Bing/News Corp: Not a Game Changer

 

 Posted by Shar VanBoskirk and Sarah Rotman Epps]

Microsoft and News Corp are rumored to be in talks about an exclusive relationship, where Microsoft would pay News Corp to remove its content from Google and allow it to be indexed only through Microsoft's Bing.

I don't know anymore than you do about the veracity of this rumor.  But my colleague Sarah Rotman Epps and I put our heads together on the potential deal. Here is our take:

News Corp’s short-term desperation will sabotage its long-term interests.  Everyone is watching newspaper companies lose more ad revenues as subscriptions fall even lower in 2009 than the declining trajectory they have been on since 2000.  Getting consumers to pay for content is a hard sell; media companies may have an easier time generating revenue by licensing their content to other companies, like portals, device makers, and non-media companies like Fidelity who need content for their Web sites. Murdoch wants a deal like this to get MS to pay him for the opportunity to index his companies' content. But the tradeoff for short-term revenue could be long-term irrelevance: If consumers don’t find Newscorp results in Google searches, they’ll just click on another content source. “If a tree falls in the woods…” could be rephrased as “If a site isn’t indexed by Google, does it really exist?” For the 65% of searches relying on Google, the answer is no.

Microsoft wins publisher goodwill, but probably not much search traffic. Bing has enjoyed growth in its share of searches since its launch in summer 2009, but it still accounts for only about 10% of searches compared to Google's 65%.  So Microsoft needs to do everything it can to try to gain search traffic. I see this as another way to try to drive searchers to use Bing instead of other possible search engines. But stealing one content source from Google won’t be enough to change consumers’ search habits.

Consumers don't care about a deal like this.  Consumers do not expect search engines to be exclusive.  In their minds, search engines are gateways to answers, and if they can’t find something through search, it may as well not exist.  So, while News Corp and MS might enjoy scratching each others backs in a deal like this, consumers won't know and won't care that Bing is the only place they can find Wall Street Journal articles and other News Corp content.

Most content doesn't have enough value for exclusivity to matter.  A number of reporters have asked me if this is the beginning of something big in terms of media/search engine deal.  My take is no way.  Because frankly content is plentiful and cheap and consumers are very good at finding what they need without having to pay for it or be inconvenienced to get it.  So while News Corp may have some content that still qualifies as "exclusive," I don't see many other media firms having any leverage to create similar deals with search engines.

See Forrester's blog for Consumer Product Strategy Professionals for additional take on this deal and others affecting the media industries.

 Posted by Shar VanBoskirk and Sarah Rotman Epps]

Microsoft and News Corp are rumored to be in talks about an exclusive relationship, where Microsoft would pay News Corp to remove its content from Google and allow it to be indexed only through Microsoft's Bing.

I don't know anymore than you do about the veracity of this rumor.  But my colleague Sarah Rotman Epps and I put our heads together on the potential deal. Here is our take:

News Corp’s short-term desperation will sabotage its long-term interests.  Everyone is watching newspaper companies lose more ad revenues as subscriptions fall even lower in 2009 than the declining trajectory they have been on since 2000.  Getting consumers to pay for content is a hard sell; media companies may have an easier time generating revenue by licensing their content to other companies, like portals, device makers, and non-media companies like Fidelity who need content for their Web sites. Murdoch wants a deal like this to get MS to pay him for the opportunity to index his companies' content. But the tradeoff for short-term revenue could be long-term irrelevance: If consumers don’t find Newscorp results in Google searches, they’ll just click on another content source. “If a tree falls in the woods…” could be rephrased as “If a site isn’t indexed by Google, does it really exist?” For the 65% of searches relying on Google, the answer is no.

Microsoft wins publisher goodwill, but probably not much search traffic. Bing has enjoyed growth in its share of searches since its launch in summer 2009, but it still accounts for only about 10% of searches compared to Google's 65%.  So Microsoft needs to do everything it can to try to gain search traffic. I see this as another way to try to drive searchers to use Bing instead of other possible search engines. But stealing one content source from Google won’t be enough to change consumers’ search habits.

Consumers don't care about a deal like this.  Consumers do not expect search engines to be exclusive.  In their minds, search engines are gateways to answers, and if they can’t find something through search, it may as well not exist.  So, while News Corp and MS might enjoy scratching each others backs in a deal like this, consumers won't know and won't care that Bing is the only place they can find Wall Street Journal articles and other News Corp content.

Most content doesn't have enough value for exclusivity to matter.  A number of reporters have asked me if this is the beginning of something big in terms of media/search engine deal.  My take is no way.  Because frankly content is plentiful and cheap and consumers are very good at finding what they need without having to pay for it or be inconvenienced to get it.  So while News Corp may have some content that still qualifies as "exclusive," I don't see many other media firms having any leverage to create similar deals with search engines.

See Forrester's blog for Consumer Product Strategy Professionals for additional take on this deal and others affecting the media industries.

Email Marketing Service Provider Wave

I continue to work on the long awaited ESP Wave report, and yes we do plan to publish it before the end of the year.   This Wave has more vendors than any of our earlier ESP Waves.  It includes the following 15 vendors:

Acxiom
Alterian
BlueHornet
ClickSquared
Datran Media
e-Dialog
Emailvision
Epsilon
ExactTarget
Experian Marketing Services - Cheetahmail
Lyris
Responsys
Silverpop
Yesmail
Zeta Interactive

Email marketing’s cost effectiveness is driving a renaissance for the channel, which is resulting in strong growth for the sector. I look forward to helping with your vendor selection process.  Stay tuned for the report…

The Future of Agencies: What Do You Think?

