Advertising to Kids

Article talks about ads being shown on the YouTube Kids app and how it is wrong.  Now YouTube says that it disallows ads for specific things like food and beverages but those that are upset with YouTube are saying they do show ads for candy and toys.  Either way, it does seem to be a bit much that there are ads being shown to kids at such a young age on the app.  However, is there really a difference vs. what they are being shown on TVSaturday mornings?  I am not sure when the last time you watched a children’s cartoon show on a weekend (or even something on the Disney channel on a week night) but they are jam-packed with ads and they are all targeted at kids.  To me, it feels like the majority of the 30 minute time block is ads.   So, while I see where these folks are coming from, I also can see why they might be wrong (full disclosure: I have not seen the ads shown on the app).

 

Source: http://money.cnn.com/2015/04/07/technology/youtube-kids-app/index.html

Snapchat Campaigns

Interesting read in TechCrunch on a start-up called Naritiv which builds out Snapchat marketing campaigns through its key influence network.  The app and company are still in their relative infancy but I thought this was an interesting take on what Facebook offers (or will offer shortly).  I think we spoke about this in class but something like this would be ideal for fashion brands – snapchat out photos of new lines / new products with coupons embedded and get people interested and creating a buzz. 

Source: http://techcrunch.com/2015/03/30/naritiv-helped-pretty-little-liars-get-800k-snapchat-followers-in-three-months/

Twitter Teaming up with Foursquare

Interesting article stating that Twitter is teaming up with Foursquare to add location services to tweets.  Could be an interesting marketing tactic - if someone tweets they had a great meal at XYZ restaurant and its geo-tagged, the restaurant could know that they patron is in the restaurant and perhaps give them a coupon for a meal next time or a free dessert.  Conversely, if someone has a bad time at say, JFK airport with JetBlue and tweets / tags the location, perhaps JetBlue can send someone there immediately to help mediate the issue.

Personally, I think that this a great move by Foursquare and who knows, maybe Twitter ends up buying Foursquare to have this enabled at all times.


Source: http://techcrunch.com/2015/03/23/twitter-teaming-with-foursquare-for-location-tagging-in-tweets/#vojXsG:BfSC

Facebook's Data Firehose Made Easy

Facebook just introduced a product for advertisers called Topic Data which allows advertisers to see what people are saying on Facebook about products, events, etc.  The example the article gives, and this is a little bit big brother, is that you could post that you are having a frizzy hair day and you as a hair product company could see this real-time and step up your ad-spend that day for people in those demographics.  Now Facebook is doing this in a privacy-protected way with personal information being anonymous and there are other safety protocols put in place but to me, its still a little bit big brother.  From a brand standpoint, this is extremely useful and helpful.  From a personal standpoint, it is a little big brother but as long as user personal data is not being divulged then I don’t see the harm in it (yet).  

 

 

Source: http://techcrunch.com/2015/03/10/facebook-topic-data/#sCPAC6:Q3G3

 

Optimizing Facebook Relevance Score While Minimizing Costs

Article in Techcrunch stating a company called Wisemetrics is making Facebook ad campaigns cheaper.  Essentially what they do is focus on Facebook’s new relevance score and help you optimize it so that your costs are minimized and click through rates / engagement / sharing is maximized. 

 

Pretty timely article given we just started covering social in class.  This seems like a pretty interesting tool for advertisers to you and what I like most about is that they get paid on your cost savings (so if you save nothing, they make nothing).   Personally, I feel as though making people money  gets you paid more than saving people money but that is just me but I am sure in advertising it is different.  Seems like a really smart tool.  I wonder how many other firms have or are developing tech capabilities to do the same thing.  I would have to imagine a lot if not all either have or are developing these same tools.  Ad tech seems very crowded to me.  Very crowded. 

 

Source: http://techcrunch.com/2015/03/02/wisemetrics-optimizes-facebook-ad-campaigns-to-make-you-pay-less/

 

Android vs. iOS – Which is better for mobile advertising?

Interesting article in the WSJ highlighting some interesting facts on the mobile war being waged between Google and Apple.  The article highlights that while Google has a larger reach on a global basis, Apple has deeper penetration in more developed markets which means it’s reach in those markets is better which means advertising dollars are better spent there.  We have not delved into mobile yet but to me, this just seems like a preference issue – who and where is your target market and what are you willing to pay for it?  If you are looking for deep penetration in developed markets, Apple (iOS) is probably a better choice vs. Google.  However, if you want to get more global reach, Android is probably a better bet.  

In any case, I’m looking forward to learning some of the nuances with mobile.  I frankly didn’t know you could change your ad campaigns based on the operating system of the phone.  Interesting stuff.

Source: http://www.wsj.com/articles/overheard-the-google-apple-mobile-battle-1424625917

Facebook Finds THE Way to Target Key Influencers

This article highlights that Facebook has patented a technique for identifying key influencers.  Essentially they are going to look for the rate of change in popularity of something (a product for example) based on where and from whom it was shared.  They then plan to use this information to allow (and charge) companies to send these key influencers targeted advertisements with the hopes of getting them to pass the information along to others.  Google and others have tried to do something similar but they tend to focus more on the amount of followers you have vs. actually tracking the ramp in post-sharing popularity.  

