An (online) Advertising Potential Value

How much is the page worth where your online content has appeared?

Interesting idea?

Most of us have seen advertisement in online newspapers. They now form a significant part of publishing revenues.

In exploring the price of online newspaper advertising, it is no great leap of logic to try to attempt to satisfy the question of the difference between price and value.

This is quite an open and transparent market. The rates are published and in a form that equates exposure and price. This suggests that the market is not just active but transparent as well. The Guardian article yesterday puts this space into perspective even if it is gloomy about the prospects for the publishing industry.

Value and price, measured using the exchange rate of monetary currency, would seem to be a reasonable measure for online newspaper advertising.

But it is not a good currency for editorial and social content. There do not seem to be transparent markets or effective exchange rates that convert online conversations into a currency that can be used in most modern commercial environments.

In this research project, I have taken the price of online newspaper advertising and by using the published rates, numbers of visitors from ABCe and have worked through an Alexa comparison of user visits. This has given me an algorithm to provide a figure that would project the value of an advertisement on web pages that are not online newspapers.

In other words if you were going to advertise on that page, how much would it cost you?

If you like, an Advertising Potential Value!

In testing, I have played the results back into online newspapers and the results are pretty good. The formula got within 5% for the Telegraph and Guardian and within 10% of the price charged by Mirror Group.

I know that context is different and I know that web pages are optimised for purpose and thus not all web pages would be suitable to carry advertisements (and many blog pages and other content is not suitable either). I am also aware of the issues we have as between different web sites indexed by Alexa. This is not going to be a micron accurate measure but is will be, at worse, indicative.

However, this allows me to test an approximation of advertising value potential for web pages were they in competition with newspapers for advertising revenues.

NOTE: the return you get will be the value based on the UK audience figures only. The global equivalent will be bigger and based on a different base point.

Over the next few days, I will build a widget so that you too can have a look at the results and will post it here.

Have we learned yet - Brands need hunter-gatherers

The idea that a brand is a promise of an experience to come; an experience past and a special form of cultural magic is re-emerging from the stupor of civilisation as we have known it for five thousand years.

Elizabeth Albrycht, in her June post "Brands as Media: Platforms for Value Creation" put forward the idea that brands are changing because of a "shift in technology and audience expectations is driving a major evolution in marketing, which, at least initially, is leading companies to develop, purchase and/or maintain/support media properties, be they online forums, blogs, and social networks. (This is already starting to result in brands competing with traditional media, the very places they have supported by their advertising over the past decades. With large consumer products companies in better financial shape than media companies, this might result in some odd marriages in the next few years.)"

She follows Haque who posits that "traditional branding activities, especially advertising, imposes costs on consumers. Costs of interrupted attention, time spent waiting for a TV show to resume, polluted visual fields in cities and countrysides, and so on. Culturally, consumers are now expressing their increasing resentment of these costs and refusing to pay them (and technology is giving them ever more tools to easily do so)."

This suggests that brands are morphing and are taking on new rolls and capabilities.

Brand marketing without push advertising, heavily PR dependent consumer journalists and blinding Point of Sale is a strange beast.

It moves towards a community experience, part of the gossip communities indulge in and leavened by a capability for the community to cluster round the best gossips, the best informed gossips and the most enabled (RSS) gossips in the world.

These are people.
Real people.

They are the top hunter gatherers of the 21st century and they contribute to the tribe as part of the community.

In their rituals they seek the information that the gods of technology offer them and interpret these oracles to in a conversation with their community.

Some are so good that people flock to their communities from many other tribes, who in turn spread the word.

We seek them out as mankind did for tens of thousands of years before agriculture produced enough ears of wheat for communities to build settlements, markets and inventories.

These people have to work with the grain of the community. They need to be of the community and their expression of the brand has to compete within the daily chatter of the community as it forages.

To shout out a brand message disturbs the community. If it has value it will become part of the community's conversation and culture but if it has no meaning it becomes culturally disruptive at a social cost to the perpetrator.

In this technology fuelled era, we are seeing echoes of mankind's almost lost past.