[Posted by Sean Corcoran]

Follow Me on 

We’re in the process of pondering a very important question in the industry today: what is the future of agencies? Agencies have played such a crucial role in helping companies market their products and services for more than a century. Names like McCann Erickson, Young & Rubicam, J. Walter Thompson, Ogilvy, and Saatchi & Saatchi (among others) are practically household names. There’s even a massively popular and critically acclaimed television show capturing life in the golden age of legendary agencies on Madison Avenue.

Yet the agency model was built during a time when there were only a handful of channels in which they could push one way messages en masse. Does that model still work in a time when nearly a quarter of online US adults now create content online? Many more questions begin to arise as we open Pandora’s Box: Can one agency do it all? Are holding companies the answer? Can digital agencies compete with them and lead brands? Do marketers rely on agencies like they used to? Should marketers consolidate their agencies or de-centralize to dozens of agency partners? Are technology providers and crowd sourcing legitimate threats? Where is this all going?

To conduct this research we’re speaking with some of the most influential agencies, marketers, and service providers. However, what better way to get a feel for the pulse of the industry than to crowd source it? So we’re reaching out to get your take on the space. Please give us your thoughts in the comments section on the question: What is the future of agencies?

We’re looking forward to your input (and please try to keep it to one or two paragraphs)! Since this research is a collaborative report across roles, this post is also cross-posted on the Marketing Leadership, Customer Experience and Customer Intelligence team blogs.

How Industries Spend On Interactive Marketing

[Posted by Shar VanBoskirk]

I dedicate this blog post to anyone who has read Forrester's interactive marketing forecast and thought, "well that's great, but how are interactive marketers in *my* industry spending on interactive tools." I've just published the US Interactive Marketing Forecast By Industry, 2009 to 2014 which splices our interactive marketing forecast by 12 different industries including:

Retail and wholesale trade
Financial services
Lead generation
B2B
Travel
High-tech
Automotive
Heath and pharmaceuticals
Consumer goods
Media and entertainment
Telecom
And an "other" category which includes primarily education, government and non-profit businesses

A few takeaways from the research:

Direct marketers spend the most, but brand advertisers have the most growth potential.  Look for the steepest growth to come from traditional advertisers who are under invested in interactive marketing today.

Advertisers should benchmark against their own peer set.  Industry benchmarks are helpful (the report includes some per-company budget estimates for different industries).  But don't presume your interactive budget should always match industry averages. We recommend adjusting your spend according to how online you business model and your customers are.

Stay tuned for deeper dives into retail, financial services, consumer goods and travel interactive spend in subsequent pieces of research.

I dedicate this blog post to anyone who has read Forrester's interactive marketing forecast and thought, "well that's great, but how are interactive marketers in *my* industry spending on interactive tools." I've just published the US Interactive Marketing Forecast By Industry, 2009 to 2014 which splices our interactive marketing forecast by 12 different industries including:

Retail and wholesale trade
Financial services
Lead generation
B2B
Travel
High-tech
Automotive
Heath and pharmaceuticals
Consumer goods
Media and entertainment
Telecom
And an "other" category which includes primarily education, government and non-profit businesses

A few takeaways from the research:

Direct marketers spend the most, but brand advertisers have the most growth potential.  Look for the steepest growth to come from traditional advertisers who are under invested in interactive marketing today.

Advertisers should benchmark against their own peer set.  Industry benchmarks are helpful (the report includes some per-company budget estimates for different industries).  But don't presume your interactive budget should always match industry averages. We recommend adjusting your spend according to how online you business model and your customers are.

Stay tuned for deeper dives into retail, financial services, consumer goods and travel interactive spend in subsequent pieces of research.

Google Grabs AdMob To Push Further Into Mobile Advertising

[Posted by Neil Strother]

Google has just announced an all-stock deal to purchase mobile ad network AdMob for $750 million in a bid to solidify its position as the leader in mobile advertising.

By acquiring AdMob, the search giant gets a mobile ad network that has leveraged the power of the mobile Web and in-app advertising, particularly on the iPhone. Now, as more people adopt devices that mimic the iPhone experience (Androids, of course, as well as BlackBerrys, Palms, etc.), Google stands to gain from a growing audience that will be increasingly attractive to advertisers.

The deal also signals a shift in the landscape, and it will be interesting to see how competitors like Microsoft, Millennial Media, Quattro Wireless, among others, respond.

Big picture: mobile advertising remains a small fraction of the overall interactive marketing spend (see our forecast report if you are a Forrester client). Google, however, expects mobile to be a key growth driver in the coming years, and the acquisition of AdMob plays right into that strategy.

What's your view of Google's takeover of AdMob? Will it spur more spending on mobile by marketers? Or is it just an evolutionary step? Share your thoughts by posting a comment below. 

Guest Post: Michael Greene on How to Source Video Ad Creative

You may not know the name Michael Greene, but if you're a Forrester client or you read this blog regularly then you've certainly seen his work. As a researcher on our team, Michael produces some great research -- most notably on the topics of sponsorships and video advertising. Below, Michael shares his thoughts on one of our latest research topics, sourcing video creative:

[Posted by Michael Greene.]

Earlier this week, AdAge reported that PepsiCo is running a public contest (in conjunction with video sharing site 12seconds.tv) to source video ads for its Mountain Dew product line. Pepsi invited fans to direct, shoot, and edit 12-second videos that show off their skills and promote Mountain Dew. Mountain Dew fans will get the opportunity to vote on 6 finalists, from which Pepsi will select 3 winners who will receive funding to produce 15 second video ads.

