Online video. Facebook. Twitter. The Internet. It’s no secret that these digital communication tools often puzzle brands. Mostly for good reason, as consumers are sharing, talking and connecting in ways never before seen. The number of tools marketers have access to is growing everyday. Online video is basically old hat compared to some of the new tools; load it up, tag it, and post it on a number of video networks. So, imagine my surprise when a video for one of our properties, a diet & health website, got a rejection notice for a very basic video recap of the latest episode of The Biggest Loser tv show.
Oops. Your video “Coleen Skeabeck Presents Biggest Loser Recap Season 7 episode 14″ was rejected because it contains a written, spoken, or implied message soliciting the viewer to click the ad at the end, which is in violation of this section of our Member Agreement.
After the jump is a screen shot of the video where Coleen says “Don’t forget to check us out on Twitter” with a Twitter url in the lower third. (more…)
Usability and user experience aren’t words that typically make their way into a media professional’s daily routine. It’s an activity reserved for UX and design teams and is something most media professionals take for granted, both buyers and publishers. Although the skill sets of UX and media professionals are on opposite extremes, design and user experience dramatically dictate campaign performance. Anything that can swing conversion rates, page views per visit, and overall engagement with the brand should be discussed with as many stake holders as possible.
When creating microsite campaigns, direct response campaigns, brand engagement campaigns, and even banners there are a few tips that I picked up at at the UX Team of One panel at the 2009 SXSW interactive conference. The talk and examples were largely aimed at UX professionals but were alarmingly relevant to the entire project team, from developer to media supplier.
Tips and embedded presentation slides after the jump…
With manydocumentedcases of publishers reporting drops in ad revenue, now is the time for media buyers to shine. If you still have a job, and still have a client who is in the need of online media, now is your chance to be a hero. And by hero, I actually mean you have the chance to capitalize on the misfortunes of publishers.
For the past few years publishers have been holding the premium price tag over even the most simple of media buys. I know this very well from both sides, as a publisher of a health and fitness destination and as a media buyer on-behalf of clients. The premiums were easy to understand; with good inventory scarce and the digital ad boom well under way, it was the best way to crank up the revenue. All conversations with top tier publishers typically included a “custom” or “big idea” opportunity. It should be obvious that, although you only buy what you want, certain types of desirable inventory was locked away for big budget only media buys. This locked out advertisers who were solely interested in a specific audience within prospective sites.
I am here to announce, and should have months ago, that those days by and large are dead – for now. Media planners all over the internet should be gobbling up severely discounted rates wherever they can. In a regular market planners have the power to dramatically alter any campaign by executing on-target partnerships and inventory buys with publishers, but in this environment they have the power to be a marketing super hero! PlannerMan to the rescue!
During my normal morning routine of coffee and email I noticed something unusual. This particular morning I was in the midst of adjusting my fantasy basketball lineup on Yahoo, when out of the corner of my eye I recognized a street name on an adjacent ad. It’s not very often that you see a postal address in a banner ad, much less one with a street name that you’re familiar with.
I didn’t see it coming and I certainly didn’t know it yet, but I had fallen victim to a geo-targeted campaign gone wrong. The 7-Eleven ad that grabbed my attention can be seen here on the left.
In case you were wondering where 2021 South MacArthur is, it’s in Oklahoma City, OK – approximately 1,500 miles from where I was sitting when the I saw the 7-Eleven ad. This targeting gone wrong isn’t as bad as you think and is probably not even 7-Eleven’s fault. I actually used to live in Oklahoma City and I’m sure Yahoo must have that information stored somewhere, although a quick search didn’t reveal where (not in my main profile, flickr or delicious).
This story goes from bad to worse when I went to click the ad. Click Click. Click. It’s not working. While I’m looking at the ad the following items painfully come to mind (in this order): (more…)
Outside of a few twitters and IMs I, Surprisingly, didn’t see much chatter about the the latest promotional campaign by Seamless Web. For those of you who are lucky enough to live in a area covered by the online food delivery service, you know them by their off-beat emails and promotional efforts as well as being a very addictive step in the evolution of an even lazier form of food delivery.
When companies that typically do business off the web do something clever online the effort never fails to get coverage across a numberofsites. This isn’t to say that all executions are smart or make sense, as much as I am an evangelist for online media – it will probably never make sense for Quaker Oats to build a social network or setup a facebook fan page (there is a chance it already has one). It seems that it would only be fair that there should be similar coverage for the inverse situation (online company doing something clever offline). Although there is a number of cases that get press, mostly godaddy superbowl ads and the occasional search cross promotion, we don’t get too many examples as the cost difference of media/production and lack of hard analytics keeps most online companies away.
I am a Senior Strategist at SS+K. I handle digital & social media strategy for a number of clients. I also keep a personal blog here. View Kevin Skobac's profile
View Kevin Skobac's profile