New Media Strategies’ blog focuses on social marketing news, Web 2.0 developments, and original research on online consumer trends from the industry pioneer of word-of-mouth marketing and online business intelligence.

The Reward and Risk of “Passionistas”

Sam — Mon, 01 Oct 2007 14:37:56 +0000

A new report from Yahoo! and MediaVest describes the behavior of a group of consumers called “Passionistas.” With only the press release to go on, I’m assuming what sets these consumers apart from brand “evangelists” is overall involvement in an interest versus a specific manufacturer. The stats that they released are interesting:

53 percent said they would try a brand they had not previously considered if it were associated with their passion, versus 41 percent of typical users;

49 percent said their opinion of the brand would be more favorable if associated with their passion, versus 34 percent of typical users;

46 percent said a brand has greater credibility if associated with their passion, versus 34 percent of typical users;

43 percent said their opinion of a brand is more positive if they sponsor an event related to their passion, versus 30 percent of typical users.

While this speaks volumes about the value of aligning an image with a lifestyle segment, and the importance of psychographic targeting, it does not address the potential threat that this group can pose to a company. The study also mentions that this group performs over 100 searches a year related to their interest area and uses tools such as RSS to stay updated with related news and sites, implying that they are hyper-aware of related developments. This hawkish attention can result in teapot tempests around developments that would be considered minor by the general public - say an inattentive rep at an event, discontinuing distribution through a store, or a trademark dispute. All of these relatively trivial business decisions have caused real-life outrage among isolated groups in the past, as once fond consumers turned quickly on brands they had embraced. A high-profile example of this is the current iPhone unlock/bricking “scandal”, where a software update temporarily rendered a tiny portion of phones inoperable. But the small number that were affected are owned by the “Passionistas” of tech, who are the most vocal and connected. And though Apple has a stellar 20+year record of embracing its evangelists, the last two months (starting with the $200 price drop) have created an increasingly negative perception of a formerly “untouchable” brand. An extreme example, to be sure, but one that advertisers would be well served to keep in mind as they look to engage their customers through personal interests, and realize that the commitment needs to extend much deeper than hanging a logo at an event.

Local Advertising slow on the uptake

Sam — Mon, 10 Sep 2007 21:58:22 +0000

Local Online Advertising to Nab $7.8 Billion by 2011, released by eMarketer today, sheds light on how far local advertisers have to go to reach their increasingly online audience. While the revenue crunch for newspapers and the stagnant state of the radio industry (overtaken by online this year in the US) is due to national advertisers moving their budgets online, $97 billion is still spent on offline local advertising. In many markets, the decline in offline usage is far outpacing online growth. The current projections look mainly at display and search ads, and rightly so, as they make up the lion’s share of local advertising options currently. But one would think that in the near future, a bevy of new options will be open to smaller businesses. Local bloggers are growing their audiences by leaps and bounds, with restaurant reviews, local events, community news, etc., and smaller businesses are usually a key component of the neighborhood. A blogger relationship program is low cost and high impact, especially when the marketer is a known personality. Likewise, when mobile finally finds a way to use GPS-enabled ads on a wider scale, the threat to radio potentially becomes much greater. While the barrier to entry with these mediums is more knowledge/comfort than financial, it is only a matter of time before spending accelerates to catch consumer adoption.

The changing role of local news

Sam — Tue, 21 Aug 2007 21:26:47 +0000

From DM news, via MarketingVox: Internet may be a threat to local newspapers - while not a shock to anyone that has used craigslist, digg, Citysearch, or Google News before, the outlook is probably gets even worse as media evolves. I mean this not just from the shift of news consumption from dedicated news sites to news aggregators, but also from the growing incorporation of news feeds into social media platforms. With the recent hype around Google Reader on Facebook as an example, more and more users will consume their news in areas where the editorial board is composed of your peers. What’s more, these platforms have much greater resources to develop new ways of consuming raw content and much higher reach to make it worthwhile. Once integrated into mobile (which is already happening, albeit slowly), the relevance and utility of a local newspaper will slip even further. Of note is the fact that national newspapers actually increased online traffic over the course of the study cited in the article. Areas such as international news and government access are ones that it will be difficult/impossible for bloggers and citizen journalist to replace, and the larger papers will continue to grow their value based on that. What brings this back to marketing, however, is that the decline in readership on- and offline is far outpacing local marketers adjusting their media plans, leaving a gap that no new platform is completely prepared to fill.

Virtual worlds: The next Facebook? - CNN.com

Sam — Fri, 10 Aug 2007 17:24:08 +0000

Virtual worlds: The next Facebook? - CNN.com is an interesting article about the predicted boom of the “metaverse”, 3D interactive worlds where users interact via avatar. While I understand the attraction of immersion and rich experience, I think many of these studies overlook a key point- to truly represent a physical world there needs to be some perceived separation of the user from information. I.E., for me to believe that I’m on an island, the palm tree needs to be certain distance from me, the cabana another, and the sponsored kiosk yet another, and the time I spend getting from Point A to Point B helps reinforce the perception. When I’m online now, I have the convenience of accessing a multitude of information and sources immediately from my homepage, facebook page, search results, etc., and that’s a key advantage that I’d be sacrificing in 3D. Also, it is much easier (and faster) to scan text than other media- I would be hugely annoyed if the Washington Post or BoingBoing were only available via video or podcast, and the same is true with over 90% of the content I read everyday.

