Sunday, November 29, 2009

Newspapers are not the only ones losing out to the internet...

Magazine are also suffering but non more than Playboy, The Australian is reporting today that Playboy has taken a massive hit in subscription numbers over the last few years losing out to Internet Porn.

Playboy's subscription numbers have gone from 7 million in the 70's to only 2 million per month. Subscription numbers have more than halved in the last 4 years!

You only have to look at Australia's internet usage to see the truth in the report - a quarter of the Australian internet users visited a porn site in October*: this equates to 3.4 million Aussies.
They visited a porn site 7 times on average and spent 1 hour & 46 minutes of their online time there.

Interesting read:
http://www.theaustralian.com.au/business/media/online-blitz-constricts-the-circulation-of-playboy/story-e6frg996-1225805138704

Mehrak

*Nielsen Netratings

Wednesday, November 18, 2009

Yahoo! To Reposition Performance Network As A Premium Ad Buy

Yahoo! has announced that they will be repositioning their performance network (Right Media) as a premium media buy in the U.S. The question is, will Yahoo!7 follow in their footsteps?

The repositioning essentially means advertisers will be able to couple behavioural targeting with performance buys; instead of buying blind RON cost per response activity, advertisers will be able to target the audience they want & still buy on a cost per response basis - brilliant & revolutionary!

Yahoo!7 has long had one of the most advanced targeting capabilities in this market, being first to market with keyword retargeting for example, which is essentially advertisers retargeting people based on the keywords they have searched for on Yahoo! Search. Ninemsn is just coming in to market with this, a year and a half later. Their performance network however has been lacking in lustre, playing second fiddle to the likes of MSDR & Adconion.

Yahoo!7 was dragged kicking and screaming in to the performance world, their reluctance making them a second rate offering but the new product will certainly put them on top of the performance pack in Australia & make them the darling of media buyers like myself. I hope they follow suite and I hope they do it soon.

Tuesday, November 17, 2009

Behavioural Targeting Has Well & Truely Arrived in Australia But The U.S Is Still Miles Ahead

Behavioural targeting has arrived in Australia with a bang! All major publishers have firmed up their capabilities & are now offering this as a standard buy: Yahoo!7, Fairfax Digital, News Digital Media, Ninemsn & bless Sensis Media Smart who was offering this 7 years ago...

You can now easily buy media based on set consumer segments or create your own bespoke one if you get a brief soon enough - all very sexy but the U.S has been on this train for years and years & they are now taking it to the next level. Have you heard of Behavioural Cloning? Well take note, because it's the next big thing in this category.

This is basically turning behavioural targeting on it's head; instead targeting users based on a desired demonstrated behaviour online, clients analyse their own consumer segments and how they behave on the web and then buy media against web users who demonstrate the same behaviours. It's basically finding clones of your own customers. The response rates & conversion rates are reported to be off the charts.

I've done some checking & no one in Australia has this capability at the moments but I'm working on it so stay tuned.
Mehrak

ComScore Study Once Again Proves Online Ads Drive In-Store Sales

Not that we needed another research piece to show this, but a study released by ComScore & Dunnhumby in the US has found that consistent online advertising over a 3 month period boosts in-Store sales by up to 9%. This is in comparison to 8% lift for consistent TV advertising over a 12 month period.

The study shows that online advertising is more effective than TV mainly because of it's minute targeting capabilities (right consumer, in the right mind-set) and also the fact that it's still a much more cost effective advertising medium.

This is a no brainer for those of us who live & breathe the medium each day but for clients it's another story. I find that it's still an uphill battle to convince clients to use digital mediums to drive foot traffic in-store. So even though there have already been about a million similar studies in the past - each new one is a blessing for those of us in the battle fields.

Mehrak

Wednesday, October 21, 2009

Where is the subtlety in product placement & sponsorships?

I had the pleasure of watching New Zealand's Next Top Model last night & was completely shocked by the in-your-face product placement by the show's sponsors.

Sarah Mail is being delivered by a Vodafone phone which is placed on a red Vodafone phone holder. A present from Sun Glass Hut before a photo shoot (which had nothing to do with the photo shoot). A Nivea gift pack as they entered the house.

It begs the question of; where has the elegance of product placement gone? Do marketers really not know that such treatment of their products is off putting to consumers?

It would be nice to think that this is a NZ trait but we are just as guilty in Australia. You just have to look at Australian IDOL for an example. We have a thing or two to learn from the Americans. Remember the Apple Laptop on The West Wing? Pure gold.

I think it's time we pulled back on the obvious and injected a bit of elegance & relevance to program sponsorships.

Wednesday, September 23, 2009

User Attitude Towards Online News

Just read a very interesting study about user attitude towards online news consumption. In a nutshell users love online news for:
  • It's immediacy
  • Convenience
  • Access to eclectic points of view (not just the main stream)
  • And it's interactivity ("Can't talk back to TV now can we...?")
They penalised online news however for:
  • Reliability
  • Lack of depth
Some other interesting points:
  • People in regional Australia receive their newspapers late so they rely heavily on online news to stay in the know
...there is a campaign opportunity here I know it...
  • Interest in local news grows by age group - as people age they become more interested in their local environment