Many extremely popular online destinations, particularly
social media applications and sites, are being pushed to prove that they that
they are profitable in addition to being able to generate a lot of
traffic. Sites like facebook and Pintrest
as well as applications like Instagram and twitter are all facing similar
challenges. Skype is in the same boat,
particularly since they were acquired by Microsoft, and this week it
incorporated a strategy to address this: a new display ad format that aims to
get users chatting about brands with each other. How it works:
During a user’s Skype call, a window containing an ad opens up opposite to
their video chat window.
The hope is that
the ad will instigate a conversation about the brand and word-of-mouth
promotion. Some of the ads also encourage
interactivity. Skype targets these ads
using basic information that the user includes in their account profile such as
age, gender, and location. These are
in addition to the more traditional ads that appear within the Skype home
window.
From a marketer’s perspective, I think this is a great idea;
Skype is taking advantage of a window of time that a consumer is sitting in
front of their computer screen with minimal distractions for a relatively
extended amount of time. By serving up
an ad during a call, the user can’t help but focus on it since they are likely
not hopping around the internet while their having a video chat. Also, evidence shows that people try new products
and brands because they heard about them from someone they know and trust, and
this ad strategy plays right into that. There
are obvious concerns from a user experience perspective, but Skype recognizes
the importance of keeping their customers happy and it is incorporating
measures to address this. For example,
these ads only appear to users who are not paying a subscription fee or don’t
have Skype credit on their account. The ads
are silent, non-expanding, and user has the option to close the window as soon
as it appears. Also, an ad is only
served after Skype has checked the speed of the user’s data connection so as to
not disrupt the video chat.
I think this strategy could be
successful for view-through results, however, for these ads to accomplish the word-of-mouth
goal, they would have to really stand-out creatively and be more about
entertaining the viewer as opposed to just promoting a product with a sales
message. I don’t anticipate that most
people will start talking about a brand simply by seeing an ad. It will be interesting to see the initial results
and hear about users' reactions.
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