This seems really interesting to me and in theory it should definitely help advertisers get a better ROI (although that will clearly depend on what they have to pay Facebook for the access).  Frankly, the first thing I thought after reading this article was that if I was a key influencer, I would love to know so that I could have the companies contact me directly and I could get paid for it (have you seen the money some of these professional YouTube bloggers make – $5M for playing with children’s toys?  IT IS ABSURD).  Clearly Facebook doesn’t want that and I am sure that takes away some of the perceived impartiality of the influencer but it could still be a nice pay day.  

Interesting read.  Would love to find out if Professor Kagan has heard of this or has any insights.

Source: http://techcrunch.com/2015/02/16/facebook-influencer-marketing/

Video Advertising's Great Debate: Facebook or YouTube?

Pretty interesting article in AdAge (I am sure other people have or will blog about this as well) comparing video advertising on YouTube vs. Facebook.  The article basically highlights the main issues that advertisers would have with each platform – audience, targeting, and cost as well as the all-important Skippable vs. Autoplay.  In reading through the article, it seems the major difference is what you, the advertiser, really want.  If you want something that is more targeted and focused , Facebook is likely the better platform since your audience will be viewing your ads when they are logged into their FB accounts.  However, if you want to reach a broader audience and potentially not pay-up to do so, YouTube’s Skippable seems like the better option.  

We actually had someone from Google come in and speak to us about YouTube advertising in a Branding class last semester and it was something that I actually had no idea existed (I always wondered why I was able to click through some ads and not on others).  Personally, someone that is being advertised to, I would prefer to have the option to skip.  Having to sit through a full 30 second ad can feel like you are sitting through an add that is 30 minutes long.  That might seem ridiculous but I bet if you asked most people, they would tell you the same thing.  I think you attract more bees with honey and while you might not get as targeted of an audience, you might be better off not pissing off your audience members with a full ad when you can try something clever to get them to stick around be memorable.  

Source: http://adage.com/article/digital/facebook-youtube-video-ad-buy/297010/

The Next Evolution in Search?

Interesting article about a new search engine developed in Finland called SciNet (ominously close to SkyNet) and it is run by a company called Etsimo.  What makes this search engine different is that it wants to learn more from the user and let the user guide the search (they call it user intent modeling) by using descriptive visual graphics.  It is a pretty interesting concept but it appears pretty far from being rolled out to people for everyday search use (the article states that this is more commercially / deep internet search focused).   

What I found to be most interesting about this article is that the company claims that Google just gives you pre-populated results that you need to sift through that are based on links and indexing.  This search engine tries to capture the user’s intent and learn from it with a visual “heat map” (my words, not the article) of how relevant terms / results are to what you  are looking for and suggest different terms / keywords that might help or be more relevant.  Personally, I know that I have a tough time with more obscure search requests (particularly when looking specific commands / functionality for Python) and in theory, this sounds like something that would help with that.  

Just given all we talked about in class about search, this seems to be a radical departure from what is currently on the market.  

Source: http://techcrunch.com/2015/02/01/scinet/

Teaching the New Frontier in Marketing

Pretty interesting article in Fast Company that made me think about how far marketing has really come vs. when I was in college.  The basic gist of the article is that there are three skills that college students are not learning today to best equip themselves for the world of digital marketing (content marketing/SEO, social media and lead nurturing/technical skills).

Now I don't pretend to know what is in the modern liberal arts college marketing curriculum but what I think this article highlights is that there is hole that needs to be filled.  Digital marketing has really only sprung up as a going concern within the Marketing field within the last few years and I would assume that most colleges were hesitant to adapt this to their curriculums.  However, with the continued growth in the industry and its increasing importance to corporate marketing strategies, this will evolve which I think will in turn lead to a more educated entry-level marketing employee and further advancements in the field itself.

Not to date myself but I wish they offered something like this when I was in college but it didn't exist yet (Facebook only really came about when I was a Junior, haha).

Source: http://www.fastcompany.com/3041253/3-key-digital-marketing-skills-students-dont-learn-in-college

Ad Spend & The Continued Rise of Digital Marketing

First blog post ever - here we go!

Here is the link that I found on TechCrunch which goes through projections for 2015 ad spend and much like we heard in class, Digital continues to be the fastest growing and is now close to making up one third of total ad spending (http://techcrunch.com/2015/01/20/2015-ad-spend-rises-to-187b-digital-inches-closer-to-one-third-of-it/).

I have also seen numerous articles on ad-based start-ups raising a decent amount of money either running ad spend platforms, advertising analytics, or ad exchanges.  Clearly this is a growth area and it is garnering a lot attention both from the marketing world and VC world.  From an outsiders perspective (and I am a complete outsider), digital advertising appears to be extremely competitive and I wonder about how profitable some of these businesses are despite processing billions of dollars of ad spend for companies.   I also wonder why the companies themselves don't build out this functionality themselves within their marketing departments.  Perhaps the spend would be too large and you might get pigeon-holed with just your own team that you miss broader industry trends / movement but this seems like something companies could end up bringing in house no?

In any case, digital ad spending is not going away and the technology appears to only be getting better. I just wonder how the economics work and would love to know how the companies paying these digital advertising cos view the space and its future.  Something I will be sure to bring up in class this weekend.