M:Metrics run Mobile Audit

M:Metrics the Mobile Marketing research company have released a report today in conjunction with AdMob, the mobile advertising network. M:Metrics used their auditing technology to run a study of the audience composition across the 2000 sites that AdMob manage. The results show that about two-thirds of the people who view mobile ads are in the desirable 18- to 34-year-old age group but also that there is still decent representation in many of the other genres. To see a detailed breakout go here.

Silverlight launches....

Well, it was 8 weeks later than we were told it was going to be but with the final release of Microsoft’s Silverlight on September 5th it’s only right that we talk about it. I’m a huge believer it what it has to offer, in fact so much so, that in a previous life I advocated delivering a Silverlight solution for Discovery Channel Asia back when it was still in beta – albeit a pre-release beta. The site was rolled out in July 07 was the first commercial application of Silverlight globally.

So what does Silverlight do? Why all the hype? Why would developers choose to develop on Silverlight that has limited penetration compared to the ubiquitous Flash that has close to 100% penetration. Well here are few reasons:

1) It’s a cross browser, cross platform presentation technology working seamlessly across Windows and Macintosh platforms.

2) It supports playback of WMV files on both PC and Macintosh and will deliver an optimised encoded video stream, depending on the available bandwidth, up to 720 dpi.

3) Silverlight supports seamless transitions between full-screen and windowed mode.

4) Silverlight includes a mini-CLR (Common Language Runtime) from .NET which means as with the usual .NET runtime, you can code in a number of supported programming languages – which means there are no special languages to learn – any developer can pick up Silverlight and start using it straightaway. For example, the Discovery Silverlight site took 2 weeks from first looking at Silverlight to delivering a working site.

5) Silverlight is a lightweight subset of XAML, the markup language, and by separating markup (XAML) from code, Microsoft has empowered designers and given them development control of the front end. This is important. An analogy that I’ve heard used by Microsoft is that of an egg. A design might start as a nicely formed egg that a client sees and buys into. That design is then handed off to a developer to code. Developers will have their own interpretation of the design and maybe there’s some elements of the design that just technically can’t work. The finished product, a broken egg, stuck together with sticky tape. Not what the client signed up for. What Silverlight does is empower the designers through their Expression Software suits. Designs instead of being saved in a JPEG or PSD format are created in XAML that are then handed of to the developers to integrate into the web page. The end result, a nicely designed Silverlight element, that looks exactly what the client signed off on.

6) Another key feature of Microsoft Silverlight is that it integrates seamlessly with HTML. Every XAML element can be accessed or manipulated from the same client-side JavaScript that would be used to interact with any DHTML element: there are no artificial boundaries or barriers. Unlike Flash that is self-contained element within a page.

7) The Silverlight plugin is also very small – only 1MB - and is also blindingly fast, being able to for example (depending on the bandwidth of course) play many videos simultaneously without stuttering or dropping frames.

8) Silverlight is both client- and server-agnostic – an element does not need to be specially encoded depending on the environment that it is going to run in nor does it need any specific software on the server.

9) Lastly, are Microsoft’s plans for Silverlight on the mobile. To date we’ve seen a demo that was created for the MLB (Major League Baseball) that shows both Silverlight applications and media streaming running on a mobile phone - so Silverlight even at this stage is about more than just the desktop browser and desktop market.

Well that’s about it. If you want to see more it's worth checking out the Silverlight site and if you want to see the site that was developed for Discovery then you can find it here.

AdNews Media Choice Study Released

AdNews recently ran a questionnaire on their site in conjunction with Catalyst Research. The purpose of the study was to understand the factors behind platform decisions and the strengths and weaknesses of different media and how they are being combined.

The Topline report was released today and made pretty grim reading (from a digital advocate's point of view)! Here are some of the main points:

- Marketers / Brand Owners feel that Newspapers, Magazines and Direct Mail are more cost effective than do Agencies, who are more likely to perceive digital platforms, Outdoor and Free TV as cost effective.

I find it unbelievable that Marketers are still not touting the Digital medium as the most cost effective channel - particularly when it is the only channel when you can really measure your ROI.

- In terms of the relative strengths and weaknesses of each platform, Free TV rates strongly for Creative impact and Engagement for Branding. Magazines also score well on these attributes and Magazines lead the way for Targeting Ability along with Direct Mail.

How can Magazines and Direct Mail lead the way in terms of Targeting Ability?? Amazing - I won't go into my reasons but maybe have a read of one of my previous posts.