Much more intriguing, however, is the theoretical inverse of the metaverse, the geoweb. As dorky as it sounds, the ability to bring online in to “meatspace” will be much more valuable, IMHO, than bringing the inconvenience of the physical world online for most non-social, recreational uses. Being able to access limitless information wherever I am about a certain place, and read messages from other people about where to go, historical info, and which of my friends are nearby is very compelling, and has been hyped at this point much less. It also has the potential to be much more powerful for marketers in the next 3-5 years (think retail promotions, travel info, mobile advertising) than the metaverse will be in 10. I got through that whole post without mentioning the recent Second Life bank run! Whoops…

Little networks all grows up!

Sam — Thu, 02 Aug 2007 21:59:49 +0000

As it has now become obligatory to write up a post on Facebook on any blog with anything to do with Web 2.0, I will now end my holdout with a hopefully original take on the hype. With the growth of the “fb” population coming from mainly the 25 and older crowd, the groups and communities are beginning to reflect the aging populace. And while the hype among marketers has been focused on how to tap into the platform to reach user communities, something I haven’t seen covered is how the platform could change the game for b-to-b marketers. While this might seem crazy from a traditional media planning perspective, the tools being used by coeds to plan keggers can easily be adopted to hawk consulting services. The groups on Facebook range from niche to mainstream, but there is a much higher rate of participation, and there are a surprising (at least to me) number of media and industry influencers who regularly participate and engage members of the public groups. True, being a member of the Web 2.0 (and Redskins) groups will skew my opinion, but groups are being formed at a pace that it is easy to imagine a much wider range of industries and professions with similar representation in the near future. The normal playbook for targeting a specific industry is composed of a combination of email lists, trade media, SEO, and events, which all carry a heavy premium to micro-target. A B-to-B marketer can easily identify, join and participate in groups as an individual (though if you’re spammy, you’ll be kicked) and create a targeted widget for a fraction of the cost of any of the traditional strategies. Combine this with the higher response rates (versus email and banners), and a Social Network strategy suddenly seems less insane. Now, if only Linkedin would allow pictures….

Microsoft + Digg

Sam — Thu, 26 Jul 2007 22:09:20 +0000

Digg founder Kevin Rose made a brief but momentous post on his blog yesterday, announcing that Microsoft was now the exclusive ad provider for the premiere social news service. While more than a few have commented on what this will mean in the near term, I haven’t seen as much attention paid to what this might mean for Microsoft’s AdCenter platform and its customers. Digg announced a while ago that they would be extending the service to product and restaurant reviews which will be a very compelling offering for marketers. While too much of the content voted to prominence now focuses on wacky pictures and fringe politics (mixed with great tech news), the real potential of digg comes into play when it can help users not just find what’s what’s massively popular, but also discover peer-vetted niche areas of content. And as great a tool as it potentially could be, it becomes extremely compelling when integrated with the Window Live Services. While it is great that Google Maps now includes reviews when it can find them, a consistent and comprehensive review source such as the diggnation would be much more predictable, and in the long term, reliable. The same kind of potential can be seen when looking at Search or MSN Shopping as well. Combined with earlier Facebook agreement, Microsoft is doing more than gaining eyeballs, they are advancing a smart web strategy.

Hypochondria on viral marketing

Sam — Mon, 16 Jul 2007 21:00:29 +0000

Advertising Age’s “What’s Plaguing Viral Marketing” is an interesting counterpoint to the excitement about viral marketing. Based on conclusions of research that discounts the importance of “influencers”, the article presents the idea that marketers are headed in the wrong direction focusing on finding the few people with disproportionate influence that will transform a campaign into a phenomena. It is true that majority of such campaigns fail to catch on, and too many marketers try to catch lightning in a bottle with me-too tactics that have worked for others without considering that what worked for sneakers might not be right for pet care. But this article goes even farther based on what I am sure is a very elaborate computer model. Tom Hespos gives a good overview on why creative shortcomings might be responsible for most viral campaigns falling short, versus concluding that good ol’ mass marketing is what brands should consider (which is oddly enough what the article seems to suggest). I think there is an even bigger hole in this line of thinking, however, and it is based on the assumption that influencers are solely individuals that interact with one community.

Without knowing the ins and outs of Mr. Watts’ model, and drawing on the experience that we have from creating and planning campaigns that get picked up and spread by users all the time, I can say with confidence that it over-simplifies the real world landscape by a large margin. First, the idea that that an influential individual is “several times” more influential than an average consumer is bizarre, considering that an “ordinary” person may or may not blog, and if they do, their average readership is usually less than 10. Most of the bloggers that marketers target have audiences in the tens of thousands or even millions, which would seem to indicate there is a large magnitude of difference between the model and reality. If this difference is because the research uses a flat, peer-to-peer network as its basis, fine, but the article should have mentioned it. Also potentially misleading is the idea that marketers focus on finding individuals as opposed to groups or communities. A person who’s opinion carries weight in one community might be meaningless in another, or may be regarded as scripture in yet another. Knowing what to place where is often more important than who, and only by having a comprehensive understanding about how different communities (vs individuals) feed each other can marketers change viral from hit-or-miss to a key part of their strategy. Users will embrace great ideas, and the challenge is having them in the right format at the right time, not so much hitting up the same .1% of the population over and over again (or hiring a network of people to chase them, for that matter). I don’t know many people in marketing who really believed that if you found the 10 super-influencers you could collect your check and go home, but it is a stretch to apply an abstract model to a much more complicated environment.

