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Super Bowl 2008: Fumbling Through Social Media
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Written By Sepideh Saremi | February 7, 2008 | Share This
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With the release of Reprise Media’s 2008 Super Bowl Search Marketing Scorecard, this week on Searchviews we’ve recapped and reviewed the Super Bowl’s biggest winners and losers in integrating TV ads with online strategy. Today, we’ll take a closer look at one criteria of the Scorecard that’s new this year: social media.
Social media factored into the final rankings this year for a couple of reasons. First, over the last couple of years, Internet traffic has shifted dramatically from portals and shopping sites to social media sites. Second, these sites are highly visible in organic search results - sometimes ranking higher than a company’s website - making them important to branding and driving traffic.
So a few days before game day, we looked at YouTube, MySpace, and Facebook for profiles belonging to known game-day advertisers; see screenshots of our findings on the Reprise Media Flickr page. Brands got points toward their Scorecard standing for having official profiles, groups, video channels, etc. on those three sites, which are among the most popular. Also, MySpace and YouTube both created special pages to highlight Super Bowl ads.
Our findings showed that while marketers have gotten a little bit savvier about search over the four years we’ve tracked the big game (20% more bought search ads for their branded names this year than last) they’re not as smart about social media. Fewer than half of advertisers had profiles on social networks and video-sharing sites, and only 14% had Super Bowl-related content on social networks.
This year, one clever advertiser, Dunkin’ Donuts, used search to drive traffic right to its YouTube channel, which Pizza Hut did last year.
But zero advertisers, not even the winners, called out their social media profiles in their TV ads, which is a missed opportunity for many of them because of the prevalence of squatters on branded pages that can make official pages hard to find (again, see our Super Bowl social media Flickr set).
In coming years, advertisers will likely begin to wise up about the importance of social media in cross-channel marketing, much like they’re getting savvier about paid search. This year, they weren’t quite there yet.
For all the Super Bowl ad winners and losers, download the Scorecard. And stay tuned for our upcoming whitepaper, which will be released February 21.
Super Bowl 2008: The Losing Brands
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Written By Sepideh Saremi | February 6, 2008 | Share This
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This week Reprise Media released its Super Bowl Search Marketing Scorecard, and yesterday we highlighted last year’s winners. Today we turn our attention to the bottom three - the brands that did a poor job integrating television and search marketing, missing out on the huge influx of game-related Internet traffic.
The Super Bowl drew a record 97.5 million viewers this year - its largest audience ever and the second largest ratings number in all of TV history (the 1983 MASH finale took first place). Nearly 20% of the TV audience made it online last year; if that percentage stuck, it translates to about 19 million people this year.
But the people that didn’t capitalize on that traffic bump this year are…
- Disney
Its ad for upcoming animated feature WALL-E got Disney fans in our office really excited, but the company didn’t run any paid search ads, much less paid search targeting its Super Bowl ad. Moreover, though the movie showed up in organic results, its landing page had no Super Bowl related content, even though it appears Disney set up YouTube channels for both WALL-E and the other movie it was advertising, Prince Caspian. Disney’s presence in the bottom three is reflective of the performance of most of the entertainment companies that advertised during the Super Bowl; they treated the biggest ad day of the year like business as usual.
- Hershey’s
The Hershey’s ad for IceBreakers gum with Carmen Electra wasn’t groundbreaking in creativity, but it would really have benefited from a tighter online strategy. First, the ad was not supported by any paid search, failing to take advantage of its spokesperson’s star power or it’s “Whoa” tagline. The brand wasn’t visible in organic searches for the term “Ice Breakers,” so their landing page, which actually isn’t so bad because it does include the ad and outtakes, was very difficult to find. They should have made all the video content on their landing page embeddable, though, becaue the page that looks like it might be the official Ice Breakers YouTube channel is totally underdeveloped, featuring just the one video that aired on game day. The TV ad also failed to include a URL or call to action. Ice Breakers Ice Cubes gum was hard to find in organic search, and missing from paid search, making for missed opportunities all around.
- Zantac
Our biggest loser this year, Zantac did nearly everything wrong when it comes to integrating TV and online marketing. Like our other losers, the company did not run any paid search (and its competitors most certainly did). Though Zantac did include a URL in its ad, there was no call to action, and its landing page didn’t feature the ad. Zantac failed to upload its spot to MySpace’s Super Bowl 2008 ad channel. It also didn’t take advantage of YouTube’s Super Bowl ad channel or create its own branded channel (they do have the ad up on AOL Video, but YouTube gets the most traffic so they should have been there). Zantac definitely has a presence on YouTube, but probably not the presence they want to have there: take a look at the screenshot below, where the first two video results feature the words “junk” and “yucky,” two terms no company wants people to associate with its brand.