- Marketers and Advertisers employ an extensive assortment of other media in their campaigns. Free TV dominated in absolute dollar terms followed by Radio and Newspaper spend. Seven in ten would include a Magazine component, and over half would incorporate a Direct Mail and Online Display element; this is higher than Subscription TV, Outdoor media, and mobile platforms. Only a small proportion of budgets would be allocated to mobile marketing such as SMS or 3G. These platforms are not perceived to be as easy to deal with as more established media.

Well this backs up some of the other reports that we've seen in terms of spend although I'm suprised to see Radio and Magazines still up there. It also shows that there is still alot of education to do when it comes to marketers and their perceptions.

Mass Customisation IS a reality

Mass customisation – the ability to devise unique offerings for individual customers is no longer a pipe dream. New Media channels and the technology that we now have available mean that advertisers can now converse with audiences down to the level of a single customer. I shouldn’t talk as though this is a recent development – the technology to allow this has actually been around for quite a few years, it’s just that with growth in digital media, and the change in the relationship between marketers and their customers to a more conversational one, advertisers are having to experiment with new ways to get their messages out and in front of increasingly reluctant audiences.

Customisation, requires segmentation - the divison of populations into smaller groups that share the same characteristics. A recent article in 'Marketing' which I shall attempt to summarise for you, talks about three new approaches to segmentation: progressive profiling, addressable advertising and behavioural targeting.

Progressive Profiling is the collection of data over time. As opposed to a one off data collection point where a customer might be bombarded with a series of questionnaires this is about progressively building a profile over multiple interaction points, maybe even across multiple sites. Thus data built over time and from multiple points allows marketers to build extensive user profiles. In the web world this can all be tracked and logged against a 'cookie' which is a unique identifier stored as a text file on your hard drive. This data is mined and may also be cross-referenced against other information sources such as census data. Progressive profiling not only lowers the barrier for users to start supplying data (if they're only presented with a couple of questions initially they are more likely to continue) but it also allows marketers to probe for additional information as their relationship with their customer matures.

Progressive Profiling then leads to Addressable Advertising. This is all about addressing advertising based on the profiles and information available for a certain audience. Currently in Australia, as an advertiser targeting a certain demographic, I can go to a media owner and say I'm looking for a 18-35 female skew who like to shop and have good disposable income. As a media owner I can suggest certain sections of my site based on the traffic patterns and my understanding of my audience. However as the advertiser I can never get 100% accuracy in my media buy. There is always going to be some wasted inventory based on ads being served based on an understanding as opposed to known fact. This is where new media interactive channels really come into their own. Using cookie based technology, amongst others, media owners can identify people and can serve an ad accordingly. Advertisers who only want to get 18-35 females will then only get 18-35 females and 100% of their inventory will be seen by their target demographic. There's a few companies that offer this type of technology, one of which is Acerno who have now built a considerable following of advertisers in the US who buy media through them based on the guarantee above.

Behavioural-Based Targeting takes it one step further, combining even further segmentation variables. It integrates observed behaviour (domains accessed) with motives (content involvement), geographics (IP addressing), demographics (self-reported registration details) as well as brand preferences (site loyalty). With this amount of rich data - it means an advertiser's creative inventory blows out as it becomes a requirement to have a different execution per audience member. This is the way things are going though, the mejor media owners such as Yahoo! have already launched their own behavioural-based targeting initiative under the brand SmartAds. This is not believed to be currently available in Australia as by their own admission in their press release, Yahoo! talk about a phased release, across their fully owned properties initially. The prospects definitely sound exciting though. Marketing put forward an example of how the platform is going to work (a re-worked example of the US one given in Yahoo's press realease). Instead of re-working again, I'll just quote:

"If a user is browsing for hybrid cards in Yahoo!7 Autos and has selected Sydney as their default location in Yahoo!7 Weather, the SmartAds platform can assemble and deliver a display ad in real time that showcases a hybrid vehicle from a major auto brand, as well as local dealer information and current finance rates."

This is definitely where I want advertising to get to - intelligent and meaningful as opposed to advertisers trying to succeed using the shotgun effect!