Advertising Age - CMO Strategy - Rethink Your Web Strategy or Fail

Sam — Wed, 11 Jul 2007 16:21:03 +0000

Advertising Age - CMO Strategy - Rethink Your Web Strategy or Fail is a great article addressing many of the oft-overlooked realities of online marketing. And while I strongly agree with 90% of what Nilofer Merchant has to say, I do differ on a couple of her “Best” and “Worst” examples (none of which, thankfully, are clients). Craigslist, a questionable inclusion to begin with (not really being a marketer, and a proud holder of “.org”), has revolutionized local advertising by being simple and easy to use- the “all text” interface that it is criticized for has not dissuaded millions of users from embracing it. True, it is in no way elegant, but the for-users-by-users feel is one of its strongest brand assets, and has let it succeed where many cleaner, slicker and flashier commercial properties have failed.

However, my larger issue with the top 3/bottom 3 is the attempt to draw an apples-to-apples comparison between widely varying categories and types of sites. What the “Best” share in common is that they are all services/ecommerce sites or apparel manufacturers (and in the case of Threadless, both). Threadless and Amazonall have enormous inventories, and having customers rate, share, and organize the selection based on personal interest is the only viable option, and one where they can take a relatively “product neutral” stance. I.E. “I don’t care if you buy a Sony or a Canon camera, as long as you buy it from me and come back”. Nike, Converse (owned by Nike), and Lego all reside in a space where customization is key to their category, have a short manufacturing cycle, and have enough sway that they can sell direct to the consumer. The Panasonic and Nikon “Worst” sites, on the other hand, represent an entirely different category. Customization from an appearance standpoint, in electronics is much farther down the list of consumer considerations than apparel, and the products themselves are have a much longer, more involved manufacturing cycle. Also, because they are created by manufacturers that are not in market leader positions (like Nike) their ability to own the consumer without ticking off retail partners is limited. Threadless, by seamlessly (pun intended) incorporating community content, digg integration, and strong social network tools is definitely a model to look to, but one has to keep grounded in product, manufacturing, and most importantly, consumer realities.

Tag You’re it, Part 2- Where in the world?

Sam — Wed, 27 Jun 2007 21:31:08 +0000

Wired has a great article on how the open nature of Google Maps is changing how we interact with our surroundings. What really struck me as interesting is the potential of KML, which allows users to mash-up maps with any data they want and openly share it. Notably, Google is indexing all of the KML files they can find, whether or not it is specific to their own product. So what does this mean for marketers? Google Maps (and for that matter Live Local from Microsoft) will be integrated more and more into mobile, as evidenced by the iPhone’s deep integration of the service, and “third screen” marketing will become a much more effective and necessary part of the media arsenal. Will I drive an extra mile off the highway to go to a well reviewed local diner, versus a fast food chain at a rest stop? Definitely. Would I plan a vacation itinerary around other user reviews that I find via an online map, versus brochures I pick up, or a paid travel site listing? Absolutely. The talk about online local advertising is mostly focused on the online extensions of local media, not the local extensions of global portals, but I think that this will shift in the near-to-mid term. And again, what will drive the expansion, plus make local search (and by proxy, mobile search) much more effective is user tagging. Instead of a product page, it’s a businesses sticky on a map, and letting your users know how you want to be described (not that they’ll always listen) is a large part of taking advantage of this new platform. Whether I’m a car dealership that is betting that my location and advertising will carry the day, a casual dining restaurant chain that wants a new, better way to connect with my customers, or even a global CPG that wants to communicate with a customer base that is on a cell versus a laptop, the geoweb is worth exploring.

“Tag- you’re it” - Social News Services

Sam — Tue, 19 Jun 2007 16:18:25 +0000

Digg’s popularity is not news, in fact, many mainstream news sites, like the Washington Post have embraced social news services for some time, based on the fact that a story on the front page of digg can drive tens of thousands of extra visitors in a 24 hour period. What I find fascinating, however, is that marketers have failed, AFAIK, to incorporate social news services on their own sites. The investment to incorporate such functionality on a product page is minimal, and the return can be significant. It also has SEO benefits, and can create a long term presence within social networks for accurate product information. Unlike news organizations, which have to maintain objectivity, companies are also free to suggest tags to shoppers who want to share their finds with others, and while screening out negative tags is impossible, the vast majority of shoppers who have come to a page will follow a recommendation versus creating their own. As we see more and more search engines begin to incorporate user tagging into their rankings, it is likely that experience integrating services such as digg now will potentially give a significant edge to marketers in the not-so-distant future.