Image: Hunter Gatherer Wiki.

Why 20th century marketing is dead

If one of the worlds, leasing business publications was to be found to be selling editorial to the highest bidder it would be a scandal...right?

People would loose trust in its editorial independence.

It would loose its appeal to industry leaders.

Of much greater significance is that it would be vilified in social media and progressively its reputation would cost its shareholders their fortune just as those who once though banking shares were a smart lost theirs.

Indeed, those who colluded in such a scam would be suspect. Their ethical practice would be called into question and their reputation too will suffer.

Well, there are marketing practices that drag people along this gently inclining slope to the slippery bit and in an era of transparency cannot avoid the finger being pointed:

"Please let me know ASAP if you have a client that might be interested to participate in BusinessWeek's Cloud Computing ad section. This is a "pay-to-play" opportunity ($6,980 entry fee) to appear in a hot section.

"Appearance here will position your client as a leader in the the cloud computing space. BusinessWeek delivers a prime audience of 4.8 million decision-makers, consisting of over 1.8 million senior executives, and 2 million business technology influencers.

"BusinessWeek magazine will publish this section in its April 13, 2009 global print (and online) edition (hits newsstands/goes live April 3). Produced in partnership with the Cloud Slam 09 Virtual Conference Event, this timely section, titled "Cloud Computing: Next-Gen Internet to Power Business," will discuss the business imperatives of cloud computing, i.e. harnessing power, opportunity of on-demand computing, storage, applications, infrastructure, etc.

"If your client were to commit to advertise, we would develop complimentary coverage to appear in the section article (or develop a top quality "advertorial" piece); interview and content development by Internet veteran Vance McCarthy. Exposure includes visibility on www.cloudslam09.com during and after the event, and on www.businessweek.com/adsections providing links to their website (can include video), and high quality reprints. We are also offering Cloud Slam '09 Sponsorships. Further, we can create a very cool, interactive 3D “virtual booth” for your client at a relatively small fee. Uniquely, the booth 'container' is in PDF, so it can be distributed everywhere your client wishes, beyond the event! Lots of value and impact in this package! Another complimentary element here is BusinessWeek's social networking Business Exchange site now taking flight.

There is nothing new in this. It has gone on for years and yet, because it is common practice does not make it right.

So, are we shocked to see circulations of publications in free fall when the words they print are really just advertorials? Well not really. Will anyone regret the going of such publications. Well no, not really.

Feel for the poor pensioner who depends on investment in such shares for a living.

The New Marketing

Jeremiah Owyang discuses this video by Scholz and Friends, a German marketing agency.

It is worth watching.

Google hands advertising to the PR industry

The search engine giant is in talks with several newspaper publishers to sell space in their pages to its online clients, reports The Times.

Google Print Ads is an extension of Google AdWords, the auction system that lets companies bid for a slot that appears alongside specific online word searches.

Instead of an auction, advertisers pick a newspaper online through Google and enter a bid for available advertising space on a given page and day.

But rather than offering to pay the list price, customers say what they are prepared to pay. Publishers can choose to accept or decline the offer.

This changes the nature of PR. Lets suppose there is a big story breaking, why not bid for an advertisement on the page? Advertising would then be driven by editorial and PR generated editorial to boot.

Is this the end of advertising as we know it?

Now, lets take the argument a bit further.

Why not use the same technique in others online PR content?

The model for engagement

“We are seriously under-valuing certain things in advertising,” says Rory Sutherland, vice chairman of Ogilvy Group UK. “We don’t distinguish between what consumers ask for and what they don’t. Instead, we just target people by demographic, which is patently daft.

He went on to say

“A website with 700,000 users isn’t necessarily less powerful than a digital campaign seen by seven million people.

“Those 700,000 users are visiting the site of their own accord, and they are visiting when they have an interest in the content of the site. They are far more susceptible to relevant advertising than a larger group that just fit the target demographic.”

Sutherland likened “old marketing” to ten-pin bowling, with one message looking to “knock down” a large amount of consumers. Modern marketing, according to Sutherland, should follow a pinball analogy, with the message kept high on the agenda by factors other than just a brand’s input.

