Re-Targeting, Mobile Edition

In an App-centric mobile world it is hard for branded apps to make it onto phones. And achieving a download is only the first step in an uphill battle for brands that consists of an average app shelf life of 6 month, an average of 28 apps on an iPhone to compete against and the challenge of providing worthwhile content for return visits. Up until last week it was up to the brands to make sure their App was good enough to encourage revisits before it was sent sailing into the market. Now, Millennium Media has released a new mobile targeting tool for brands. Basically app re-targeting, a mobile banner can be served to users who have previously downloaded a specific app. Once this banner is tapped, it can deep dive into that app, a feature that has previously not been offered. Not only is the app re-targeting new, so is linking into apps. Previously apps have been one way gates capable of only driving traffic out.

There are definitely additional uses for this type of targeting. With Apps being extremely specified in their function, a very clear picture could be painted of a user’s interest and behavioral profile. For example, if you’ve downloaded a Frommer’s France Guidebook and Paris Subway Map, you’re prime for an Air France ad.

Check out the full article at:

http://www.mobilemarketingwatch.com/millennial-media-rolls-out-new-user-engagement-tool-for-mobile-apps-20644/

Apple’s Human Cost

For those of you who haven’t heard, the tech giant was in some pretty hot water this week as a result of a scathing article in the New York Times that highlighted Apple’s involvement in deplorable worker conditions overseas. It’s lengthy, but worth a read:

http://www.nytimes.com/2012/01/26/business/ieconomy-apples-ipad-and-the-human-costs-for-workers-in-china.html?pagewanted=1

I’ve seen quite a few Facebook posts regarding this article over the past couple of days so decided to dive into Sysomos to gather some insight into the Social Media impact. Surprisingly, mentions of the article/incident accounted for only 2% of Apple’s overall chatter. Pretty tiny. The only shift that could be seen was neutral/negative sentiment shifting from 45% to 66% vs. previous weeks.

What does this tell us? Well, when you’re a company as big as Apple, even major stories like this can be eclipsed by general product chatter and fanboy reviews. Goes to show (depending on the brand involved), not everything has the impact or share-ability we assume it will in social media

 

 

Social Media & TV – The Golden Globes

Social Media and TV are a hot item right now. Rightly so, as more and more companies are cracking the code on how these two mediums relate from an insights point of view.

Check out companies like Networked Insights and Blufin Labs, wicked technology going on here.

As a fun exercise, let’s take a huge television event like last nights Golden Globes. A simple search using our social media tools shows the most talked about people or topics as it relates to this event. This is a quick and easy way to define the impact of a particular show and more specifically, who or what was causing the discussion. Pretty powerful stuff.

But I think the most important thing to note here is that Madonna and her gross arms didn’t even come remotely close to making the cut…I for one, am shocked.

TV’s big digital disruption

Bit of a lame post to say hey just go read this here, but go read this here.

It ‘s worth it because this is what is coming at us. 5 years? probably less in Canada. The hole in the argument is that it is primarily cable set top boxes gathering the data. I doubt it; I think Rogers and Bell want to have caps on data because they realize that given the choice between cable and online, they will choose online.

Apple TV installed at home.

I was one of the millions of Canadians that joined the consumer electronic madness for boxing day, which actually started at 8pm Christmas Eve. We now have a few new devices that are signs of our IP fuelled media household. First up was a new receiver that picks up a plethora of internet radio, none of which will be used. Hey I bought the thing for more watts per channel and a bunch of HDMI inputs. The main thing was to hook this up to Apple TV. Now I have 5 video inputs, Wii, DVD, VCR, Broadcast and iTunes all being properly upsampled to 1080p where necessary.I always thought Blueray was a dead end cash grab.

AppleTV is really nice.The interface is great, it set up in an instant and the whole end to end ecosystem for renting, buying already existed. The problem is choice – too much. It is impossible to get 5 people to agree on any one thing so rather than standing in the video store perplexed, we sat in the basement going through preview after preview and then over to Youtube. Future predictions on how this will impact our media habits? Even less broadcast tv, more gaming and more time spent in the DVD/VCR bargain bins (upsampling works really well) and a higher iTunes bill every month.

Merry Christmas

Enough talking about Rubik’s Cube solving Optimization, Media Synergy Measurement, Viro/Social  Mobile PPC campaigns. Life is not work, unless you are a cardiac surgeon.