In sum, though 70% of advertisers bought branded keywords this year, up 20% over last year, our Scorecard losers missed the boat. Interestingly, all the brands, even our winners, lost points in one regard: though almost half of them had branded social media profiles, no advertisers called it out in their TV ad this year. We’ll write more about social media in tomorrow’s post, so stay tuned. Download the full Search Marketing Scorecard on the Reprise Media website.
Super Bowl Scorecard 2008: A Review of 2007 and A Question for Doritos
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Written By Sepideh Saremi | January 31, 2008 | Share This
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It’s t-minus three days to game day and we are preparing for our annual Super Bowl Search Marketing Scorecard, in which we’ll rank advertisers for their strategy (or lack thereof) in cross-channel marketing that integrates their TV and online efforts surrounding the biggest ad day of the year.
Backstory
To get ready to tackle this year’s ads, we’ve spent a lot of time reviewing the performance of last year’s advertisers (here’s the 2007 Scorecard). By and large, they were failures, and last year’s biggest losers were GM, Izod, and Doritos. The automobile industry blew it big-time, despite their slick ads, and many advertisers still didn’t really understand how to best utilize the web to actually engage people, as revealed by their landing pages.
In 2007, our winners may not have had the best TV ads or the biggest names - in fact, a couple of them were downright cheesy - but they really understood how to get a return on their TV ad-buy, by running targeted paid search ads and optimizing their landing pages.
Big Question for Doritos: Will You Fumble Again?
Last year’s fumble by Doritos was especially bittersweet to note. After all, the company arguably had more promising pre-game buzz going than anyone, thanks to their Crash the Super Bowl user-generated video contest, whose winner was determined by peer votes and got aired during the game. A clever concept, it produced a very memorable commercial that ended up being a favorite for many viewers. But though Doritos got good mileage for their ad, they could have made it much bigger if they’d had a search campaign pointing users to the video, and if their landing page wasn’t so confusing.
This year, Doritos is going for round 2 of Crash the Super Bowl, but with a twist that hooks up one winning musician with an ad spot and a record deal. The winner will be revealed on Sunday, and one contestant, Kina Grannis, got herself to the final round with smart Digg-bait that added to Doritos’ buzz. But the company’s Crash the Super Bowl landing page is still Flash-intensive and not user-friendly. And their pre-game SEO and paid search efforts leave a lot to be desired. A Google search for “doritos super bowl ad” shows top results from last year’s contest, and not only has Doritos not paid any attention to optimizing against that this year, it also isn’t running any paid search to drive traffic to the correct pages. Check out the screenshot below (click to enlarge it):
Will Doritos recover by Sunday and make it to our list of winners this year? It’s not looking good yet, but we’ll have to wait and see.
In the meantime, check out our extensive collection of social media screenshots for all the advertisers, and follow our Super Bowl advertising commentary at twitter.com/scorecard.
TV on Internet Beats TV on TV, Study Says
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Written By Sepideh Saremi | December 27, 2007 | Share This
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New data reported this week shows viewers are more engaged when watching TV content and advertising online than when they watch it on a TV set. In a year-long study, researchers surveyed nearly 75,000 participants to determine that online TV beats traditional TV by 47% when it comes to viewers’ engagement with advertising, and by 25% when it comes to engagement with content. MediaPost explains how engagement was measured:
The study defines “engagement” according to six characteristics that respondents identify with media: “inspirational,” “trustworthy,” “life-enhancing,” “social interaction,” “personal time-out” and ad receptivity.
Survey participants were asked, for instance, to rate TV shows, magazines and Web sites based on how “inspiring” they were or how much they provided fodder for conversation. Ad “receptivity” was gauged on how willing people were to view or read advertising in a given medium because of its relevance.
The efficacy of online TV advertising is good news for networks, even though they’re in the midst of a strike by writers over the issue of payment for online content. This study also appears to give a boost to the writers’ argument that they should get of the online ad dollars networks generate, but at least it proves that online ads work for TV.
Networks have been working hard to figure out how to maximize online revenues, favoring ad-supported, free access to content via sites they control, like hulu, a News Corp./NBC Universal joint venture currently in private beta, or network websites like abc.com, which offers most of ABC’s prime time shows in the form of streaming video. NBC stopped offering downloads via iTunes this year, and the network is also experimenting with “quarterlife,” a show that debuted on MySpace and YouTube with mixed results but will air on NBC in February.
Why is online TV engagement so much higher than engagement via TV set, especially for ads? Coverage of the study doesn’t really say, but it probably has to do with the more limited nature of that advertising, the inherent interactivity of the web, and the fact that most of the online ads are just better. Most hour-long ABC shows, for instance, feature four or five 15-second clips, usually from the same advertiser, many of which include games or other interactive elements that give the viewer something to click or do while watching. The relative infrequency and shortness of those ads makes them less intrusive than traditional TV advertising, which typically bombards viewers.
