Social networks may never find the ad dollars they’re hunting for because they don’t really have a right to them.

he continues. A provocative statement made to the Digital Non-Conference, a program by Cincinnati’s Digital Hub Initiative. His feeling is, that most social network activity is rather private in nature:

“I have a reaction to that as a consumer advocate and an advertiser,” he said. “What in heaven’s name made you think you could monetize the real estate in which somebody is breaking up with their girlfriend?”

These private conversations are, well, private. But these ads are just as obtrusive as all the advertising in the pub your spending your time with your friends at. We’re used to having social interactions in surroundings covered with advertising. We just don’t want to be interrupted or bothered by it. Most facebook advertising isn’t interrupting. It’s small banner ads on the side of the screen, which I, quite frankly, rarely notice.

And while we talk about moving into places that are largely made up of consumer generated media, he states:

Consumers weren’t trying to generate media. They were trying to talk to somebody. So it just seems a bit arrogant. … We hijack their own conversations, their own thoughts and feelings, and try to monetize it.”

True, but I guess most marketers don’t want to buy regular adspace for the very reason that most people will not notice (nor click) it. So, if they could find more interesting, more effective ways to leverage these communities - e.g. by providing something of more added value, they would happily try it. Like the little ad supported postcards you get in most german pubs. They are widely accepted and people look forward to looking at them every time they pass by the little postcard rack on their way to the rest rooms.

These added value things could be, for example, small applications that enrich your social network profile:

He cited Facebook applications as a potentially valuable vehicle for advertisers, one in which they can create an environment that’s favorable for their brands and consumers alike.

Facebook Apps are just one things. Groups, product profiles, etc. are other possibilities. Imagination and social skills are key to finding these new value adders for social networks…

(found at brainwash)

Even more numbers on the online community of Obama.

A flickr photo set of various social media activity during the Obama campaign.

“Communities dominate Brands” with an Obama Social Media Meltdown,

A simple Google count showing that Obama’s campaign achieved to a lot more Google links in the last few years, than George Bush in his 9 years of term.

Read/write web with a comparison of the activities of MacCain and Obama.

• The long tail of search is longer than expected.
• Junglesmash is calling out for user generated ads - the first one is a competition to produce toothpaste ads!
• Karl long about an apparently dead wrong article about the dying blogosphere in the economist.
• Obama published a photo set of the night of the election on flickr. Somewhere I even read, that he will, in future, publish quite a lot of his life in the white house. (Unfortunately, I don’t remember where I read about that…)

Make it to one of the five finalists and winn $25,000. When voted as the favourite, your ad will get aired during the superbowl. An dif the ad gets to the top spot of the US Today Ad Meter, you win 1,000,000

You can think of any story you like, and should submit a video of not more than 30 secs. In the gallery, there are already 218 spots by now.

On the site, they even provide you with a library of Doritos material, such as product shots, music files and animated logo sequences usually used for the end of a spot by the ad pros. But the story items still need to be shot by the target audience.

While I always liked the idea of consumer generated content, it is stilla cheap means of cutting production costs - in this case to a possible max of $125kfor the finalists plus an undisclosed amount for whoever produced the site and manages the campaign. The 1 million will only be paid out if the spot makes it to number one of the US Today Ad Meter. I don’t know what the chances are in that, but I do know that advertisers can buy insurances for these kind of “risks”. So that the actual sum paid for the insurance premium that pays, in case the 1 million needs to be paid out, can by substantially lower.

(via ad rants)

The team of Obama just launched a new site. A site that will run (at least) until the time of his presidency. It features a blog, information about his main agenda points, as well as a platform for his supporters to tell their story:

The story of this campaign is your story. It is about the great things we can do when we caome together around a common purpose. We want to hear your inspiring stories from the campaign and Election Day.

It’s amazing the way Obama, Biden and their team leverage the web and hence involve “their community”. If Obama continues in the same perfectionist way with all the other items on his agenda, then the USA will be on a very good path during the next 4 years.

But in politics, everythings is timed. Everything builds up for the election, then there is the big climax, as we have seen last Tuesday, and now the campaign is over, done, dusted. Obama is already busy putting his cabinett together (he must not loose time addressing all the problems that his predecessor caused in the last 8 years!), and there is no involvement of the Obama supporters any longer.

The pressure is gone, and all the most active supporters have nothing to talk about, nothing to live up to any more. Here is a television news report on the sad victims of post election hang over:

Obama Win Causes Obsessive Supporters To Realize How Empty Their Lives Are

have fun! I am glad the election turned out the way it did!

Teaming up with the neuromarketing firm NeuroFocus and the branding consultancy MediaVest, Google conducted a study in which it measured people’s nervous-system responses - through brain-scanning skull sensors, eye tracking, pupil dilation, and galvanic skin response - as they watched YouTube ads.