A pet peeve-

Sam — Fri, 08 Jun 2007 15:21:57 +0000

Earlier this week, TNS released the latest media spending numbers broken out by platform. While most of the attention has focused on the continued decline in TV, radio, and print spending, and the 16.7% increase in online (not even including paid search, which is larger), something that struck me are the other gainers. Magazines (4.4%) and outdoor (2.4%) were the only platforms (besides Spanish media, which is moy cayente right now) to show an overall increase in spending. Two things that connect the two- they are non-interruptible (unless you tear the ads out of your People , but that is probably extreme), and their ability to be effectively tracked is very limited, especially compared to online. I’ll give magazines a pass for right now, as I get that there are advantages to editorial adjacency, it is easy to follow an ad online, and there are still times when consumers, even me, would rather read a magazine than my laptop. But outdoor? Even less trackable, and no ability to connect for further information, as most of the time, it is encountered in a car. That said, how many times have you seen a pedestrian stop, take out a notepad or their phone, and write down a URL or phone # on a billboard? I can kind of see how it would benefit local retailers, but I am mystified as to what the real gains a national marketer sees by placing an ad by a tunnel entrance. I see many of the same problems with radio, but investment fell 2.9%, continuing a long downward trend. There must be a concentration of amazing salespeople in this space, because it has managed to avoid the cold, hard stare of ROI that has eroded other media.

The True Strength of User-Generated Media

Sam — Thu, 31 May 2007 14:21:36 +0000

Just a quick thought- I’ve been hearing and reading stories of marketers that are having problems conducting user-driven campaigns. A lot of this confusion seems to stem from the fact that companies are treating people like unpaid creative directors, and are expecting them to create :30s or print ads around products, and then fret that the results don’t accurately reflect the brand. Some of the thinking on this has been along the “You get what you pay for” line of thought, but I actually think that is secondary. Question: When was the last time you filmed a :30 to tell a friend what you thought? Or created a large visual with compelling copy? Users don’t speak in ad units, but the expectation is that non-traditional creative will be carried by traditional media, which is a large part of the disconnect. Most videos on YouTube aren’t :30 seconds long for a reason- people are done when they’re done, and though 99.9% of what is created is of middling/poor quality, it is far more genuine. The trick lies in loosening the creative restraints, and looking at vehicles that users are comfortable with already, not just in terms of media, but especially in format.

The Soft Middle Of The Purchase Funnel

Sam — Tue, 22 May 2007 22:04:26 +0000

The recent deals between Google and DoubleClick and Microsoft and aQuantive have placed a lot of attention on the top and bottom of the classic marketing funnel(Awareness -> Consideration -> Shop). The massive amounts of display inventory that the networks bring to the search engines has raised the possibility of integrated buys that follow the consumer from when they first realize a need for a product all the way through to the actual shopping phase. What these deals and the theoretical buy leaves out, however, is the middle. What appears when a person asks a community for their thoughts on a purchase or looks for more information online is more often than not a peer’s opinion. Similarly, the top links in a search result will often be a Wikipedia entry and peer review information. This community-generated content is viewed with more credibility as it is often based on real-world experience. While that is not news (hopefully), one needs only to look at the top of the funnel to see that most/all brand creative is focused on creating an emotional connection with an individual instead of starting a substantive conversation with a community. We monitor millions of conversations from film to pharma, and do you know what no one talks about online? How a brand makes them “feel”- they instead address how a product works for them. Until agencies and marketers address this, all of the efficiencies and data generated by these deals will fail to address the most powerful input for a consumer, Word-Of-Mouth.

Same as it ever was?

Sam — Tue, 08 May 2007 22:07:30 +0000

Funny or Die, a Will Ferrell-fronted comedy video site, has received plenty of coverage around its launch, more around his involvement and their intro clip, “The Landlord” than around the user-contributed content, which has been more tepid. That said, there is an onslaught of theme-based video-sharing launches, based around humor, non-profits, tech, etc., which brings up a familiar scenario- What if the audience that YouTube has aggregated fragments right as marketers finally figure it out? The struggles that agencies are going through trying to adapt creative to the online video platform will only be compounded when assets will have to be adapted to different formats, channels, tagging systems, and communities in addition to figuring out appropriate length. Clearly many of the start-ups around today will not be around to witness this additional shift, but as marketers focus on the “what?” in a message, they should also be anticipating a much more complicated answer to the “where?”. Oh, and the same thing is happening to social networks as well, but I’ll save that for another post.

iMedia Connection - The Dangers of Exploiting Social Media

Sam — Wed, 02 May 2007 18:01:58 +0000

Our CEO, Pete Snyder and Project Manager Kaitlyn Wilkins co-authored a great piece in iMedia Connection today. Dealing with the media’s questionable use of social networks after the Virginia Tech tragedy, it raises some very hard questions about appropriate use of people’s online information. A good read on a difficult topic, and hopefully it will cause people to think twice before making public personal profiles in the future.

Wired Magazine: Jargon Watch

Sam — Fri, 27 Apr 2007 20:15:07 +0000

Wired Magazine’s Jargon Watch picked up on our very own Online Analysts as an upcoming term, which is fitting as many of them are, in fact, trend setters. While Social Network Fatigue can be a problem in the position, it’s nothing that Slow Travel can’t fix, especially when it’s to meet an Ecosexual. I have now used all of the Jargon Watch terms in a sentence, which is oddly fulfilling.