Mobile Web Audience One-Fifth the size of PC Based Internet Audience

A report form Telephia - the largest supplier of consumer research to the communications and new media markets - puts the size of the mobile web audience at One-Fifth the size of the PC Based Internet Audience in the UK. That's 5.7 million people. The demographic of the audience is skewed slightly younger with nearly 70% of those 5.7 million aged under 35. Gender is also a factor with the study showing that 63% of mobile web users are male. Bob Ivins, Managing Director of comScore Europe compared this to the early days of the Internet, 10-15 years ago with this demographic - men under the age of 35 - being the early adopters of technology.

Ivins talked positively about the Mobile Web, stating "It is at an early state of development, but we expect Mobile Web usage to grow as phone performance improves, sites optimise their content for the small screen and operators fine tune their tariffs, enabling consumers to take full advantage of mobile phone capabilities, content and convenience."

It's official....US Reports forecast Mobile Advertising Market at $17 billion by 2011

Well further to the articles in the local press forecasting growth in the global mobile advertising market, reports out of the US are backing that belief and forecasting a market worth $14 billion US ($17 billion AUD) by the 2011.

With currently most activity centered around text and MMS campaigns this chart shows that nearly 50% of the market by 2011 is going to be made up of Mobile Web revenues. US Research company Strategy Analytics is forecasting advertisers will spend $1.4 billion on mobile media this year but talks about "the supply of advertising inventory rapidly increasing as mobile publishers look to develop advertising as a revenue stream.”

Another point that is raised in the article is the 'personal' nature of the mobile channel and the ability for carriers to tap into user profile information to offer advertisers more targeted inventory. Compare this to the web, where this 1 to 1 targeting is only possible when someone logs in, otherwise 'targeted' media buys are based on a media owner's understanding of their demographic in particular sections of their site. Obviously, being the mobile it can be more invasive but on an opt-in basis where consumers are getting something in return, could be a valid model.

This type of model is one that Vodafone are earnestly progressing on a global level. Here in Australia, David Green is heading up Vodafone's Mobile Marketing efforts. In a recent article in the AFR (23rd July 07) he stated 'advertising on mobile phones would only be effective if the content was highly relevant to the consumer and also offered an incentive such as a music download or free credit for participating in a campaign or promotion'.

Personally I think mobile offers some great opportunities, but it does rely on marketers approaching it in the right way and not just seeing it as another advertising medium but more of a promotional medium - one where they have more of a conversational relationship with their customers and really tap into all that mobile offers: video, text, gaming, music and much more.

Seth Godin talks about web 2.0

Seth giving his thoughts about what Web 2.0 means to him and how the Internet has changed marketeers' modus operandi from shouting at their customers to a more conversational approach.

Independents get the nod....

It's great to see from this article in today's Australian that there is still a consensus that there's a place for independent, specialist agencies in the marketplace. With some of us having taken the plunge and gone out on our own, it's comforting that Big brands - some of the ones quoted in the article: ANZ, Vodafone, Jetstar - are prepared to consider the smaller, niche agencies and are not just turning to the agency networks as a matter of course.

Why? Well I guess in part it comes down to the passion. Small, less well known agencies have more to prove. A quote that I particularly like that we use on our company web site is one from John Orr Young, founder of Young & Rubicam. He said "If you are lucky enough to find some young people with that special energy and daring that leads them into business for themselves, you will benefit from having that incalculably valuable quality serving you."

The other thing for me is that the mindset of these newer agencies is one of trying to steer brands away from more conventional methods of marketing and to try things that are going to make them remarkable. As Seth Godin states, "The old ways of marketing are dead - and being safe is now too risky."

Mobile is a completely different medium....

I liked this quote so I thought I would post it. Seemingly not many marketers get this:

“Mobile marketing is very much in its infancy. In five years, most companies will offer very different experiences for mobile visitors versus desktop visitors. They will recognize that mobile Internet is to desktop Internet as newspaper ads are to billboards,” Wachen said adding, “In the same way that you wouldn’t display your print ad prepared for The New York Times on a billboard in Times Square, companies will better understand that mobile is a completely different medium that requires a completely different design and messaging.”

- Mark Wachen, CEO of Optimost, a Web site optimization company.

Its so important to remember this. Its not just about mobilising content that you have on the web, but really about creating specific mobile content. Consumers are in a different mindset when they're consuming content on their mobiles - its all about a 3 or 4 minute fix when they are waiting for a train or sitting on a bus. If I like '24', am I really going to watch a 30 minute episode on my mobile when I can watch it on my TV when I get home? No. But I might watch some behind the scenes exclusive content or interviews packaged into 3/4 minute bundles.