Pepsi does a lot of smart things here, including cross-promoting the contest through Facebook and Twitter and providing a clear, concise creative brief that outlines Pepsi’s goals, video formatting specifications, and project timelines.

Pepsi intends to put the winning ads from their contest on national TV. But looking beyond traditional sources for video creative isn't just an option for TV advertisers -- in fact, it can be even more applicable for online video marketing efforts. Interactive marketers now have more options than ever for sourcing online video creative, including video contests, creative crowdsourcing, digital studios, and – of course – traditional production methods.

Each of these sources has distinct advantages and disadvantages which Nate Elliott and I detail in our recent report, Online Video Ad Creative:Digital Studios, Crowdsourcing Vendors, And Video Contests Offer Marketers New Sources Of Creative Content. But the main point is this: Rather than rely on only one source for ad creative, interactive marketers need to take a portfolio approach with creative partners -- aligning each source of creative with its respective strengths. For instance, contests are a great source of viral video because they naturally create deep engagement with fans and generate viral buzz; while creative crowdsourcing vendors can offer a low-price alternative to traditional agencies when you need a TV ad or a product demo video. And marketers should consider more than just price when choosing creative sources: they also need to think about what rights they'll have to the videos that are created, and which vendors can best integrate their videos with a marketers' other online marketing efforts.

So what do you think? Is your organization looking to new sources for online video ad creative? How do you determine which source to access?

Case Study: The NHL Uses Tweet-Ups To Energize Its Fan Base And Reach New Audiences

[Posted by Nate Elliott. Follow me on twitter.]

Yesterday we published a case study that I'm really excited about, covering how the NHL used tweet-ups to create excitement for the 2009 Stanley Cup playoffs. The league worked with fans to organize a series of events that took place simultaneously around the world on the opening night of the playoffs. I had a chance to attend the tweet-up in Vancouver, and thought they were a great example of the power of both online and offline influence.

In the weeks leading up to the playoffs, fans started talking online about organizing a series of playoff tweet-ups -- and the league's Director of Social Media Mike DiLorenzo jumped at the chance to make it happen. Mike planned a big tweet-up in New York on the opening night of the playoffs, complete with food and beer sponsors and hockey merchandise giveaways -- and started promoting the event on Twitter.

To make sure there were lots of tweet-ups happening around the league, Mike reached out to a handful of influential hockey fans in key NHL markets to recruit their participation. Lots of fans also stepped up and volunteered to host events in their cities too. Before long, there were tweet-ups organized in almost two dozen cities around the world. The league supported every one of those tweet-ups by sending gift bags, coupons for discounts at shop.NHL.com, and signed hockey merchandise for event organizers to raffle.

The NHL spent only a few weeks and a few thousand dollars planning and supporting the tweet-ups, but the results were fantastic:

• Big in-person attendance. More than 1200 people attended tweet-ups in 23 cities (including events in New Zealand and Northern Ireland) for the opening night of the playoffs. Many fans organized further tweet-ups as their teams progressed through the playoffs as well
• Bigger online chatter. Those attendees talked a lot about the events on Twitter: On the opening night of the playoffs, the term "NHL" was mentioned on Twitter more than twice as often as on a normal day. And #NHLtweetup became a trending topic for the day.
• Enormous total reach. According to the league's research, as many as 240,000 people could have heard about the event on Twitter. And the tweet-ups also generated press coverage that reached millions, including a story in USA Today. 

So, what can other marketers learn from the NHL's success? We think there are a number of important lessons here:

1. Get your brand advocates involved. The NHL wouldn't have been as successful without fan participation. The fans helped develop the idea, and they did all the legwork for the local events -- including finding venues and promoting the events. If the NHL had tried to organize these events itself, it would've cost a lot more money, and probably wouldn't have worked nearly as well.
2. Give yourself enough lead time. The NHL and its tweet-up hosts had only three weeks to organize these events -- and it was a pretty hectic three weeks. The league plans to organize more tweet-ups this season, and will start planning each six to eight weeks in advance. 
3. Make sure PR is part of your strategy. The fans who attended the tweet-ups generated a lot of excitement about the playoffs -- both at the events, and on Twitter. But the mainstream press coverage provided a ton of reach. The media is still in love with Twitter, so inviting them to the events can really pay off.

There's some other great coverage of the event online -- including that at Goaliegirl.com -- and clients should read the entire case study for even more details and best practices. Congratulations to the NHL, and to all its tweet-up organizers, on a great event.

Less Is More For MSN.com

[Posted by Shar VanBoskirk]

Last night Microsoft launched a new look and feel for msn.com to a limited number of consumers.  The new design will roll out to the mainstream in January.

Forrester got a sneak peak of the new-and-improved interface in October.

 

Here is my take on the redesign.  It:

Limits clutter.  Perhaps the best thing about the new msn.com is that it is simply cleaner.  MS says it has 50% fewer links than the old msn.com.  As part of the clean up, MS removed the left hand navigation and turned the top nav links into five customizable tabs.

Integrates personal social experiences.  The idea of the new msn.com is to make it a "personal portal" where people can come to "infosnack" on their preferred news, communications and community fix.  I like the facebook and hotmail integration shown here, but I think all portals are facing a strategy challenge as consumer media behavior changes.  That is, consumers no longer *want* to come to a single source for news, communications and community.  We, in fact, want these syndicated to us across the multiple sites and devices we use.  So while I think integration of new types of content is imperative for MSN.com, I don't think it completes users' overall quest to have their online needs met.