One very fascinating part of this study also found that print and magazine content online is also more engaging than its dead-tree counterparts, though the numbers are not as dramatic as those for online vs offline TV (perhaps because reading online isn’t as fun as watching online?). But overall, print is more engaging than both online or TV, though its audience is declining.
See more of the study on MediaPost.
For Newspapers, Print Dying and Web Lagging
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Written By Sepideh Saremi | November 21, 2007 | Share This
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The Newspaper Association of America reported yesterday that Q3 advertising revenue for newspaper websites is up 21.1%. Good news for online, except print revenue is down 9% in the same quarter, for an overall decline of 7.4% in newspaper ad revenue, which means online is not bridging the revenue gaps despite the huge increase. PaidContent has some good context and a recap of the NAA’s release. I find it interesting and maybe a little telling that the NAA doesn’t have a better breakdown of where revenue’s being generated online (emphasis mine):
Advertising on newspaper websites now accounts for 7.1 percent of total newspaper ad spending, compared to 5.4 percent in Q3. Still, the NAA is only able to offer a general picture of newspapers’ website advertising, as it doesn’t break out online classified or other web-related segments.
Nevertheless, the NAA’s number do offer some context for a bright spot within a struggling industry, noting that total Q3 ad revenues at newspaper companies fell 7.4 percent to $10.9 billion. Meanwhile, print classified ads were down across the board for real estate (-24.4 percent), jobs (-19.7 percent) and autos (-17.7 percent).
Alan Mutter’s post at Silicon Alley Insider puts the news into perspective; adjusting for inflation only makes things bleaker (emphasis mine):
If you subtract this year’s likely $42.7 billion in print-ad revenues from the constant-dollar value of the sales a decade ago, the difference of approximately $10 billion means that today’s revenues are nearly 20% lower than they were in 1997. On a constant-dollar basis, therefore, industry sales this year will be about one-fifth lower than they were in 1997.
And Ashkan Karbasfrooshan draws interesting parallels between the newspaper-web and TV-online video dichotomies, arguing that TV will be in bigger trouble in five to ten years than print is in now if it treats the web with the same way newspapers used to:
I actually think TV will get hammered even more than print because digital video content is, for lack of a better word, has a higher beta. In other words, if you embrace digital distribution and apply it to video content, the sky is the limit. TV companies don’t because doing so will shrink their businesses, as embracing or fearing the Web has done to print companies. But if you try to go against the major trends and shy away from the Web, then it will kill you far faster, more lethally.
Google News Becomes Content Publisher
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Written By Sepideh Saremi | September 4, 2007 | Share This
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Google announced Friday that it is now hosting content from four major news agencies, including the AP, on Google News. This is similar to the relationships that MSNBC and Yahoo have had with news wires for several years, but it’s a big step because it takes Google News’ function beyond indexing to include publishing. Interestingly, one of the agencies that signed on is none other than Agence France-Presse, notorious former plaintiff in a 2005 Google lawsuit in which it had demanded removal of all its content from the Google News index.
In conjunction with this deal, and with graver consequences for the rest of the publishing world, Google News is also rolling out “duplicate detection,” which means other sites that pick up news-wire content, such as the New York Times, stand to lose a ton of potential traffic and ad revenue. From a user-experience standpoint, duplicate detection is pretty savvy, but it’s a disaster for newspapers. Mathew Ingram explains:
…Google has agreed to give the wires’ version of a story prominence over the thousands of versions of that story that appear on the websites of the various newspapers that are members of AP, AFP, etc. This is potentially explosive, I think. Whenever I search for a news story in Google News, I get hundreds of identical versions of that story from newspapers that picked it up from Associated Press — and I may even click through to the first newspaper that has a copy. But if I can see the story from the wire service itself, before it was edited or shortened or changed, I would probably prefer that.
And John Battelle writes:
[I]f I were running a newspaper, I’d be livid. I pay the wire services so that I can get the eyeballs. Now Google is paying them, presumably (no comment on this in the coverage), and the inevitable result is that the newspaper outlets will lose traffic to Google’s direct relationship with the wire services.
Actually, Forbes reports that Google was already paying the wires to include their content in the news index and isn’t paying extra to host it, but Battelle’s point about the role of wire services in publishing is a good one, and it will be interesting to see how the relationship between newspapers and wire services changes as a result of this change to the Google-news wire relationship.
Though there’s currently no ad structure in place on Google News, Google isn’t ruling out advertising for the hosted stories and will most likely implement it. The potential loss in traffic and revenue will likely be a hard blow for newspaper publishers, who are already beleaguered by poor print ad performance: Silicon Alley Insider reported today that newspaper print ad revenue numbers for 2007 will be at 1997 levels.
