance provides the ideal backdrop for change, with the move to digital implying considerable investment, which is likely best accommodated while revenues are still strong

7. time for music to be tangible again - the industry could evolve from offering digital downloads for transfer to a device, to selling pre-recorded MP3 players

8. online is moving (slowly) to the front page - 2008 may be the year in which it becomes increasingly commonplace for traditional media to acknowledge the existence of the online world

9. offshoring gets bigger and more creative - 2007 saw one of the first media offshoring contracts worth in excess of $1 billion, covering 'end-to-end' full services including IT, operations, finance and accounting, HR and research. 2008 may see further deals of this scale

10. converging technology and media - don't forget the business plan - or the combination of media and technology to be worth more than the sum of its parts, a number of factors need to be aligned, particularly a robust business plan.

The report includes recommendations on how to take advantage of these emerging trends.

Online video viewer segments

FRI, 22 FEB 2008 00:00:00 GMT

comScore and Media Contacts showcased the results of a proprietary study of the online video audience. The research was designed to understand the consumption habits and mindsets of Internet video users as they relate to online video, TV and advertising and content across both media. The results revealed differences in orders of magnitude: the heaviest viewers (top 20 percent of viewers) averaged 841 minutes of online viewing per month, while moderate viewers (next 30 percent) averaged 77 minutes, and the lightest viewers (bottom 50 percent) watched just 6 minutes each.

Heavy viewers spend time on niche video sites. YouTube is the common thread among the heavy, moderate, and light segments - it is the top video site for all three and reaches the most overall video viewers (54 percent reach). Distinctive behavior for heavy video viewers is found by looking at the top indexing sites for this audience, revealing mostly niche video-sharing sites, each reaching less than 1 percent of the total U.S. Web population.

Moderate viewers enjoy specific online TV content. By contrast, moderate viewers show a high propensity to view specific video content on broadcast TV sites rather than frequenting more general video-sharing sites.

Light online video viewers are heavy TV viewers. The conventional wisdom says that the heaviest users of the digital channel are likely to be the heaviest consumers of media in general. However, the study found that light online video viewers are actually heavier TV consumers, with 46 percent of this group indicating they watch more than 13 hours of TV per week. By comparison, just 39 percent of moderate video viewers and 30 percent of heavy video viewers watched the same amount of TV.

TV show by Ogilvy Belgium

THU, 21 FEB 2008 00:00:00 GMT

The branded reality show "Onder Hoogspanning XL" started this February 20th on Flemish TV Channel VT4. This new TV series, first shown in Flanders in 2006, challenges a new family each week to minimize energy consumption in an original way. This programme will also be broadcasted in the French-speaking part of Belgium. With the help of the energy auditor, families learn how to save energy from electricity, heating, transportation and water consumption while continuing to live comfortably. The families are rewarded with an energy cheque of EUR 3000 if they succeed.

"For Electrabel, a programme such as 'Onder Hoogspanning XL' is very interesting as the content is relevant and adds value to our brand", says Benoit Crochelet, Brand Manager at Electrabel. "After the success of the first series, the decision to make another series was obvious. Since the liberation of the energy market, it is also important for us to have national reach on TV."

The central link for the programme is the website http://www.slimmetips.be (Dutch) and http://www.bonreflexe.be (French). On this activation platform, developed by Ogilvy, the TV-families and viewers find dozens of tips to reduce energy consumption. The site explains how to have the visit of an energy auditor at home. Website visitors can also find information on the range of subsidies which can be obtained. The built-in Google Maps application places your energy profile on the map of Belgium. In this way, you can compare your profile with that of the neighbours. By subscribing to the online contest, you can win one of the three energy cheques for EUR 3000. If you succeed in solving the five energy challenges and with the help of a couple of friends, you may earn EUR 3000 to buy energy-efficient domestic appliances, install solar panels or other energy saving actions for your home.

A new book called DigiMarketing

THU, 21 FEB 2008 00:00:00 GMT

Kaiser Kuo, Group Director of Digital Strategy, Ogilvy Beijing had the chance to speak recently with Kent Wertime and Ian Fenwick, whose new book, DigiMarketing, hits shelves very soon and can be ordered at Amazon.com. Following are a few excerpts from his 'interview'

"The book is an extraordinarily valuable resource for marketers trying to understand the explosion of new channels in the digital age. I would encourage anyone who reads this post to read the book: It's not dumbed-down pabulum, but actually contains real insights and a useful framework for actually planning, executing, and following up on digital campaigns.