Will increase content distribution relationships.  To the above point,   This means, MSN should increase the network of content providers, sites and devices it shares content with.  We hope MSN's rev after this one shares MSN proprietary content more universally across devices and sites (yes, esp iPhones and iTunes) and allows consumers to add in feeds for digital formats of books, video, music, or games into their customized msn.com.

Last night Microsoft launched a new look and feel for msn.com to a limited number of consumers.  The new design will roll out to the mainstream in January.

Forrester got a sneak peak of the new-and-improved interface in October.

 

Here is my take on the redesign.  It:

Limits clutter.  Perhaps the best thing about the new msn.com is that it is simply cleaner.  MS says it has 50% fewer links than the old msn.com.  As part of the clean up, MS removed the left hand navigation and turned the top nav links into five customizable tabs.

Integrates personal social experiences.  The idea of the new msn.com is to make it a "personal portal" where people can come to "infosnack" on their preferred news, communications and community fix.  I like the facebook and hotmail integration shown here, but I think all portals are facing a strategy challenge as consumer media behavior changes.  That is, consumers no longer *want* to come to a single source for news, communications and community.  We, in fact, want these syndicated to us across the multiple sites and devices we use.  So while I think integration of new types of content is imperative for MSN.com, I don't think it completes users' overall quest to have their online needs met.

Will increase content distribution relationships.  To the above point,   This means, MSN should increase the network of content providers, sites and devices it shares content with.  We hope MSN's rev after this one shares MSN proprietary content more universally across devices and sites (yes, esp iPhones and iTunes) and allows consumers to add in feeds for digital formats of books, video, music, or games into their customized msn.com.

Why Are Marketers So Bad At Measuring Social Media? (And How Can They Get Better?)

[Posted by Nate Elliott. Follow me on twitter.]

Marketers don't think they're very good at measuring social media.  When my colleague Emily Riley asked marketers to rate their ability to measure the impact of their social media initiatives, the average grade they gave themselves was 4.5 out of 10. Not a great score -- especially given that accountability is one of the key selling points of interactive marketing. So I've spent a lot of time this year trying to understand why marketers aren't good at measuring social media -- and how they can do better.

The fact is, social media marketers are drowning in a sea of metrics. Every social platform and vendor offers its own metrics, and there are literally hundreds of ways to measure the success of social initiatives. With so many numbers to choose from, and so little insight into which metrics are important, it's not surprising that marketers feel overwhelmed.

Most marketers fixate on easily-available measures like followers or fans -- regardless of whether those metrics are important. Many others fail to measure obviously useful numbers just because they're not on the first page of a report. A marketer focused on talking [video] should have a radically different definition of success than one focused on embracing [video]. But marketers are much more likely to tailor their social media measurement to the tools they're using than to the objectives they're trying to achieve. Have a look -- most marketers measure pretty much the same metrics, no matter what their objective:

It's obvious that marketers need more clarity into which social media metrics they should be tracking. So we've developed a simple three-step process to help marketers better tailor their measurement strategies to the objectives they're pursuing. Walking through these three steps will help you cut through the clutter on your marketing reports and measure your social media initiatives more effectively:

• Step 1: Think back to your marketing objective. Go back and find your notes from when you were first planning your social marketing effort -- and remind yourself of the objective you were pursuing. If you don't know what your goal was, you'll never know what you should be measuring, or if you succeeded.
• Step 2: Consider what types of metrics signal success. Don't think about specific lines on a report yet -- instead, think about what types of consumer behaviors and sentiments match your objectives, and focus your measurement on those categories of metrics. If your goal was energizing, success is defined as lots of people saying positive things about your brand; if your goal was supporting, you want to know if users were providing good advice to each other -- and whether it kept users from having to ask you for support directly.  Again, this isn't about specific metrics, it's about how you hoped your social initiative would change your relationship with consumers.
• Step 3: Look for that category of metric in the social technology you're using. Once you've identified the type of metric that will signal success, then you can look for ways to track those metrics within the social platform you're using. This is when you should get into the specifics of which lines on the report Facebook or Jive gives you are most important -- and which other vendors you need to use to find the exact numbers you're looking for.

In my new report, 'Three Steps To Measuring Social Media Marketing,' I offer a framework that helps marketers place social media metrics into one of six categories, shows them which categories of metrics should be used to measure which objectives, and gives examples of how to obtain those metrics from each social platform. I hope clients use my framework; I think it will make their lives easier and their measurement more successful.

But the key message of that report (and this blog post) isn't the framework, it's this call to action: We as an industry must do better at measuring social media marketing. Social media budgets keep rising, but that trend won't continue forever if we can't prove that social initiatives are effective. Perhaps more important, if we don't know which social applications succeeded and which didn't, we can't learn from our experiences and improve on future efforts. And it's surprisingly easy to measure social media effectively: we just need to focus on measuring objectives rather than technologies.

Whether you use the detailed framework in my report, or simply keep these three steps in mind as you design your own measurement strategy, I hope these ideas help you sift through all the social media metrics that are available, and find the right ones to measure your efforts.

Get Ready for Holiday Social Engagement Now

     If you have holiday marketing plans that include a social media campaign, you're not alone. Between viral videos for new products, Facebook communities for fans, and tweets for midnight sales and other deals, every product marketer out there has something planned. What this means is that you've got a lot of competition and a lot of clutter to shout over. So how can you rise above the pack?

