Engaging Engagement

I was stunned to read last week that mobile users are actually willing to "engage" with ads in order to get free content (/sarc).  And to get them to do this, advertisers/content providers offer Virtual Currencies (sort of like gold sovereigns in the Kingdom of Azeroth only not so geeky) in exchange for personal information.  The currencies measured include airline miles, loyalty points, coupons, online rewards and credit card points. A mix of old and new loyalty incentives.

All this news was contained in a Yankee Group survey report titled Redefining Virtual Currency sponsored by Tapjoy, a SF-based mobile ad/publishing platform company.  Now, I'm not critical of the report, as it shows the extent of the give and take between consumers and marketers and how they value "content," but some of the results are not a surprise:

"Mobile device owners have demonstrated that they're willing to interact with a brand by exchanging their time (ad-views) and personal data for free digital content," said Jordan McKee, an analyst with Yankee Group and author of the report.

"Since users choose to take part in this exchange, the engagement can be far more meaningful and powerful than pop-up, banner or television advertisements," he added.

Specifically, 54% of smartphone users and 41% of tablet users had paid for in-app premium content. But given the option of receiving the same content for free in exchange for advertising, both sets overwhelmingly preferred engaging with advertising.

Respondents also demonstrated a willingness to engage with advertising to receive digital content. For example, 77% were prepared to engage with ads to earn a tablet app, 73% to get tablet in-app premium content, 73% to receive music and 67% to get smartphone in-app premium content. 

Enduring an ad in exchange for programming has been the quid pro quo of television and radio since their inception—though these days digital viewers must surrender some privacy to get it—my worry is the quid is likely not worth the quo and that the practice of collecting and retaining personal information will get trumped by privacy rights in the next few years.

What I wanted to see from Yankee Group was a breakdown of the 2,000 mobile users surveyed.  I wanted to see basic demographics (age, sex, location, profession, income etc.) and the kind of personal information requested for each denomination of currency. I also wanted to see what the demographics reveal as to the currency each age group values and how users' choices vary with age and service provided.  I emailed Jordan McKee asking him for more information and if the usage of the word "engagement" can be quantifiably measured.  Anyway, I haven't heard back. (Jordan, these aren't trick questions—I really would like to know this stuff.) If I do, I'll update.

New Dogs Learn Old Tricks

According to eMarketer, smartphone and tablet usage in Canada have increased 47% and 21% respectively since 2012, which is no surprise.  What is of concern, though, is that despite the usage growth, Canadian companies are being stingy when it comes to mobile advertising budgets because the big, bad finance departments want proof of results before forking over the cash: Canada's mobile ad spend is 40% less than the US and UK ($20/mobile phone Internet user vs. $49). 

Many of the issues are due to growing pains, such as ads not loading properly or adapting to the device.  Another is effectiveness metrics, like the recent news that 30% of display ads are never seen by the target audiences (gasp!) yet the client is still charged for the impression (Oh Noes!).  To solve this, marketers want to use client-side counting, where an ad is counted only when it has been successfully delivered to the device, instead of server-side counting, which counts an impression as soon as it's delivered. 

Then there is the biggie: Banner ads.  With results that look more like rounding errors than response rates, some marketers are now looking to old school TV for solutions.   No conversations, engagement,  or other immeasurable bullshit.   It is simply knowing that if you're going to interrupt people with an ad the least you should do make it interesting and entertaining.

There is no doubt that Mobile are an important platform, but it will only succeed if marketers learn from past mistakes, ignore the hype from the digital experts, and stick with proven methods.  The technologies may change but how people view and respond to advertising has not.

What I find most delightful in all this is that the Digiratti will use methods from a form of advertising they declared dead and buried years ago. 

The Creative Brief: The Starting Point

-->

Of all the hot button issues within an agency, the Creative Brief is right up there for creatives.  It is supposed to be high-octane inspiration—a document filled with so much insight and illumination Moses could have brought it down from the Mount.

Alas, too often a brief is anything but.  It is a dumping ground for superfluous junk, meandering thought, multiple message requirements, and meaningless brand babble.

I'd like to think that the cause for the multi-page brief is, to paraphrase Blaise Pascal, the writer did not have the time to make it shorter.   But I don't.  It is laziness or the writer just doesn't know what a brief must do. Part of the blame rests with clients, brand managers, AEs—creative are not excluded here—who either like to think they are the customer or that the customer isn't very bright and will believe anything put in a persuasive tone.  Customers are not and do not.  What's more, they quite likely know a lot more about the brand and its competition than the client.

Creatives are problem solvers and when it is open ended—meaning there are no constraints on solving the creative problem—the more creative the solution can be.   Here are my suggestions that the ONE PAGE (yes, one page) brief should say:

Can the creative problem be posed as a question?  E.g. "How can we get X to consider purchase?'  If it can't make it become one.  

What is the point of distinction with the brand? (Note:  this is NOT a USP—it is time to dump those relics because they are, for the most part, meaningless and only hamstring creatives.)

Who is our target audience and why?

 

What is the brand's market share and its penetration? (Two separate things) 

Is there any meaningful offer?

What is the budget?