Fun Washington Post mention

Sam — Tue, 24 Apr 2007 21:44:44 +0000

From the TV section of today’s Washington Post: “And finally, the online analysts at Arlington-based New Media Strategies reported yesterday that the impersonations of mostly dead people delivered by Rich Little — who we also thought was dead — at the correspondents’ dinner had enjoyed 4,600 views on YouTube — but Sanjaya’s red-carpet arrival at the prom for politicians and news talent copped 7,000 views.” The most viewed clip, according to our team, was actually neither of these earth-shattering, paradigm redefining moments, but rather David Letterman’s remote contribution of a Top 10 list, dwarfing both with over a half million views during the same time period. No word on the blogosphere’s tone on Sanjaya’s mop, however.

Implications of Wikis

Sam — Thu, 12 Apr 2007 20:52:36 +0000

Great article “Wonderful World of Wikis” over at Read/WriteWeb, which gives an overview of the many different flavors of social reference tools. One interesting point made at the end is that social networks are a type of Wiki, though limited in user input to an individual’s profile. I think that the announcement by WetPaint that they are adding social media tools to their product, showing the inverse to be true as well, points to a growing trend of Web 2.0 convergence. For social reference sites to be viable, they must have an active community that ensures the validity and value of the content. Conversely, for a social network to be a success, they must make it easy for members to provide worthwhile information to other members. Add to this equation the development of Wikia Search, and this convergence will potentially have a huge impact on marketers.

This, of course is entirely new ground for brands, as striking the balance between providing marketing speak and valuable, balanced information. What will most likely happen, however, is that brand information will be provided at a much quicker pace by consumers, both pro and con, than brands can adapt to participate in the conversation. Though the impact of an unflattering or inaccurate Wikipedia profile today is significant, it will pale in comparison to the damage that can be done as these types of sites proliferate and a potentially large share of the search market migrates to a user-indexed product. The challenge will be navigating a slew of protocols that are implemented to prevent abuse by those who would look to “game” the system. While the threat of such behavior is definitely real, companies can be an extremely valuable source of information to these communities once they look at these platforms as another way to talk with the consumer versus just marketing at them.

Valentine’s Day Wrap up

Sam — Fri, 23 Feb 2007 15:57:39 +0000

Interesting how video-sharing has transformed the face of romance- we did a quick snapshot of Valentine’s on YouTube, and here’s what we found:

Highlights
We found that people were utilizing video sharing extensively:

– Over 1200 Valentine videos were added on the 14th, the vast majority of which were video ecards of widely varying quality. Some were the standard slow song + hearts + scripted “I love you”, while more original directors took advantage of the snow to scrawl out their messages.

– 5 Marriage proposals were contributed, bringing the total to 254 on the site, ranging from CG animated productions to balloon fly-bys, to more awkward productions.

– Interesting twists on the traditional for single users – one user fished for Valentine suitors with a rendition of “As Time Goes By” that garnered almost 60,000 views, over 450 comments and 20 video responses, while another user volunteered to be any single persons sweetheart via a personal email message, which generated a whopping 609,366 views as of this writing and over 2500 users took her up on her offer.

– Viral marketing pieces for Nokia and Siemens (set in the future) under the premise of being wedding proposals did not fare as well as their organic brethren, generating just under 3600 views for Nokia (in 11 months) while things look a bit better for Siemens which was viewed just over 6500 times since it launched Valentine’s Day.

iMedia Connection: The Snickers Factor: When Buzz Turns Bad

Sam — Mon, 12 Feb 2007 22:14:59 +0000

iMedia Connection: The Snickers Factor: When Buzz Turns Bad - Thanks to iMedia for giving us this opportunity, and we’ve received a lot of great feedback so far on the piece, which is due to the great work the team here at NMS did in pulling the report together. I also wanted to emphasize a couple things in the article to be clear.

First off, the main angle was about how Snicker’s media strategy made it easier for their critics to attack them, and how that could be avoided in the future by other marketers. Why the creative offended people and whether or not Masterfoods would have been better off addressing the issues involved instead of selling product and promoting the brand is well beyond the scope of the article.

Second, the “five years ago” statement might have been an underestimation- the best comparison I’ve heard to date is to the Miller Lite “Catfight” spot, and that aired in 2003. Though it might be more valuable to the hypothetical question as to what the reaction to the “Mechanics” spot would have been if it featured two women, I think the fact that Miller was able to overcome the controversy and actually expand the schedule of the spot in the face of similar criticism is a testament to the growing influence of the consumer.

Salon.com Clarification

Sam — Fri, 09 Feb 2007 16:59:07 +0000

King Kaufman over at Salon.com has an interesting take on our Super Bowl report, along with pretty much everyone else’s that proclaimed Salesgenie.com’s spot to be the worst received by viewers. The premise is that even though we all proclaimed the ad to be disliked by the vast majority of people (by our measure, a whopping 88%), the ad was still a success, because Salesgenie.com met their lead targets. Now put aside for a minute that their goal of 700 leads out of a viewing audience of over a hundred million makes this one of the most disproportionate direct efforts with one of the lowest conversion rates in the history of marketing (their claimed response of 10,000 doesn’t improve it much). Also take away the long-term damage negative brand perception can have to a bottom line.