Start early! You should already be listening to what consumers say they want for Christmas. See what the buzz is on budget/economy conversations as well as product or brand specific ones. This way, when you do start talking, you'll be saying the right things and answering the right questions. You should also already have looked at last years' search patterns and started bidding on the appropriate keywords for this season. Don't forget to send some of that traffic to your social media as well as your own home page.

Enable better functionality through social! The New York Times wrote about Best Buy'sholiday social media. Not only do they have Twelpforce on Twitter, they have new Facebook features that let friends ask each other what they should buy from Best Buy's product catalog.

Work with your valued partners! Mall conglomerate Jones Lang LaSalle will be tweeting on behalf of their retail partners to let customers know about last minute or unpublicized sales throughout the holiday season. Check out your own partner's plans and see what you can do to maximize their success.

If you have any social media plans that will put you ahead of your competition, let me know, I'll be writing about who I think the winners are this December.

Consumer Forum Recap: Clients Share Their Challenges

[Posted by Neil Strother]

I enjoyed the many conversations I had with clients this week at Forrester's 2009 Consumer Forum in Chicago. It was interesting to listen to some of the best in the interactive marketing business. They shared with me the challenges they face regarding mobile strategy, budget issues and campaign measurement. Key takeaways from my discussions:

• Most understand that mobile marketing is here to stay, but they struggle with a clear strategy. The right way is to first understand how your customers use mobile phones, and not jump straight to a technology choice. (We can help you with that. If you're a Forrester client, see my report on mobile marketing best practices).
• Many budgets are under stress, but not all. Some people said that getting money for proven interactive campaigns or innovative projects wasn't as hard as you'd think. For others, it's more of  an issue; if that's you, and you're a client, there's help in my report on securing budget from a CMO.
• Measuring campaign effectiveness in newer areas like social media and mobile is still evolving. And even leading companies using these tactics don't have it figured out, but they are working to get the right metrics in place.

If you attended the Forum in Chicago, what were your takeaways? If you did not attend, do you face some of these same challenges as a marketer? Share your thoughts by posting a comment below.

Welcome Augie Ray -- Our newest analyst supporting interactive marketers!

[Posted by Christine Overby]

I am thrilled to welcome Augie Ray to Forrester! Augie is coming aboard as a Senior Analyst supporting interactive marketers and focusing on Social Computing. He's starting on November 15 and will be based in Forrester's Foster City offices (Augie is relocating from Milwaukee and eagerly anticipating the warmer weather!).

I've been the hiring manager for nearly a dozen positions at Forrester, and I've come to recognize a particular feeling when I'm talking to a special applicant. Sure, there are lots of people with strong CVs and interviewing skills. But a great candidate brings ideas to life, and the interview becomes a fun gallop through the world of marketing themes, customer behavior, and the craft of writing. My first conversation with Augie was exactly that.

But it wasn't just up to me. Forrester's recruitment process involves the entire role-based research team, and, this time around, our Interactive Marketing clients themselves. You see, social tools gave us the ability to open up this search in an unprecedented way. Not only did Augie and the other candidates interview with the team, their writing samples were anonymized and then distributed to our private community of Interactive Marketers. In this community, Forrester clients got to critique the writing samples and vote for their favorite candidate. Augie's analysis made a big impression on the community, just as it did the research team and me. 

And so here we are with a new Social Computing analyst vetted in part using the very tools that he'll analyze. That feels pretty cool.

Read more about Augie's new adventures at Forrester and join me in offering a big welcome to our newest analyst!

Pizza Hut Embraces The New Marketing Reality (Live from Forrester Consumer Forum)

by Sean Corcoran

I'm here and live blogging from the Forrester 2009 Consumer Forum in Chicago. Bob Kraut, VP of Communications for Pizza Hut, is presenting how the brand used an innovative approach to digital marketing to adapt to a new and challenging consumer landscape.

Pizza Hut has been hit fairly hard in this economy as people cut back on much of their sit down dining in the recession. They also are fighting the same uphill battle as other marketers - the reality that consumers' media habits have been fragmented and reaching them in an engaging and effective way with scale is very difficult and very costly. In response to these realities, Pizza Hut had to be innovative in how they leveraged digital tools to reach and enable their consumers. They developed a four step strategy that included a lower priced menu items, more variety in the menu, more convenient and fulfilling customer access and finally to become part of the conversation online.

What manifested from this approach were some interesting tactics that include a viral video showing celebrity sponsor Jim Breuer freaking out during a taping of a Pizza Hut commercial (spoofing the Christian Bale video), a viral video featuring the popular High Five Guys, a popular promotion to select a Twintern (who now has over 1 million Facebook fans) who works with the team to push out special promotions through their Twitter account, the development of a new website that will both recognize repeat customers and offer one page ordering (first in the industry) and finally a popular iPhone app that enables consumers to order pizza. They're even using lead back targeting to advertise to people who have watched their viral videos - a fairly unique approach to behavioral and leadback targeting through display media. They're also using a visual dashboard to track all of the key metrics and while they don't have a hard formula for ROI, they're in the process of fine tuning reporting and analytics.

What can interactive marketers learn from this?

