Anti-Advertising Technology Makes Marketing More Engaging

July 12th, 2010 by Rory Partalis
Categories: Digital Innovations | Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , | 7 Comments »

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I know we all like to think that people love to see our ads, but there are people out there looking to build tools that allow people to block or skip the beautiful advertising we create.  I know… it’s hard to believe that anyone wouldn’t want to see that “HeadOn – Apply Directly To The Forehead” commercial every ten minutes, but there are people out there who desire to consume ad-free uncluttered media.

Browsers, like Firefox, have add-ons, like Ad Blocker Plus, that allow people to block out all online advertising and replace it with images of their choice. Another ad-killing Firefox add-on is Readability, which allows people to remove all the clutter from a webpage and only display the main body copy in a single, easy to read and print column of text.

DVRs, like TiVo, are another great example of people trying to avoid watching advertising.

And Augmented Reality is also trying to get into the game.  People at Fast Company and MIT have written about future heads up displays that will allow real world advertising to be blocked out or replaced all together.  For example, imagine 2015, you are wearing augmented reality glasses, walking down the street and all billboards, posters and logos in your view will be able to be replaced with photos or web applications of your choosing, in real time.

I’m not here to say that this is a bad trend or a good one.  Obviously most of the great content online and in the real world is ad supported and most of us take it for granted.  But we will still need a way to spread the word about new products and services. What does this trend mean for the advertising industry?

A mission at JWT is to create ideas that people will want to spend time with. This couldn’t be more true today with technology giving people increasing control over the advertising they see.  To counter this, advertisers also have a host of new techniques to break through.  Product placement and sponsorships are an obvious answer, but to really make an impact in this new paradigm, advertisers need to create ambient ideas OOH, engage in social media, produce longer form content and build online & mobile experiences that people find useful or entertaining.

In the comments, let us know how you think advertisers can engage in this new environment.

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Google is not media. But it is the message.

May 3rd, 2010 by Eric Hyman
Categories: Analytics, Commerce and Content, Demographics, Digital Media, Search, Social Media, Traditional Media, Trend Spotting | Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , , | 7 Comments »

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Newsflash. Once again, for the 4th year in a row, our WPP sister firm Millward Brown Optimor has named Google the world’s #1 brand of any kind. Surprise, surprise, surprise.

Interestingly, our company recently did a far less scientific piece of research among our own employees that also said something uniquely enlightening, though entirely different, about Google.

Members of our media/experience team circulated a one question internal survey asking everyone to list their three favorite media sources.  The intention was to use the results in an orientation session to show how diverse our own media preferences are. And the results confirmed it, with nearly 125 “top 3″ sources collectively named.

But what jumped out at me was not the variety of unaided answers. Nor the overwhelming dominance of CNN (see Wordle results below, kudos CNNers), across almost every department in the agency (other crowd favorites were ESPN, MSN, Fox News, ABC, Wired, along with one medium, radio).

Mighty Google looking more like David than Goliath

What jumped out, rather, was in fact, what didn’t jump out; Google.

Think about that a minute. In a world where Google plays such a pervasive role in so many people’s lives, in an industry that’s been pretty much turned upside down by the immense power of Google itself, a relatively small number of us “industry insiders” think of Google as a “media source.”

While I suppose this shouldn’t be totally surprising, I found seeing it so clearly to be pretty enlightening.

To be quite clear, this doesn’t lessen Google’s omnipresent and ever-expanding role in pretty much everything.  But it does lead me to say this; Google is not media.

What is Google then? A tool? A platform? An aggregating oracle? The Gutenberg Press of the next millennium?

Personally, I think it most closely resembles a medium. Though this doesn’t exactly fit either, since I think in the technical sense, the Internet is the medium.

One thing is certain, though. As Marshall McLuhan pointed out (for those in the Google generation not… errr… um… experienced enough to have been forced to study this in college, see this great clip I caught the other night from Annie Hall, though you might not have heard of that either), in the grand scheme of things, it is not the content itself, or any single provider of content, that is most responsible for the way people interact with media, or the changes media can bring about, but rather the medium itself.

On that note, the results of the research are clear. Despite our overwhelming love of select media brands to keep us informed and engaged, the medium is still the #1 message. And the message is, at least as far as I’m concerned, I should have bought Google at $95.

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Engagement Statistics That Suck In Even The Savviest Of Marketers

March 22nd, 2010 by Rory Partalis
Categories: Social Media, Trend Spotting | Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , | 8 Comments »

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Whether you realize it or not, I’m sure you’ve fallen victim to one of the most effective marketing tricks in the book – sucking people in by providing them with engagement statistics.  It’s a tough concept to wrap your head around initially, but once you understand it, you notice it everywhere – the endless feedback loop of engagement statistics.

The draw of this is most apparent in video game addicts. Do you know someone who is obsessed with improving their XBOX Gamer Score or getting enough XP to level up their character in WoW (that’s World of Warcraft for you n00bs)? Do you know a Facebook addict that is consumed with seemingly mindless apps like Farmville or Mafia Wars?  Why do they care so much about something that has little to no effect on their real life?  Because their stats are constantly shared with themselves and their peers and it becomes a status symbol or competition of sorts. It also taps into the OCD in us all – a desire to make progress and accomplish things.