Sharon Shaw e-commerce manager at Standard Life adds:

"Developing a new digital strategy can be a daunting experience, especially considering the lack of case studies and benchmarks out there," and proposes an Attract, Convert, Support, Extend model.

Well welcome to the real world.

What they are talking about is developing relationships and I am not convinced they are on the right track yet.

Before we attract, there has to be worked through value systems and then, the model is to Listen before anything else.

That is why I believe that the planning model has to start with a proper audit of organisational values, the values of the online community and levels of dissonance.

It is only then that attracting the community is possible.

Just believing that 700,000 web site visitors are all happy campers is nieve and attracting people who don't want to go there is counter-productive.

Are web sites dying?

In many marketing courses, there is a mantra that says that, online, the thing to do is 'drive traffic to your site'.

This is now soooo yesterday!

The question for business and consumer communications practitioners is simple. Do you really want to drive your publics to places they really don't want to go.

Today there was news that MySpace has 10 million UK users. It is worth looking at what this really means.

Lets start with the Tesco, a big company with a global reach of terrestrial shops and a sizeable (£1.2 billion) online business. The BBC.co.uk a worldwide broadcaster and Amazon.co.uk an online only retailer.

The BBC' reach comes out on top with Tesco almost invisible. All three sites are in decline.

If we add blogs into this analysis (by adding the reach of Blogger.com). We see a different type of performance:

Which takes us to social networks like MySpace.

Social networks and blogs are where online visitors want to go. They don't seem to want to go to traditional web sites.

Is this because people don't want to find out about the products and services available from retailers?

Well, it seem that people want to find out stuff if we add Wikipedia into the mix.

So, its not that people are not interested in finding stuff and just want to chat. There is something going on here that requires further investigation.

Online advertising is up 42% this year so, convention says, the retailers should be 'driving' a lot of traffic to their sites. Even with declining visitor numbers, the amount of money spent by consumers shopping online increased by 33.4% to £10.9bn last year.

More people are spending more time online and more people have broadband.

People say they are shopping a lot

Online shopping has already clocked up online sales of £100 billion.

Why then are the retailers just not a big target for the online community?

Its not just Tesco, M&S (which aims to increase its annual online sales from £100m to £250m.) and John Lewis (catalogue and web sales division, John Lewis Direct, increased by 64%) are, like most retailers just not getting the interests.

Perhaps the retailers are happy with what they have got and do not want to join the real online community in the social space. Perhaps they have not yet noticed that their current online advertising and web sites are loosing the attention from the online community they once enjoyed.

If so, is this a short sighted policy?

Perhaps, there is a case for looking at what the marketers are trying to do and how the online community has moved on. Hitwise reports that the Entertainment category has overtaken the Retail category in share of UK Internet visits for the first time. visits to Shopping & Classifieds websites were down 5% year on year in May. UK Internet users aged 55+, the so-called silver surfers, are set to overtake 35-44 year olds as the demographic age group with the largest representation online. Those aged 55+ accounted for 22% of UK visits to all categories of websites.

Perhaps as the demographics change, the use of the Internet for all manner of solutions and its ubiquity as part of daily life including the social nature of the commons is coming into play.

Perhaps the conversation has overtaken the advertisement, flash and bling of the traditional web site.

Perhaps the social media lesson should be quietly introduced to the boardrooms of the retail sector.

Perhaps the big take out is that people seek relationships online. An area where PR could be pivotal.

Olympics in the near field

Near field technologies and social media have a potential to be both part of the security system for the London Olympics in 2012 and a key part of the public relations activity for the Games.
While there are squabbles over who gets what contract, PR agencies are exploring how the same near field technologies can be used to optimise sponsorship and develop new channels for reaching one of the most savvy audiences in the world who will attend the Olympics.

Near field communication, which can be as simple as a Bluetooth add-on to downloaded value added widgets to most mobile phones can be activated at any pinch point such as turnstiles and Underground ticket terminals.

This will be a really nice way to add value to the Olympic experience. Or it could be more marketing bling, spin or hype - depending on where companies think they can get the best ROI or loose most of their reputation.