What needs to be clarified is what everyone was measuring- we, and everyone else, looked at how the average viewer perceived the ad, and in this case, everyone agreed that fans hated the spot. We made no assumptions about how each ad would affect a company’s bottom line or whether it was a smart use of the marketing budget. The experts were the fans, and another interesting development will be how many of those fans react well to the cheesy guy in a Corvette who tells them he found them via Salesgenie lead.

2007 Super Bowl Ad Buzz Report

Sam — Tue, 06 Feb 2007 19:08:55 +0000

We have just released our Super Bowl buzz report, and we saw some interesting things that a lot of coverage missed – one of the most popular spots, after analyzing 12,000 discussions on millions of sites, was the CBS house spot featuring Dave Letterman and Oprah. It came in second to the Budweiser “Rock, Paper, Scissors” spot in volume and both spots generated an amazing 91% favorability rating. The most discussed spot, not surprisingly was the Snickers “Brokeback Mechanics” effort, which proved that not all buzz is positive. Lastly, the loser of the evening was Salesgenie.com, which hardly produced any positive feedback that we could detect. Our CEO Pete Snyder appeared on Fox News with Bill Hemmer to discuss our findings- check out the clip below:

New Media Strategies Merges with Meredith

Sam — Wed, 10 Jan 2007 11:19:32 +0000

I’m excited to announce that we are merging with Meredith Corporation. It’s a big day here and people are fired up- partly because of new possibilities that this will open up and partly because we are able to keep what we have – no changes in operations, management, or what makes this company terrific. I think it’s great that an established media company like Meredith sees the same potential we do in Word-of-Mouth and social media that we do, and it’s a big step for both of us. New markets, new audiences, and new products are down the road, so check back here periodically to see some of what we’re working on.

Product Placement Buzz Report

Sam — Fri, 22 Dec 2006 19:49:52 +0000

We’ve released a new buzz report on product placement that was picked by The Hollywood Reporter. The main focus was on differing perceptions of product placement by platform. The report:

43 sites were researched with a focus on the top Film/Entertainment, Television, Gaming and Major Portal communities. Going back 3 months, 862 discussions directly related to consumer opinions about product placement were uncovered.

Surprisingly, 595 discussions reflected either acceptance or indifference to product placement, the remaining 267 discussions represented negative views. The majority of discussions centered on the use of product placement in film and television with only a small percentage of gamers discussing the topic. Overall, gamers were the most negative in tone to in-game product placement where the tactic is on the rise because they’ve had less time to become accustomed to the practice. However, the largest volume of negative discussion was focused on TV, which oddly enough is the one platform that consumers can get for free. The numbers breakdown as follows:

	Positive	Negative	Total
gaming	46	11	57
tv	194	135	329
movies	355	121	476
	595	267	862

Online consumers appear to be savvy when it comes to product placement and are willing to accept it if it does not detract from the entertainment experience. Employing subtlety and humor are more effective than blatantly plastering products everywhere.

Sites sampled included:

TV – (TV.com, TWOP)

http://forums.tv.com (TV.com)

www.televisionwithoutpity.com

Gaming – (Gamespot, TeamXbox)

www.gamespot.com

www.teamxbox.com

Film/Entertainment – (IGN, IMDb)

www.ign.com

www.imdb.com

Mainstream – (Google Groups, Delphi Forums)

http://groups.google.com

www.delphiforums.com

NYT “Brands for the Chattering Masses”

Sam — Mon, 18 Dec 2006 04:20:11 +0000

Good to see the New York Times article on WOM monitoring today , as the importance of monitoring consumer opinions cannot be underestimated. It is interesting, however, that the Times focused only on software-based solutions and not human-based analysis of online conversations. In our experience, there is no substitution for experienced analysts when it comes to recognizing things like sarcasm, context, and lingo. Also, real time monitoring is only as good as your filter, and false leads and trends can overwhelm clients quickly with random noise. I haven’t seen any studies comparing the difference between human and bot accuracy, but I would be shocked if they were close.

PS3 vs Wii USA Today launch article

Sam — Tue, 28 Nov 2006 17:42:52 +0000

Been a while since the last post, but wanted to provide a little more detail on a report we pulled together that was picked up by USA Today : Gamers: Wii has PS3 beat

Here’s how we pulled together the report- we monitored over 100,000 conversations on our top 100 gaming sites, and we found just over 10,000 that were relevant to the launch. The way we broke it down was to categorize the conversations as positive, neutral, or negative, which is determined by our analysts who specialize in gaming. The breakdown:

PS3:

7062 conversations
1945 Positive (27%)
2650 Negative (38%)
2467 Neutral (35%)

Wii:

3520 conversations
1711 Positive (49%)
638 Negative (18%)
1171 Neutral (33%)

A couple of things stand out to me- first, the difference in volume between the two consoles is almost 2-to-1, and might be indicative of the fact that negative threads, as a whole, generate more volume, or if the larger PS2 installed base lent itself to a larger fanboy population (probably both). Another thing that stood out is that almost all of the excerpted quotes in our report and in other media involve Wal*Mart as the setting for every story- maybe people had a hard time finding them because they all went to the same place. -Sam Huxley

Short Stuff for October 16th

Sam — Mon, 16 Oct 2006 20:17:04 +0000

Second Life to start selling “Real Life” last names (OReilly via CNET)

Online Bartering Gets a Foothold on the Web (NYT)

Top blogs average 33 months

Sam — Mon, 16 Oct 2006 20:05:24 +0000

An interesting post on ProBlogger about the average age for blogs in the Technorati Top 100 is 33.8 months (roughly 2 1/2 years). An interesting point for those looking for commonality among consistantly popular blogs.