• The consumer landscape has changed for good and brands are recognizing that
• Now is the time to start shifting some time and resources to owned and earned media and integrate it alongside your paid media tactics
• Even the brands at the front end of social media are still trying to figure out how to measure it
• You really can order a pizza through an iPhone app as Bob's pizza just arrived as he wraps up

The Interactive Attribution Wave is Live

After talking about the topic of attribution for several years now, I'm very excited to be publishing a Wave that highlights the key companies in the interactive attribution space. The companies are: Atlas, ClearS, Coremetrics, Theorem, Trueffect, Visual IQ and x+1. You may not have heard of some of these companies, and many of these companies don't even consider themselves competitors. Two signs that we are really at the leading edge of this topic, and have a lot of room to grow. That said, we found some robust solutions out there that are doing a lot to advance marketers' abilities to more accurately measure and buy online media.

We evaluated the current attribution offerings in the market as they relate to the key online marketing channels: display, search, email, affiliate, social, etc. There are a lot of ad networks, agencies and vendors out there who also do a great job of attributing credit within or across these channels, but the vendors selected for the wave illustrated the most functionality and robustness. We looked a a wide variety of criteria when scoring each vendor, but took particular interest in:

• Depth of Insight: We took a serious look at how accurate the attribution measurement was.Some companies use custom algorithms to get at the heart of the attribution problem. Other companies require the marketer to come up with the various weights or values they want to assign to the first, second, or third interaction in a customer's purchase path.
• Ease of Use: Most marketers are just starting to understand how to think about attributing credit across marketing touch points, so tools in the market need to be intuitive, instructive, and easy to use. Some companies solve this with well designed dashboards, while others offer a full-service consulting offering.
• Integration: You might have noticed a few site analytics and ad serving tools in our list. Obviously, a client of Doubleclick would think twice about how much they want to switch to Atlas in order to get their attribution capabilities. A lot of the solutions we reviewed are tied to larger products or services, and must be integrated into a marketer's suite of tools and business process - no small task in this day and age.
• Strategy: The interactive attribution space is growing rapidly, and so each vendor's strategy for growth and market leadership was a key factor in their score. We assume that competition in this space will only increase, so we looked closely at how well each offering was set up to be successful in the next few years.

I encourage you to review the Wave. I would love to hear your comments: who you see as the next player in the space, and how marketers will shift their measurement practices over time.I also wrote a companion document to the wave that takes a look at the interactive attribution landscape, and identifies some sectors of the industry that may become bigger players in the near term.

 

 

  

 

 

A Simple Way To Think About Attribution

[Posted by Shar VanBoskirk]

My colleague Emily Riley** has written about attribution modeling -- the "new" approach to online measurement which tracks more than just the last ad clicked.  Emily's approach of "block and tackle attribution" gives marketers a framework for how to track value across both mainstay and social interactive tools.

Apart from Emily's research though, I haven't really heard a lot of structure around how attribution works.  It seems like one of those things that everyone is buzzing about, but few have any real discipline around. Well, yesterday I sat in on a panel on attribution which simplified it enormously.  

Madan Bharadwaj, the architect of Bluestreak's data analytics solutions boiled attribution down to three steps:

1) Organizing user path data -- determining the path a user takes to purchase
2) Contribution modeling -- evalutating the different influences along this path
3) Cross-channel optimization -- applying these insights to make media allocation decisions

I know that the steps and technology to do these three things are complex, but Bharadwaj encouraged audiences to think simply in order to reduce unncessary complications.  His advice: "Start with one question that you'd like to get the answer to.  This will help you filter through the volumes of data you can collect to instead focus on the data that matters to that question."

 

Adam Goldberg, the chief innovation officer for advertising measurement platform ClearSaleing also encouraged marketers to start attribution even if only in a small way, and to find value in all insights while still working to refine them.  In his words, ""Don't let perfect get in the way of good."

 

**Emily will be releasing a Wave on attribution modelers, which includes ClearSaleing, shortly.

My colleague Emily Riley** has written about attribution modeling -- the "new" approach to online measurement which tracks more than just the last ad clicked.  Emily's approach of "block and tackle attribution" gives marketers a framework for how to track value across both mainstay and social interactive tools.

Apart from Emily's research though, I haven't really heard a lot of structure around how attribution works.  It seems like one of those things that everyone is buzzing about, but few have any real discipline around. Well, yesterday I sat in on a panel on attribution which simplified it enormously.  

Madan Bharadwaj, the architect of Bluestreak's data analytics solutions boiled attribution down to three steps:

1) Organizing user path data -- determining the path a user takes to purchase
2) Contribution modeling -- evalutating the different influences along this path
3) Cross-channel optimization -- applying these insights to make media allocation decisions

I know that the steps and technology to do these three things are complex, but Bharadwaj encouraged audiences to think simply in order to reduce unncessary complications.  His advice: "Start with one question that you'd like to get the answer to.  This will help you filter through the volumes of data you can collect to instead focus on the data that matters to that question."

 

Adam Goldberg, the chief innovation officer for advertising measurement platform ClearSaleing also encouraged marketers to start attribution even if only in a small way, and to find value in all insights while still working to refine them.  In his words, ""Don't let perfect get in the way of good."

 

**Emily will be releasing a Wave on attribution modelers, which includes ClearSaleing, shortly.

Marketers Struggle For Interactive Support

[Posted by Shar VanBoskirk]

I'm just back from Dallas where I was part of the iProspect/Range Online client summit -- a one day event of mostly client stories (from a high profile list of marketers) about their successes and woes this year. Overall, I found the event provided a great pulse on present interactive marketer challenges.  But it was less rife with answers or solutions to these challenges.  Maybe that was by design as the answers are what Range and iProspect will now spend the next several months developing for their clients? 