Adverts turned into conversationtional value

I want to comment further on the post by Charlene Li on the acquisition of Right Media by Yahoo!
While here post and the Right Media (not to mention Yahoo!) focus on serving up advertisements, I want to change the setting somewhat.
If instead of serving up ads, the 'advertiser' served up ideas or even dynamic conversations what would happen?
The advertisement would become a conversation and although push in the first place could quite quickly become the method for pull.
The concept turns online advertising into a form of interaction not dissimilar to RSS feeds.
Instead of shouting, PR can enjoy a conversation with interested parties.
What will be happening will be that values will become a currency between users and organisations... nice thought.

Advertsing and PR need not apply

Western Mail reports that companies which have hidden behind advertising and public relations must directly engage with their customers by using new internet opportunities, one of Wales' leading internet experts warns.

Matthew Yeomans, who contributes every day to Time magazine's website, runs Custom Communication, a Cardiff-based enterprise which helps businesses grasp the potential of "social media".

The impression that PR practitioners are not getting involved in social media goes well beyond this blog then!

Stick with the knitting BT.

"BT Tradespace is pitched as taking "a giant leap forward in digital marketing", encouraging users to "join a fast-growing community of buyers and sellers in your specific business area".

Business owners can garner some of the staples of Web 2.0-style Internet offerings - comments, reviews and ratings - to build customer-facing reputation...." according to e-consultancy.

Well is a couple of examples are any indication, there is some way to go. This one is an example of push communication in social space while others look like Yellow Pages.

BT has a problem with social media and always has. It is a marketing driven, push communications, scream marketing set up. It is desperate to be the final solution as witness its mad desire to sell broadband wrapped in email addresses, web gizmos and a computer stopping software bundle.

If it just did one thing well - lets say, deliver bandwidth to each home in the UK - everyone would know about it and would use it. But its would rather get into stuff that can be provided by Typepad or Blogger, MySpace(its partner in this venture) for free and better.

Turning social media into web site look alikes is trying to turn the clock back and it won't work. People use social media and web sites for different things.

Stick with the knitting BT.

12 Themes on the 'User Revolution'

Piper Jaffray & Co. Internet Media and Marketing research team today published an in-depth, comprehensive research report titled, "The User Revolution.


There are 12 key themes discussed in "The User Revolution" report:
1. Global online advertising revenue to reach $81.1 billion by 2011.
2. Communitainment: Internet has increasingly become a principal medium
for community, communication and entertainment -- three areas that
have collided and are impacting each other's growth -- generating a
new type of activity: communitainment. Communitainment is taking time
away from other, traditional, types of content consumption on the
Internet.
3. Usites -- The increasing popular category of user generated sites,
which we are calling Usites, are driving traffic away from other
destinations and pose a challenge to the advertisers and publishers.
4. The Internet is now a mainstream medium: The web is the leading
medium at work and the second leading medium at home behind
television.
5. Internet usage patterns are changing, favoring Usites,
communitainment sites, search, and away from traditional portals.
6. User Generated Brands. The consumers are taking control of content
consumption and branding.
7. Media Fragmentation: Advertisers increasingly will need to buy more
inventory, from nearly all types of media, especially the Internet,
to have the desired impact.
8. The Golden Search: search has become the new portal.
9. Google's dominance is likely to expand, partly fueled by a wide
variety of non-search related products that create a virtuous cycle
of brand affinity for Google.
10. Video ads will be the driver of the next major growth in brand
advertising and getting additional dollars shifted from traditional
media to online.
11. Ad networks are experiencing increased demand due to increasing
Internet fragmentation, desire for more targeted inventory,
increasing usage of networks for branding and increased site
visibility.
12. Agencies are rapidly evolving into more sophisticated,
technology-savvy entities that combine best of breed offerings.

Delete Ads, insert relationships.

Business leaders underestimate the web

The IMRG figures for online sales in the run up to Christmas show that forecasts underestimated demand. Forecasts of £7.5 billion compared to the actual outcome of £7.66 billion and that is only part of the story. Sales were limited because online retailers could not deliver.