What will the Google/You Tube merger do for video?

Sam — Mon, 16 Oct 2006 19:53:45 +0000

There has obviously been a lot of discussion about the Google/You Tube buy - some good, some bad. One of the better looks at the situation, as it stands now, can be found over at AdAge - while I don’t agree with all the points (I think that the integration between the two might be more shakey at first), there are some interesting points, including the potential for better sorting of content over on YouTube (amen!), the potential for better ad serving on YouTube (yup!) and the potential to take video to the “next level” using Google’s massive infrastructure. One thing I’m actually interested in is whether or not the merger opens up the possibility for longer videos on YouTube available to all (not just to those with Director accounts) - their self imposed time limit hopefully will change with the participation of Google. This could be something that would really open up the distribution of longer form UGV.

Blogging a coup

Sam — Wed, 20 Sep 2006 21:16:29 +0000

While I don’t really tend to cover current events, the blogging (and the Flickring, and the YouTube activities, etc) going on about the Thailand coup is fascinating. Of course, this post sums up the activity better than I ever could.

MTV Takes on Second Life

Sam — Tue, 19 Sep 2006 22:19:08 +0000

MTV’s recently announced “Virtual Laguna Beach” sounds a lot like Second Life (among others). 22,000 (beta testers? early participants?) have signed up, according the the New York times article, and VLB is one of three virtual worlds planned. Eventually, users will be able to buy “gold membership” - giving them a house, and a car, and probably other items as well. The NYT story listed Second Life (and some similiar virtual worlds, like There) which is interesting in light of statistics cited in early 2006 that the median age of SL users was 36, with the average age being 32. It will be fun to see if younger groups will immerse themselves in something similiar.

Warner Music Gets It

Sam — Mon, 18 Sep 2006 13:25:50 +0000

According to the AP, Youtube and Warner Music have struck a profit sharing deal in which Warner will upload its music videos, while YouTube tracks user generated video with copyrighted material. When they finid videos using Warner copyrighted material, Warner opts to “accept” or “reject” it. No word on what happens to the “rejected videos,” but pity the poor person whose job it is to watch the thousands and thousands of bad basement lip synching to flag them for their supervisors.

It was going to happen sometime

Sam — Fri, 15 Sep 2006 19:55:18 +0000

The blogosphere is all abuzz about the possible lawsuit of Universal Music Group against YouTube. Granted, it was bound to happen at some point, with the multitude of copyrighted material up there - but I would hazard a guess that the standard train of thought for someone watching a video of someone in their basement singing along to a new song, would be more along the lines of Smalltalk Tidbits, Industry Rants, who notes “does anyone think that a video of someone lip synching to a song (recorded with poor quality) is something I want instead of a CD or an iTunes download?” than “Oh, well, next time I want to hear this song, I’ll just bookmark this YouTube page and listen to it.” Too much trouble.

Granted, if ripping YouTube videos becomes easier (like this) then I could see some challenges.However, I’m not sure the average YouTube user would want to go to all the trouble (would they?)

Short Stuff for August 30th

Sam — Wed, 30 Aug 2006 21:55:12 +0000

YouTube users have watched over 9,000 *years* of video (Marketing Vox)

Move around, couch potatos - ESPN to broadcast full college football games via it’s mobile phones (Washington Post)

The Stickest Brands on the web (Clickz)

Take YouTube on your iPod

Sam — Wed, 30 Aug 2006 21:46:43 +0000

According to the Wired Blog, there’s a new app on the scene that lets you rip YouTube videos to play on your iPod, iTunes or PSP. The program, called TubeSock, is sadly, only available for Macs right now, but the possibilities of turning YouTube videos (including live music performances, portions of documentaries available on YouTube, and video series) are endless. Wonder when the copyright stuff will kick in on this one?

Short Stuff for August 28th

Sam — Mon, 28 Aug 2006 22:28:33 +0000

Flickr offers geotagging (TechCrunch)

What’s the deal with those Forbes.com numbers? (New York Times)

Microsoft: Create mobile social networks with Zune (CNET via I Want Media)

Raise your hand if you only read the newspaper online

Sam — Mon, 28 Aug 2006 22:16:21 +0000

MarketingVox highlighted a recent study by Scarborough Research of the top 25 newspaper markets that indicated the “web only” readership to be as high as 15%. Of these, predictably, were high levels of the 18-34 year old market. The study also demonstrated that papers with a “national” scale (NYT, WSJ, etc) did better than other regional markets - unless those regional markets focus very hard on integrating their content. It makes sense, as the regional papers highlighted for being well trafficked tended to have more content online- like the Tampa Tribune. Ideally, it would be great to see other local markets (I’m not naming names) offer more in depth online content as well.