However, this isn’t just limited to gamers.  Take marketers, like myself.  Too much of my time is consumed with checking email because I hate to have things on my to do list or unread email messages.  I also spend a lot of time on Google Reader making sure to keep up with my RSS feeds and to make sure I continue to share and read shared items with my peers.  Actually, when I think about it, much of my online life is trying to suck me in even further with engagement stats and feedback loops: Twitter followers, RTs, DMs, @ replies and lists; Facebook friends; Netflix Queue lists and rated movie counts; and Foursquare check-ins…

There is a debate to be had about whether this is a healthy trend or not, but I’m not going there because I feel like there is no turning back now.  People, like myself, enjoy being able to see statistics on our own behavior and being able to compare that behavior with friends’.  However, I do recommend moderation and reflection on our behavior.  Most people reading this blog consider themselves savvy marketers or advertisers, so we should be able to spot these techniques designed to encourage re-engagement. Feel free to get sucked into these binges of OCD behavior from time to time, but know when to say “enough is enough.”

On the other hand, from a marketer’s perspective, giving people access to statistics is a valuable tool to encourage re-engagement. Use it wisely.

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My First Book Project

December 1st, 2009 by Heather Wales
Categories: Agency Updates | Tags: , , , , , | 6 Comments »

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A few weeks ago all JWT offices worldwide received a challenge from Ty Montague, the North American President. And the challenge was this; to put to good use the stock photography books that have been rendered useless by online libraries, and our aboundance of creative talent to create original books for disadvantaged children. This was based on the “My First Book Project” that was originated in our Cape Town, South Africa office.

Leslie, Daria, Hollie and Heather were recruited to head it up and make it happen. And happen it did. First we partnered with the Boys and Girls Club of Metro Atlanta and then started the next phase of the challenge. We don’t really have a lot of stock books anymore, so we gathered the ones we had and cut and pasted the pictures to complement stories that we wrote. But we didn’t stop there. We collected almost 200 gently used books for children ranging in age from 6 to 18. But, that still wasn’t enough. So, we collected funds and had an impromptu bake sale in which we raised $125 to buy 35 brand new books to donate as well.

It wasn’t until we were at the B & G Club delivering the books that we realized how great of an impact we were making. Their library was literally a closet with the door taken off and there were hardly any books on the shelves. We were very happy that our books will help fill that space. But we weren’t just delivering books we were reading them to the children as well. They were super excited and very engaged when we read to them. We read over the course of 2 days to different groups of 6-7 and 8-9 year olds and it was a wonderful experience for us and the kids.

The video below documents just a bit of our experience. We hope it inspires you as much as the children inspired us.

YouTube Preview Image

Heather Wales and Leslie Browning

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Update to Digital in Traditional Advertising

June 26th, 2009 by Rory Partalis
Categories: Social Media | Tags: , , , , , | 7 Comments »

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While skimming some tweets today I spotted a nice diagram that shows the transitional step of digital media moving from new media to traditional media, and they label it “Tradigital Marketing.”
Social Engagement Spectrum

As Steve Rubel of Logic+Emotion mentions in his post, there is plenty of crossover between these buckets, but looking at it on an engagement scale aligns with the thinking in my original post.

UPDATE:  This graphic was created by David Armano, author of Logic + Emotion.

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Online banner ads join print, broadcast and outdoor as “traditional advertising”

June 8th, 2009 by Rory Partalis
Categories: Social Media | Tags: , , , | 6 Comments »

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A previous post on this blog was of the opinion that at some point soon we’ll stop talking about social media as being separate from digital media since digital media is inherently social. That’s a good point. But I think there are some aspects of digital that are not social (paid banners for example). So that leads me to a slightly different observation.

Being the social community manager, I may have a biased viewpoint, but I think the time has come to admit that it’s not traditional media vs digital media anymore, it is now traditional media vs social media.  Some form of digital is now a part of every campaign.

Traditional media is purchased and intends to convey a message.  Social media is interactive, encourages participation and is often owned or earned rather than paid (if you don’t know what I mean by that, keep reading this blog and you will), not to mention that even traditional advertising is becoming more digital, at least in terms of production and distribution.

Therefore, the way I see it, standard online display ads, search ads and other online text ads are now traditional media (not that there’s anything wrong with that).  Traditional advertising, like TV, print, OOH and radio, is traditional because it works.  It’s tried and true and when the strategy is sound, the message solid, the creative eye catching and the placements well targeted, traditional does exactly what it was intended to do.

Social media, on the other hand, has numerous case studies proving how impactful it can be, and in many cases more impactful than traditional media.  However, it’s a lot riskier than traditional advertising because a win in social media is a lot harder to discover, plan, successfully launch and earn buzz from, especially without the support of paid, traditional media.

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