Last year online sales were £30.2 billion with an increase during 10 weeks to Christmas up 54% on 2005.

Well this is not much of a surprise to some of us. What is disturbing is that so many people are still in denial. Online PR is still a fringe activity. Online advertising is inyerface. Web sites are horrid and lack interactivity and response to the power of social media lacks imagination to a degree that makes users cringe and rage.

As an industry the PR business just has to get stuck in.

Poncing around in the hope it will all go away led from behind by the PR institutions is no way to run an economy, industry sector or business.

The response to the power of the Internet in the UK is akin to the response to the realities of manufacturing in the 1960's, R&D and education in the '70's, the global economy in the run up to the millennium and show lack of foresight and fuddy duddy thinking.

The lack of knowledge about online interactivity across UK management and the creative services is appalling.

There is a need for leadership.

TV is going to be fine, thank you. But it will look nothing like it does today and it will be open to all of us.

Steve Rubel has been pondering the fate of TV. I think he is right about some of it but has not factored in games and especially WII style interactive TV. To get some idea of how powerful games are in the market imagine selling 50,000 of any product in just one hour. WII did!

Interaction, especially physical interaction in a games style of Internet TV solution is well within his three year timescale.

Of course, he is speaking from an American not European perspective. Life is different on this side of the Atlantic.

Here we have the hotspots of the highest online retailing regions (not California, the UK), higher blog useage per head of population (not New York but Paris) and higest number of people with 100 meg broadband (Leicester - using cable).

In Europe, there are populations with very high uptake of broadband (2-8 meg) which is haveing a dramatic impact on Internet useage.

The PC has come out of the study/bedroom and into the living space in houses and that is where the real challenge lies.

UK Two Years ahead of US for online advertsing

In an interesting review and projection for next year Alan Patrick notes that the UK is almost two years ahead of the US in terms of online advertising. At least, that's the conclusion of Terry S. Semel, chief executive of Yahoo!, in a recent New York Times interview. The situation has arisen mainly through the underlying growth of broadband in the UK.

During 2006 broadband penetration increased from about 40 per cent to 50 per cent. In addition, the time people spend online has risen to 23 hours a week and online spending has risen from about £800 per head to £1,100 per head.

As companies have followed customers online, internet advertising has grown rapidly. By the end of June 2006 it was up from 8 per cent to 10 per cent of all UK ad spend and is expected to be nearer 14 per cent by December 2006 - the highest ad spend per head in the world.

Disintermediate the Ad Agencies

This move by Google could make some agencies wince. Anyone can buy Google Ads. Its easy, cheap and understandable - and now can cross over to newsprint (and radio, TV and well... YouTube) like falling down at an Agency lunch.

"Marketing last legs - Advertising legless"

"I've never seen things changing as much as they are now," says Rance Crain, editor-in-chief of trade magazine Advertising Age and a 40-plus-year observer of marketing. "Advertisers will not be satisfied until they put their mark on every blade of grass."

Ad-zapping devices — and a decrease in consumer attention spans — have created doubts about the effectiveness of traditional TV, radio and print ads. In response, marketers have become increasingly invasive.

"It's out of control," says Jenny Beaton, a mother of three in Westlake, Ohio. "I don't know how advertisers can think they're selling more products. It's just annoying everybody."

Many, such as Beaton, are tuning out.

"Advertising is so ubiquitous that it's turning people off," Crain says. "It's desensitizing people to the message."

The more consumers ignore ads, the more ads marketers spew back at them, says Max Kalehoff of marketing research firm Nielsen BuzzMetrics. "It's like a drug addiction. Advertisers just keep buying more and more just to try to achieve prior levels of impact. In other words, they're hooked."

We have seen some of the fall out. We have seen WPP try to escape its advertising bonds and we have seen some awful attempts to shift advertising from paper and TV to the web and social media....
Now companies have to learn. Repeat after me.... "Marketing last legs - Advertising legless"

USATODAY.com - Product placement you can't escape it - www.usatoday.com/...