In any case, I did hear some very interesting things throughout the day.

The first session -- a panel featuring Kaiser Permanente, Genesco Retail, Radio Shack, Jones Apparel, and adidas America introduced a theme that was carried throughout the day: That one of the greatest challenges for interactive marketers today is getting support and cooperation from their traditional brand marketing colleagues.

I actually couldn't believe that this pain came up as repeatedly as it did and seemed as paralyzing as it did for the panelists and members of the audience who joined the discussion.  I was expecting current marketer woes to focus on the economy, data challenges, or even sorting through emerging media options.  These topics did get addressed throughout the summit, but they were always couched within the notion of "how do we better foster a corporate mindset that supports interactive?"

How big a problem is this for you?  Do you find that your interactive efforts often don't get realized as fully as they could because you don't have corporate support for them?

My thought is that organizations buy in to interactive marketing in theory, and there are even great examples of interactive champions doing great things out there from firm to firm.  But culturally, most companies are not "interactive" at heart.  Like we could comfortably call P&G or Ford a big brand advertiser...but would we identify anyone an "interactive marketer?"  Should this be a label or a culture companies strive for?

What will have to happen for entire companies (not just portions of a marketing team) to give over to an interactive philosophy and the type of customer relationships and business decisions that go along with this philisophy?

I'm just back from Dallas where I was part of the iProspect/Range Online client summit -- a one day event of mostly client stories (from a high profile list of marketers) about their successes and woes this year. Overall, I found the event provided a great pulse on present interactive marketer challenges.  But it was less rife with answers or solutions to these challenges.  Maybe that was by design as the answers are what Range and iProspect will now spend the next several months developing for their clients? 

In any case, I did hear some very interesting things throughout the day.

The first session -- a panel featuring Kaiser Permanente, Genesco Retail, Radio Shack, Jones Apparel, and adidas America introduced a theme that was carried throughout the day: That one of the greatest challenges for interactive marketers today is getting support and cooperation from their traditional brand marketing colleagues.

I actually couldn't believe that this pain came up as repeatedly as it did and seemed as paralyzing as it did for the panelists and members of the audience who joined the discussion.  I was expecting current marketer woes to focus on the economy, data challenges, or even sorting through emerging media options.  These topics did get addressed throughout the summit, but they were always couched within the notion of "how do we better foster a corporate mindset that supports interactive?"

How big a problem is this for you?  Do you find that your interactive efforts often don't get realized as fully as they could because you don't have corporate support for them?

My thought is that organizations buy in to interactive marketing in theory, and there are even great examples of interactive champions doing great things out there from firm to firm.  But culturally, most companies are not "interactive" at heart.  Like we could comfortably call P&G or Ford a big brand advertiser...but would we identify anyone an "interactive marketer?"  Should this be a label or a culture companies strive for?

What will have to happen for entire companies (not just portions of a marketing team) to give over to an interactive philosophy and the type of customer relationships and business decisions that go along with this philisophy?

Working with IT Need Not Be a Drudge

[Posted by Neil Strother]

Chances are you work with IT people on a fairly regular basis. And sometimes you face challenges. You might struggle to be on the same page, or have to work around conflicting team priorities. If this happens to you, then our latest report can help. It's now up on our site, and is available in full to clients: "How To Work With IT To Get (Most) Of What You Want."

We found from our survey of interactive marketing professionals that half work with IT on a regular basis, and that they expect this level of collaboration to increase. Marketers who work successfully with IT make sure they have aligned goals, and they carefully document the project scope to avoid the urge to do too much. Those are just the starting points.

What's your situation when it comes to working with IT? How do you make the process works so you reach your goals? Post a comment blow.

Yahoo! Takes Baby Steps Toward Much Needed Search Improvement

[Posted by Shar VanBoskirk]

Yesterday Yahoo! announced enhancements to its search advertising business and consumer experience.  These enhancements include the following:

• Enhanced reporting -- Advertisers will now be able to see how their search ads are performing on Yahoo.com compared to partner sites also serving Yahoo! search ads

• Control over network bids and messages -- Starting next year, advertisers will be able to bid differently for ads showing up on Yahoo.com compared to those that might show up on partner sites.  As a part of this, advertisers can also target different messages based on the sites where their ads might run.

• Enhanced self-service tools for advertisers who need dedicated campaign management tools.

• Integrating rich ads into Panama -- Yahoo! has been trialing rich search ad formats which include video and image enhancements to regular paid search listing with selected brand advertisers.  But the process to date has been a negotiated one that is much higher touch than the process for buying regular keyword ads.  Integrating rich search ads into Panama will enable them to be bought on a bid-for basis and as part of other (non-rich ad) search campaigns.*

• Sites running as part of Yahoo!'s BOSS program will be eligible to distribute and share revenue from Yahoo!'s paid search ads.
  

• Price controls -- Yahoo! will adjust its pricing model a bit to allow it to set pricing floors or ceilings in order to better value traffic for what it is worth.
  

• A focus on improving relevance of search results -- Yahoo! has a new interface for delivering search results and is also dialing up emphasis on delivering intent-based search results.  The idea here is that the search engine would use information about your past searches, searches like your's and what others have found relevant in order to deliver results that fit your need, not just a list of pages that could match a given keyword. 

My take is that these are much needed but not comprehensive improvements for Yahoo!.  Marketer and consumer expectations for search are only getting higher, so Yahoo! (and all search engines) must continually innovate to improve the advertising and search results experience they deliver.