Enjoy spending time with your loved ones. Cheers!

 

 

Enabling the Measurement of Mobile

This month in the US, eMarketer released Average Time Spent per Day with Major Media. The results have Mobile at 65 minutes which put it above Newspaper and Magazine with a combined time of 44 minutes. (Source: eMarketer, Dec 2011)

With more time spent and a greater share of ad revenue, the mobile channel is becoming a major one in the market. When it comes to the measurement though, it is still the wild west.

Michael Kaushansky, SVP of Insights and Analytics at Havas Media, has over 15 years in analytics experience and helps to spearhead all things Analytics and Reporting for Media Contacts in the US and Canada. In a recent blog post Kaushansky calls for three things to help advertisers become more accountable for their mobile spends.

1) A developed measurement framework;

2) Centralized data collection;

3) Provide an integrated reporting view.

For the full post check out:

http://www.mediapost.com/publications/article/162688/enabling-the-measurement-of-mobile.html#ixzz1gWQ78oWX

Why social media matters to Google search.

If you count on Google search results to drive your business forward and you are wondering why Google is pushing it’s own social media platform versus Facebook; then you need to read this white paper;  mcinsight_personalizedsearch_dec11.

Online tracking and privacy

Canada’s privacy commissioner; Jennifer Stoddart, is in favour of opt-out when it comes to tracking of online advertising. This is a good sign of a maturing market where industry, government and the public can meet to ensure all stakeholders interests are recognized.

Consumers can easily opt out from one of the main ad servers here and from a consortium of networks here. In addition to those options, industry has developed other more advanced ways to create transparency and ease for consumers such as suppliers like Evidon.

Cookie, tracking and privacy all sound like ominous terms but we have to remember that cookies do not represent people nor do the ones used by marketers carry personal information. Our world is awash in all sorts of data. This data helps business, it helps formulate policy and helps govern the country. 6 digit Postal Codes were adopted Canada wide about 40 years ago and have been immensely helpful not only for the post office but also marketers and the government. Interested to know what postal codes say about you? Check it out here. Enter your postal code and you will see your little patch of Canada segmented into groups that explain to marketers, sociologists, policy makers, home builders, electioneers etc who lives in this postal code. Remember postal codes are not that big in terms of population, there are over 850,000 of them for all Canada. The point is that postal codes are an excellent balance between data and privacy. There is no personal data in a postal code however there is enough data to make a postal code actionable for all different types of people to use. In many ways the use of online cookies to build profiles is just like postal codes, personal data is private and yet there is enough information to make it actionable for marketers. In the same way you receive offers through mail based on postal codes, online users get ads based on data. Keep in mind that no Canadian is allowed to opt out of the postal code system and it is also against the law not to participate in the census which is where all the data about who lives in what postal code is coming from. On the other hand it is super easy to use online without cookies being set; modern browsers have a safety menu where you can have “private browsing”. No cookies are set or read at all. Go have fun.

IAB US pushes measurement towards greater accountability

Execs working in media other than online should spend a bit of time looking at “Making measurement makes sense” initiative with the IAB in the US.

The online media industry continues to innovate towards realizing media ideals, other media channels should use this time to re-evaluate their offerings and re-fit their currencies and measures. When the principles of online media is ad impressions that viewed by the target audience; and the impressions are counted on a one by one basis through an ad server that is a large difference against other media that uses a panel to measure basic exposure. Compound the use of the panel with television’s use of average minute audience for the show + the commercials and you can easily understand that television currency has a considerable amount of error in it.

#5 of the items the IAB US is pushing is that online media become more comparable and integrated with other media. Absolutely, however before other media execs interpret that as a call for online media to adopt a GRP model to match television, they should be asking themselves how television measurement needs to evolve to a viewed targeted ad impression basis from which to calculate those GRPs and also figure out how to include TRPs while they are at it.

In the US, television moved from average minute audience to commercial mintues which is an improvement in accuracy but again the technology exists in theory to go much further. Look to the systems that measure DRTV.

The media marketplace is highly competitive for marketer’s dollars and products that espouse ideals like the IAB US model will continue to attract more and more dollars. By aiming to reduce measurement errors in the calculations of ad audience reach, frequency and duration of ad exposure, the IAB US is pushing the development of a marketing ecosystem that is much better for all media than the one that exists now.