To my long-suffering ADs, I can hear (and see) your pain

Stock photography.  The bane of an art director's life.  Cheap, cheezy, OTT stock photography is the ass-saving refuge of clients with no idea what to do ("just slap in a picture of someone looking happy... who's ethnic... and tech savvy... lying on a dock... ") and who needs something, anything as long as it's not risky.  Or original.  Or interesting.  Or expensive.  To ease the frustration of those art directors who struggle with having to use this loathsome library of lameness, there's this:
http://www.buzzfeed.com/copyranter/cliched-stock-photography-is-the-funniest-music-video-ever-m

Beers for Fears

Paul Riss kindly passed along a link in response to my post about epilepsy-inducing beer bottles.  It is about the Buddy Cup, an invention from Budweiser Brazil than connects people via Facebook whenever they clink their Buddy Cups together.  You clink, you link. To convince you just how cool the Buddy Cup is the video shows lots of good looking Brazilian women and men enjoying themselves supposedly because they drink Bud.  I suspect, however, they are actually professional models and are blasted on some sort of pharmaceutical. 

It only took a few minutes after watching the video to see a couple of drawbacks.  For example, imagine the ladies get up from their table and flock off to the washroom to do whatever ladies do in groups in washrooms.  While they are gone a guy across the bar who has been eyeing them for a couple of hours approaches their now vacant table.  Guys like this:

Mr. Right

As he passes their table he clinks their glasses with his and BOOM!, they're friends!  Yea!!  Now he knows who they are, who their friends are, and has access to lots and lots of photos.  Just imagine what he has on his Facebook page.

And knowing what happens to guys who spend all night in the bar wearing beer goggles, chances are you may end up becoming friends with some of the really swell women who now post on your page about all the fun you two had the night before.

The Ladies!

I'm sure the inventors had every good intention when they came up with this, BUT, I don't think enabling stalkers to prey on drunk women is what it had in mind.  Then again, Bud does funny things to a man when he's had more than his fill.

A Sucker Born Every Minute

With any scheme, wherever there is a crowd of people willing to throw huge amounts of cash around with little oversight, criminals are sure to gather.  And so it goes that just like they have done with carbon trading systems governments, bankers and big business want to impose on the world, crooks have infiltrated the ad network business and, according to Adweek, are skimming $400 million per year.  Bob Hoffman goes to town on these scammers and the gullible marketers and agencies who fall over each other to buy audiences and clicks and is worth a read.

What the crooks have set up, and the industry has only begin to expose, are ghost sites:

Increasingly, digital agencies and buy-side technology firms are seeing massive traffic and audience spikes from groups of Web publishers few people have ever heard of. These sites—billed as legitimate media properties—are built to look authentic on the surface, with generic, nonalarm-sounding content. But after digging deeper, it becomes evident that very little of these sites' audiences are real people. Yet big name advertisers are spending millions trying to reach engaged users on these properties.

Well, so much for buying audiences.

How sophisticated these operations are was revealed by Business Insider.  It was told by spider.io, a Web analytics company, that it detected a malware-controlled computer network that has:

120,000 host machines on what it has dubbed the "Chameleon" botnet. It says these machines are driving traffic to a cluster of at least 202 websites, resulting in a minimum of 9 billion monthly ad impressions served.

This traffic often appears human, suggesting a high level of sophistication. Chameleon machines click on ads at a rate consistent with the general population – about 0.02% – and they even generate rollovers on 11% of impressions.

Spider.io estimates that the botnet is defrauding advertisers — who end up paying for clicks that don't really really exist — of about $6 million a month.

It remains to be seen what effect the botnets and ghost sites will have on online ad numbers once they are winnowed out (it could be up to 50% of Web traffic), but, hopefully, it will finally crush the myth of the success of online advertising/brand building once and for all.  Then another minute will pass…

Too much $$ + too much weed = Seriously?

In the town where every day is 4/20, comes an idea that can only have sprung from smoking too many blunts at Amsterdam's Tribal DDB office.  It's the Heineken Ignite interactive bottle.  I can just see the "ideation" process… "Dude, pass the Doritos… you know what would be really cool?  A flashing beer bottle."  After a five second delay, there's a collective gasp followed by the unanimous "Duuude, that totally rocks."

Here's how it works:

The bottle is activated by two people ‘cheersing’, sending a bright flash of light up through the green glass. When you drink, the LEDs spin faster and faster and when you put the bottle down on a surface it goes to ‘sleep’ and ‘breathe’. But best of all, at certain moments during the night we can communicate with the bottles and sync the LEDs to the beat, so we can create epic Heineken moments when the DJ, laser show, club lights and bottles all come together to form a club experience that people are part of.  With the Heineken Ignite bottle, we have created the first social bottle, which blends human behavior and communication, club environment and interaction together with the iconic green Heineken bottle for a unique experience.

Me, I couldn't care less that my beer bottle has lights on it—especially if I have to pay more for it.  Sure, it might be kinda' cool after three or four, and the club scene hipsters will all want to be the first to get one, but it seems likely that all it will do is goose in sales for a few weeks. 

There are a few drawbacks I can think of with this novelty item.  The article mentions that the guts of the thing need be installed just before serving because the fridge plays havoc with the battery. This means that bartenders across the world will now not only have to serve beer, but they will have to assemble them, too.  Yup, that will be popular after a month.  I also like the use of the word "havoc."  If by havoc you mean it kills the battery, OK, that would be havoc.  It's the same kind of "havoc" that plagues the idiots who own electric cars when the temperatures drops below 50 degrees.

Aside from the awesomeness of the blending of "human behavior and communication, club environment and interaction together with the iconic green Heineken bottle for a unique experience," I can imagine the dance floor when the DJ sets all the Heineken bottles to flashing and it triggers photosensitive epilepsy in a number of patrons.  Probably not the epic Heineken moment it was after.