The most interesting developments to me are the ability for advertisers to control their bids and messaging for different places their ads will run.  And, the notion of Yahoo! regulating pricing to keep bids in line with value.  I think these both play to the science of paid search.  That is, how advertisers should optimize their budget and message in order drive the most profitable traffic (not just drive the *most* traffic). 

*Note: Rich search ads are still only available to select brand advertisers as selected by Yahoo! 

Yesterday Yahoo! announced enhancements to its search advertising business and consumer experience.  These enhancements include the following:

• Enhanced reporting -- Advertisers will now be able to see how their search ads are performing on Yahoo.com compared to partner sites also serving Yahoo! search ads

• Control over network bids and messages -- Starting next year, advertisers will be able to bid differently for ads showing up on Yahoo.com compared to those that might show up on partner sites.  As a part of this, advertisers can also target different messages based on the sites where their ads might run.

• Enhanced self-service tools for advertisers who need dedicated campaign management tools.

• Integrating rich ads into Panama -- Yahoo! has been trialing rich search ad formats which include video and image enhancements to regular paid search listing with selected brand advertisers.  But the process to date has been a negotiated one that is much higher touch than the process for buying regular keyword ads.  Integrating rich search ads into Panama will enable them to be bought on a bid-for basis and as part of other (non-rich ad) search campaigns.*

• Sites running as part of Yahoo!'s BOSS program will be eligible to distribute and share revenue from Yahoo!'s paid search ads.
  

• Price controls -- Yahoo! will adjust its pricing model a bit to allow it to set pricing floors or ceilings in order to better value traffic for what it is worth.
  

• A focus on improving relevance of search results -- Yahoo! has a new interface for delivering search results and is also dialing up emphasis on delivering intent-based search results.  The idea here is that the search engine would use information about your past searches, searches like your's and what others have found relevant in order to deliver results that fit your need, not just a list of pages that could match a given keyword. 

My take is that these are much needed but not comprehensive improvements for Yahoo!.  Marketer and consumer expectations for search are only getting higher, so Yahoo! (and all search engines) must continually innovate to improve the advertising and search results experience they deliver.

The most interesting developments to me are the ability for advertisers to control their bids and messaging for different places their ads will run.  And, the notion of Yahoo! regulating pricing to keep bids in line with value.  I think these both play to the science of paid search.  That is, how advertisers should optimize their budget and message in order drive the most profitable traffic (not just drive the *most* traffic). 

*Note: Rich search ads are still only available to select brand advertisers as selected by Yahoo! 

The End Of Marketer-Blogger Relationships?

By Sean Corcoran

The FTC made it official today.The proposal to update the guidelines governing endorsements and testimonials were approved and are now essentially the law. The bottom line is that anytime a blogger or any other endorser receives "material connections" from a company (e.g. cash payment, product samples, etc.) that a reader "would not expect" then that blogger must disclose the relationship. If the blogger does no disclose, then the blogger or even the company could be held liable - which could mean a hefty fine. And keep in mind the FTC doesn't care if you're paying a blogger in cash or simply sending free product, either way it is a "material connection."

So does this mean the end of marketer-blogger relationships (or "Sponsored Conversation")? We don't think so. In fact, over the long term we believe this will help strengthen those relationships by providing incentives to both companies and bloggers to do this the right way - with open disclosure, with authenticity, within the right context, and through a long term conversation versus short term PR spin or ad campaigns. It's that last point that many people miss. You can't use sponsored conversation like it's 1995 in which a brand pushes a message through an influential in exchange for compensation in a quid pro quo manner. The smart marketers in this space recognize that they can't talk and walk away. It's about creating conversation about the brand - whether good or bad - and adjusting to it through customer service, public relations and product development. Marketers should be listening to the community and creating a full feedback loop to improve their business.

Another key point is that marketers shouldn't be thinking of this as a way to replace organic endorsements. You can't buy your way into social media, you have to earn it. However, there is a role for Word of Mouth marketing to help influence and accelerate the conversation, but you need to know the rules before you jump in. The Word Of Mouth Marketing Association's Code of Ethics is a good place to start.

Finally, this isn't just about blogging as it impacts all social media. New challenges arise in emerging channels. For instance, how do you disclose material connections in a meaningful way through 140 characters on Twitter? Even using something like #Ad or similar, while a good start, would still be alien language to most of the 20-50 million people using Twitter. This is just another reason standards are necessary in this space and will slowly emerge.

At Forrester we plan to update our research in this area very soon. In the meantime, we encourage interactive marketers to follow the recommendations we recently published to ensure you're not breaking the rules.

Securing Interactive Budget Takes New Skills

[Posted by Neil Strother]

As interactive marketing has taken on greater influence within businesses, leaders of IM teams have emerged to shape strategy and win approval for the interactive marketing budget. We've identified this team leader as the senior interactive marketer, and we've outlined some of the unique challenges facing this person in a  new report now up on our site: "How Interactive Marketers Can Secure Budget From Their CMOs" (full version available to Forrester clients).

The senior interactive marketer must not only gather essential data for budget proposals - including the crucial metrics and ROI expectations - he or she must skilfully present plants to a CMO (and other senior management in some cases) that demonstrate the value of interactive, that align with corporate goals, and that get delivered in a manner befitting the CMO's style. The savvy senior interactive marketer must master this part of the job to have success.

What works for you in seeking new budget for interactive marketing campaigns? What budget approval challenges have you faced and how did you solve them? Post a comment below.