Kent Wertime is president of OgilvyOne Asia Pacific, and has held executive positions with the company in New York, Hong Kong, Singapore, and Bangkok where he now lives. Dr. Ian Fenwick teaches management and marketing at the Sasin Graduate Institute of Business Administration in Bangkok, a business school funded in collaboration with U Penn's Wharton and Northwestern's Kellogg business schools. Like Kent Wertime, Dr. Fenwick has extensive North American and international experience.

Kaiser Kuo: What was the point of epiphany for you, when you realized that the rules of the marketing game had undergone such profound change that marketers needed a book like the one you've written?
Ian Fenwick: I realized that my own use of media had changed so much. I found that I was using almost no media that wasn't digital. My consumption of media is about 80% digital.
Kent Wertime: For me this goes back to a couple of years ago, when I was giving a talk and I saw a lot more hands up in a straw poll I did, asking about email use versus radio listening. It really smacked me - the fact that there was such a gulf between what young urban consumers were doing and where marketers their money. You take any random sample of people and youa??ll find this is true.

KK: Tell me a bit about the division of labor between the two of you on this ambitious undertaking. And how did you decide to collaborate in the first place?
IF: Kent had been a guest speaker in the marketing class I teach, and I knew him that way. He mentioned that he was writing a book, and we decided to pair...

KK: Dr. Fenwick, are you finding that marketing programs, whether at business schools or in undergraduate business programs, are turning out marketers who are intellectually prepared for this stuff?
IF: Intellectually prepared, yes, but not really prepared for the range of digital possibilities. The focus is still primarily on traditional advertising and conventional media-TV advertisements...

KK: Let's talk a bit about the extent of the book's global applicability. Is there a danger of getting ahead of the revolution in markets, say, like China? I mean, sure, there's all sorts of consumer-created content, what with record numbers of bloggers and lots of video being uploaded to China's raft of YouTube clones. But marketing communications is still very much a top-down exercise, for the most part.
KW: I think one of the challenges that we faced in writing this book is that literally the day it came out it was outdated, in that some of the numbers, the statistics, were already outdated. If you want the absolutely up to date, go online and find it there. This is a baseline tectonic shift, the shift from thinking of people in terms of viewership to thinking of them in terms of participants. What we've written we believe is applicable now as well as in the future. You can take that to any country in the world right now and apply it irrespective of level of development. It will still be relevant in five years time, I'm confident. Trends within channels will have changed, but the principles will remain as we've described....

KK: As you suggested, a book like this always runs the danger of becoming "outdated" before it goes to press. Is there any trend that you've seen in the last three or four months that had you thinking, "God, I wish we'd gotten that in there!"?
IF: The move to mobile is much faster than the book suggested it would be. 40 percent of websites already have a mobile version, and another 25 percent say that they wish that they did. The semantic Web is moving faster than we had expected too...

KK: I understand that you'll be updating the book regularly through the site. What goodies can we expect to find on the book's accompanying website?
KW: Our first version - what's up there right now - is useful in a couple of dimensions. It has easy links to everything we covered, and it's organized well and easy to use. Our message in the book is, don't just read about it, actually try it. Search it, type it in, look and learn for yourselves. We're planning to add expert videos so it will have a bank of digital experts sharing insights...

KW: In a large sense, what Ian and I are saying is that the cornerstones of marketing - having a brand, knowing your customers - are still every bit as important: They're just moving to digital. We've focused more on the things that have changed, but the basic principles still apply. Often the technology is so different and new that it overwhelms a client's focus on brands. We have to use digital media to serve the essence of a brand. We see digital as a renovation of marketing rather than an overhaul of marketing. The fundamentals of marketing are still there. We just have a whole new set of issues and tools to deal with."