There were only 40 participants, whose score for overlay ads was apparently above average:

Specifically, after fielding a study among 40 participants last May, InVideo ads scored above average on a scale of one to 10 for measures like “attention” (8.5), “emotional engagement” (7.3) and “effectiveness” (6.6). According to officials, a 6.6 score is considered strong. (Source)

Yet they worked best when in combination with banners:

The combination of overlays with companion banners also grabbed users’ attention more than banner ads alone, scoring a 6.6 compared to a 6.3 for just banners. (Source)

I can see that getting in-video ads right will be a huge leverage for YouTube to achieve sufficient revenue. And it’s probably one of the best ways to quickly and substantially increase revenue options on the site.

Yet I would prefer more creative and user relevant options for displaying the messages of my clients…

Another interesting fact is the news about the advanced neuroscience approach Google has taken to evaluate their overlay ads. Only 40 participants, but probably much more data available than you would get from 100 traditional focus groups.

Go watch: wassup08.com

(clever campaining, all in total)

(thanks)

And as you can see, in the fine print, it says that at airports Sixt charges an extra 19%, i.e. 153,31 Euros in total. Why not you might ask - and I agree, why not. Let them charge what they want, where they want.

But I do ask, why they put up a billboard with this fine print copy AT THE AIRPORT? Yes, I took that picture at the airport in Hamburg!

Why did they not simply put up a billboard with the “real” price for that location?

MySpace, one of the biggest (if not THE biggest) social network is already earning close to billion dollars in revenue.

Now they launched a new self serving ad platform. Ads are served on a CPC basis and you have to design them yourself. However, they’re not text ads, they’re display ads, which you can design yourself on the myspace website

The most interesting feature, however, is the targeting options you have. As Techcrunch writes:

The key to MySpace’s ad platform is their hypertargeting technology. Facebook allows targeting as well, although it’s based on interest areas put in by users directly. So if someone says they like books, you can target ads to them based on that. What MySpace does is much different - they build out a profile of each user based on what they do on MySpace over time, with 1,200 different ways to categorize each user. So if you only want to target women who live in California between the ages of 25-30 who like motorcycles, i can. There are 2,842 of them on MySpace.

If that works properly - and if it is accepted by the community to be targeted in that way, it could well be a huge opportunity for myspace to increase advertising revenues!

what if the internet was just like a bag of Doritos. Filled only with the stuff you like.

Great idea to achieve awareness on regular media sites without actually pushing ads in your face. Here is the case study video:

75 percent of Fortune 1000 companies are eager to get involved in social-networking initiatives for marketing or customer relations purposes, but 50 percent of those campaigns will be classified as failures

The main problem is (oh wonder) the differing expectations about what will happen during those marketing efforts:

The quirkiest and most addictive campaigns often provide little value for the company and turn out to be fads, whereas marketing efforts on the Web often don’t go over as well with the public.

In addition, the report points out that online usage during the purchasing process of all products and services will increase:

Gartner’s research shows that by 2012 fully half of all purchases will have some online component. That could mean searching for product reviews, reading about a new product on a blog, or comparing prices even if the purchase is ultimately made in a store.

So the need to figure out win-win situations for brands and the community are ever more important.

And furthermore, a “heads up” for online marketers for the financially difficult times ahead:

Businesses will turn to the Web to stay in touch with consumers during a difficult financial climate. “This is going to be a lifeline,” he said. “Your spirit of customers is probably the only thing you have.”

I’m working on remake of I Am the Media, so I asked one of our bright and diligent researchers to do a count of the last 4 months of print campaigns on Ads of the World. And the gut feeling was confirmed. 70% of them didn’t contain any URL.

70%? This is absolutely amazing. Out of 256 print ads, only 77 Ads had a URL for more information.

Seems like the other campaigns weren’t really interested in providing further information. But why?

(Found at presentation zen)

The essence can be laid out in the two contraries:

Campaining = marketing for short term gains.
Committing = creating an evolving collection of coherent brand ideas and experiences over time.

Just one sentence struck me as a bit strange:

Campaining = changing your core brand message to fit what you think people need or want to hear today so that they buy your product or service

Campaigns don’t always change core brand messages, do they? I surprised by that assumption…

In the new publication, they offer much more insight than they used to. They conducted a survey amongst bloggers:

For the first time, we surveyed bloggers directly about the role of blogging in their lives, the tools, time, and resources used to produce their blogs, and how blogging has impacted them personally, professionally, and financially. Our bloggers were generous with their thoughts and insights.

The whole publication is split into 5 daily segments, but I look particularly forward to day 5, when they seem to publish information about brands entering the blogosphere. Here is a breakdown of the 5 segments:

Day 1: Who Are the Bloggers?
Day 2: The What And Why of Blogging
Day 3: The How of Blogging
Day 4: Blogging For Profit
Day 5: Brands Enter The Blogosphere

I like these interactive videos where you get to choose how it continues.

1. A greater knowledge of digital space
2. More use of “pull interactions”
3. Leverage virtual communities
4. Agency executives using the technology they are recommending
5. Chief Digital Officers make agencies more appealing
6. Web 2.0 and social media savvy
7. Agencies that understand consumer behavior
8. Demonstrate strategic thinking
9. Branding and creative capabilities
10. Ability to measure success

There is some more detail to these points at the sapient website.