Short Stuff for August 24th

Sam — Thu, 24 Aug 2006 21:48:48 +0000

More Wii info on the way? (CNET)

YOuTube sells space on the front page (Washington Post)

Sony + Grouper

Sam — Thu, 24 Aug 2006 21:44:18 +0000

ZDnet reports that Sony has purchased Grouper - a video sharing site in the YouTube vein. With Sony’s different markets - both the content creators (cameras) and the content itself (movies) it will be interesting to watch how the company will actually use (and hopefully grow) Grouper.

AOL: First, TV Shows, Now Movies

Sam — Thu, 24 Aug 2006 21:36:15 +0000

AOL has annouced that they are starting a movie-download service, with a bunch of the major studios. While they aren’t the first ones out of the gate, they definately do (as GigaOM points out) have more deals with more studios than other services.

Short Stuff for August 22nd

Sam — Tue, 22 Aug 2006 21:59:50 +0000

YouTube adds Brand Channels (AdJab)

Friendster: On the Rebound (Business Week)

Google to take over TV, World (ZDNet)

Splogs threaten the blogosphere

Sam — Tue, 22 Aug 2006 21:46:28 +0000

Micro Persuasion has a rundown on an article in that latest issue of Wired detailing the problem of Spam Blogs (Splogs). We’ve all done a search in Technorati or Google Blog Search, only to click through a few of the results and realize we’ve been hit with a spam blog. The Wired article highlights several key pieces of information about splogs - including that Blooger hosts over 100,000 spam blogs alone. MP has some suggestions for getting rid of splogs, particularly where it hurts - the advertising networks, essentially calling for ad networks to require that publishers prove they are legit before they can join. Can we all say “Yes!” - there’s nothing I can imagine more futile than doing a buy via Adwords, etc, only to get your ads on a splog.

Fox Uses Local Affiliate Sites to Distribute Primetime Content

Sam — Mon, 21 Aug 2006 21:51:01 +0000

Yet another network gets into the game of streaming their content - with a local twist. Marketing Vox is reporting that 9 local Fox stations will be streaming primetime content on their sites via a proprietary media player. This is a different kind of move - but also one that might sidestep the issue local network affiliates have regarding their viewers watching streaming shows on main network sites. This will be an interesting case study to watch.

Washington Post kicks off blog ad network

Sam — Fri, 18 Aug 2006 20:10:21 +0000

Micro Persuasion is reporting that the Washington Post has kicked off a new Blog advertising network, called the Sponsored Blogroll. I really like how well the Post is integrating blogs and other UGM into the online component of their paper. Kudos, gang.

iTunes Movie store by EOY?

Sam — Fri, 18 Aug 2006 19:57:43 +0000

iPodNN is reporting that LionsGate has confirmed their participation in offering movies for download via iTunes toward the end of this year. While Apple isn’t saying anything, I wonder if this will happen in conjunction with the oft-fabled full screen video iPod.

Short Stuff for August 17th

Sam — Thu, 17 Aug 2006 22:12:38 +0000

CBS to simulcast evening news w/Couric online (Yahoo! News)

Will PS3 lead the next-gen console tech? (Joystiq)

Search with a human touch

Sam — Wed, 16 Aug 2006 22:34:29 +0000

Great article from the Washington Post recounting the ups (and downs) of human done searches - both in the past (with programs like the now defunct one on Ask Jeeves - and the present (like Yahoo! Answers and Google Co-Op). While I like the idea of a human touch to a search, I wish there was a way to filter some of the more obnoxious questions I’ve seen while trolling through Yahoo! Answers - ones that look more like opinion polls. Questions like “If you could describe yourself in one word what would it be?” and “What is love to you?,” along with other, less savory questions, crowd out the legitimate questions. I prefer more serious “human run” information programs like Wikipedia.

Though, if I did have a question, it would probably be why so many people ask really, really stupid questions.

The “Next Net”

Sam — Wed, 16 Aug 2006 22:19:06 +0000

Business 2.0 pushes aside the (somewhat overused) Web 2.0 moniker in favor of “The Next Net” when profiling 25 companies that are changing how we look at, use and think of the internet. They not only cover some of the standard “Web 2.0″ darlings such as Digg, YouTube and Technorati, but also highlight other great companies like Last.fm, Zimbra and Fonality. The article is well worth taking a look at, particularly in order to get to know some of the lesser known names on the list.

YouTube 3rd in Video

Sam — Wed, 16 Aug 2006 22:06:11 +0000

CNN reports that ComScore’s recently released July information indicates that YouTube is only the 3rd most popular video site, behind Yahoo Video and MySpace Video - conflicting with recent reports that YouTube’s share of global internet traffic recently surpassed MySpace. So who’s right? Well, both. In a sense. The ComScore report only looks at the US traffic, while the Alexa data used to support the Gaurdian article from a few weeks ago uses global data. In either position, Youtube has grown massively over the last few months - and the wealth of traffic to the leading video sites shows that online video is penetrating further and further into the mainstream.

Short Stuff for August 15th

Sam — Tue, 15 Aug 2006 21:07:23 +0000

Blogger kicks off new beta…finally. (Wired)

Business Week takes a look at YouTube & competitors (BW)