Read more: http://www.amazon.com/DigiMarketing-Essential-Guide-Digital-Marketing/dp/0470822317/ref=pd_bbs_sr_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1201491158&sr=1-1

Major newspaper groups to form local online ad sales company

THU, 21 FEB 2008 00:00:00 GMT

Four of the US' leading media companies announced the creation of quadrantONE, a new online sales organization focused on premium advertisers seeking high-quality audiences and national reach. When faced with a growing number of fragmented ad media options, particularly on the Web, advertisers are looking for new opportunities and innovative models providing a valuable, measurable consumer experience.

quadrantONE steps up to the challenge of the new media future, providing hyperlocalized opportunities for brand impact that resonate with targeted audiences. Investors in the new network include Tribune Company, Gannett Co, Hearst Corporation and The New York Times Company. In addition to the four owner companies, quadrantONE is open to any affiliate companies that wish to participate.

By aggregating the online audiences of quadrantONE's participating media companies, large national advertisers can immediately access tens of millions of unique visitors in the US' top markets, each participating company having agreed to dedicate advertising inventory to quadrantONE, so the network can offer customized online campaigns on a highly competitive basis.

The network has a reach of nearly 50 million monthly unique visitors and covers 27 out of the top 30 markets. quadrantONE will, for the first time, offer advertisers the capability to consistently deliver their brands and messages on a national scale through advertising with the well-established and trusted online newspaper and broadcasting sites of the participating media companies.

Read more: http://quadrantone.com/files/quadrantONE_Affiliate_List.pdf

875mio consumers shopped online

WED, 20 FEB 2008 00:00:00 GMT

More than 85% of the world's online population has used the Internet to make a purchase - increasing the market for online shopping by 40% in the past two years - according to the latest Nielsen Global Online Survey on Internet shopping habits. Globally, more than half of Internet users have made at least one purchase online in the past month.

Globally, the most popular and purchased items over the Internet are Books (41% purchased in the past three months), Clothing/Accessories/Shoes (36%), Videos/DVDs/Games (24%), Airline Tickets (24%) and Electronic Equipment (23%).
*** Among Germany's Internet users, 55% said they bought books, 42% had bought Clothes/Accessories/Shoes and one in four had purchased Music/Videos/DVD's in the past three months.
*** During the same period, among Internet users in the UK, 45% bought books online, followed by Videos/DVDs/Games (44%), Clothing/Accessories/Shoes (38%), Music (37%) and one in four Internet shoppers also purchased an Airline tickets/Reservations online.
*** Among U.S. Internet users in the past month, 41% bought Clothing/Shoes/Accessories, 38% bought books and one in three Internet shoppers bought Videos/DVDs/Games.

The number of Internet consumers buying books over the Internet has increased seven percent in the past two years but the biggest increase has been in Clothing/Accessories/Shoes which increased from 20% to 36%.

Some of the biggest buyers of books on the Internet are from developing countries - China, Brazil, Vietnam and Egypt - indicating massive growth potential for online retailers that can specifically target these fast-growing markets.

Internet shopper interest in buying Videos/DVDs and airline tickets/reservations rose two and three percentage points respectively over the Internet in the past two years - today one in four online shoppers globally said they had purchased these on the Net in the past three months.

More than 70% of Indians and more than 60% of Irish and UAE Internet users said they bought airline tickets/reservations on the Internet in the last three months, making travel the fourth most popular shopping category on the web.

One in four global Internet users bought DVDs/Videos online in the last three months, with UK users topping the list (44%), followed by South Africans (38%). The U.S. was fifth at 31%.

Credit cards are by far the most common method of payment for online purchases - 60% of global online consumers used their credit card for a recent online purchase, while one in four online consumers chose PayPal. Of those paying with a credit card, more than half (53%) used Visa.

Turkish online shoppers (who represent the economic elite in that country) topped global rankings for credit card usage (91%) for online purchases followed by 86% of Irish online shoppers and 84% of Indian and UAE online shoppers.

While Latin American and Asian online shoppers are also more likely to use credit cards than any other form of payment, debit cards are most popular among UK (59%) and U.S. (40%) online shoppers.

According to Nielsen, online shoppers tend to stick to the shopping sites they are familiar with, with 60% saying they buy mostly from the same site.

In selecting sites on which to shop, one-third used a search engine or just surfed around to find the best online store. One in four relied on personal recommendations. Recommendations from fellow consumers - whether they are people they know or fellow online shoppers -play an enormous role in the decision-making process. The explosion in Consumer Generated Media over the last year means that this reliance on word of mouth, over other forms of referral, looks set to increase.