Google News also recently added an experimental feature allowing people or organizations included within a story to add their comments, which are then also hosted by Google.
Advertising Sales Shift to New Media
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Written By Drupad Sil | August 7, 2007 | Share This
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Private equity firm Veronis Suhler Stevenson (VSS) today released a report forecasting a shift in communications spending from traditional to alternative media. Among the key findings headlining the report, internet advertising is expected to become the largest ad segment in 2011, surpassing newspapers. The report’s findings come on the tail end of declining advertising sales posted by newspaper groups this year despite continued growth in the U.S. economy.
The VSS study predicts a greater than 21% yearly increase in online advertising, reaching $62 billion in 2011. Comparatively, newspaper ads are expected to reach $60 billion in 2011, falling behind its online counterpart for the first time in history. Broadcast television and cable and satellite television combined will be worth a predicted $86 billion in 2011, far and away the largest share of advertising dollars. Interestingly, the report also notes the time lag between average time spent by consumers utilizing different types of media, and the corresponding advertising dollars spent on each type of media. For example, online advertising spending is expected to overtake newspaper advertising spending in 2011, but time spent online is expected to overtake time spent reading the newspaper by the end of 2007.
Also of note is the fact that this shift to digital and online media is global, and is occurring faster than in the U.S. in some areas. Online spending in the U.K. and Sweden is expected to overtake newspaper spending in those countries this year, emphasizing the media transition. Another trend highlighted by the study is that the average time spent consuming media is down half a percentage point, to 3,530 hours per person per year. The reason for this is an increase in the amount of time spent online, where users spend an average of 5 to 7 minutes watching videos, and a decrease in time spent in front of the TV, where users spent an average of 30 minutes per session.
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LG Developing YouTube-focused Phone
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Written By Emily Koh | July 3, 2007 | Share This
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LG Electronics, the world’s fifth-largest mobile phone manufacturer, have signed a deal with Google to develop a YouTube-focused 3G phone. Expected to hit the European market in the later half of 2007, users will be able to upload, view and share video clips directly on YouTube.
LG already has ties with Google — it started selling 3G handsets called “Google phones” in Europe last month, which are bundled with software that offers one-click access to Google services like its search engine, Google Maps, and Gmail.
(more…)
Google Launches Ad Creation Marketplace for Video and Audio Ads
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Written By Kate Zimmermann | May 10, 2007 | Share This
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Yesterday Google launched their Ad Creation Marketplace through Google Adwords, to help advertisers create radio and video ads without any prior experience. Check out screenshots of the new interface, or watch Google’s demo video. From Inside Adwords,
“We wanted to make it easy for any advertiser to try out video — even someone who doesn’t know anything about video advertising or video ad creation. So, we’ve developed the Google Ad Creation Marketplace, accessible right from your AdWords account. The Ad Creation Marketplace is a resource for advertisers who are interested in running video ads but don’t have experience creating video ads and want customized help from a professional.”
The Ad Creation Marketplace is a searchable directory of professional ad specialists who can provide script writing, editing, production, and voice-over talent. The process of finding a specialist takes a week on average and is expected to cost anywhere from $100 to $1000. Check out Google’s comprehensive FAQ for more information about the Ad Creation Marketplace.
Microsoft Buys European Mobile Ad Company
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Written By Kate Zimmermann | May 3, 2007 | Share This
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Today Microsoft announced the acquisition of ScreenTonic, a European mobile advertising company that delivers location-specific ads to mobile devices. The purchase will tie together Microsoft’s Digital Advertising Solutions and Microsoft’s Windows Live for Mobile. From the press release,
“ScreenTonic’s mobile solutions provide advertisers with a complete range of ad formats, from display to text, as well as ad management and reporting capabilities, while serving the needs of mobile operators and independent publishers equally…The acquisition of ScreenTonic, in addition to Microsoft’s work with industry groups such as the Mobile Marketing Association and the Interactive Advertising Bureau, will be an extension of Microsoft’s commitment to connect advertisers with their target audiences at home, at work and on the go across multiple digital devices such as PCs, Xbox® video game systems and mobile phones.”
The ScreenTonic acquisition, besides giving Microsoft a stake in the European Mobile market, fits with Microsoft’s vision to expand the internet (and advertising) beyond the browser. In March, Microsoft used their Techfest to introduce a number of theoretical products that use search beyond the browser (and in some cases, beyond the computer). Mid-March, Microsoft bought voice recognition software, TellMe Networks, and in April, introduced Silverlight, an variation of Windows Media Player for the browser. ScreenTonic fits into Microsoft’s growing arsenal of applications that use the internet as a thread linking the browser, the desktop and other types of hardware.
Financial details of the acquisition were not disclosed.