To Catch a Dragon, HBO starts a Drogon Hunt

http://adage.com/article/behind-the-work/hbo-starts-dragon-hunt-game-thrones-season-premiere/298003/

HBO, the creator of the hit cable TV series “The Game of Thrones”, is launching its 5^th season premiere with a social media twist and a new themed Twitter hashtag. This hashtag, which will go live at 11 AM on Sunday, is #CatchDrogon.

For viewers not familiar with The Game of Thrones, Drogon is a dragon that terrorizes various neighborhoods of this fantasy medieval-inspired adaptation that has enough dark intrigue to resemble another hit HBO series, The Sopranos.

The interesting thing here is that Twitter followers are being asked to subscribe and follow #CatchDrogan and retweet in a certain timespan as soon as they see the hashtag. Those that catch it in time will be rewarded access to exclusive content, such as sneak peeks, previews, and even real physical prizes.

This social media strategy appears to be consistent with the best practices of viral marketing techniques. Social media followers are generally looking for free but high-quality content, new product announcements, previews, freebies, or product launches. This hashtag media campaign just about satisfies all of those criteria.

Here’s the amazing thing when you couple quality content with a large social media presence (15 million FB likes, 2.3 million Twitter followers). On hashtag launch day (which coincides with season 5 premiere), HBO will establish a war-room style command center staffed by celebrities, producers, and folks from 360i and Giphy (where GoT has an enterprise account) to drive engagement with all the hashtag retweeting that’s going to be keeping Google’s “currently trending” servers busy analyzing.

We look forward to catching a Drogan, or at least get a sneak-peek and maybe win some prizes.

Asia's Best Campaigns From AdFest

Asia's Best Campaigns From AdFest

http://adage.com/article/global-news/asia-s-campaigns-adfest/297775/

In this AdAge article, during the recent Asia Pacific Advertising Festival in Pattaya, Thailand, awards were presented to the best advertisement campaigns in the Asia region.

1.       fancy and practical whiskey ice Suntory’s ad showcased a Hakuhoda, Tokyo made device that allows serious whiskey drinkers to select from a variety of fancy designs which is then crafted into a glass-size 3D ice sculpture and used instead of the more traditional ice cubes. Instead of “on the rocks”, how about “on the statue of liberty” for a change? To further prove their technical wizardry, a second Suntory campaign showcased a hi-tech whisky glass that creates images as the ice and contents are swirled, invoking images of seasonal delights such as cherry blossoms or summer rain.

2.       In a funny ad spot by Tokyu Agency called “Three Seconds Cooking Shrimp Flying Cannon”, the process for flash frying shrimp really fast is demonstrated in various ways, including shooting the critters out of a cannon.

3.       In an online video spot called “I Hate Thailand”, the Leo Burnett Group Thailand, a down-trodden foreign tourist who was robbed of his possessions while traveling through Thailand finds life transforming experiences when he meets up with some friendly locals.

4.       A fourth spot, titled “Relocations”, also by Leo Burnett, showcased a simple, practical, and elegant cardboard box design that facilitate local residents in their effort to donate unwanted items when they move to a new home. After packaging, the lids on the same box can be flipped to read either “Keep”, or “Gift”. The latter goes directly to the Salvation Army and helps low income families.

Although Suntory won the Advertising of the Year award during the Asian AdFest, most of the non-winners, of which there were 3,295 entries, drew a lot of nonchalant comments from the judges, who disparaged the entries for imitation.

How Bluetooth Beacons are enabling a new kind of connected marketable consumer segment

South by Southwest 2015: All About Beacons, Beacons, Beacons

http://adage.com/article/special-report-sxsw/south-southwest-beacons/297584/

A recent article on Adage detailed the rise in popularity of a new kind of bluetooth technology during SXSW this year: app-enabled event-goer connectivity using so called bluetooth beacons, which act as mini mobile hotspots that enables mobile phone users to connect with each other through a special app that's installed on phones.

This location based service is a draw for advertisers and event sponsors as well as event attendees. Using location awareness, the bluetooth service allows anyone who downloads the conference app to find a list of others who are using the app at the event. Thus far, Eventbase has installed about 260 or so of these installations throughout the city of Austin. By logging onto the app, event attendees are able to see who's at the event, send and promote the profiles of other people at the event. Among pieces of personal information, the app allows you to see where a person works. In a sense it is similar to LinkedIn, but offers a local, proximity-based social networking experience that is very interesting and immediate.

Jeff Sinclair, co-founder of Eventbase, calls the app "hyper-local networking." As retail stores, marketers, and businesses explore the opportunities for generating revenue from location-based services, installation of these bluetooth beacons is picking up in numbers. Facebook is currently conducting a pilot study on the effectiveness of location-based services for advertising to drive sales for ad sponsors.

By using proximity awareness and location sensing, this bluetooth beacon technology is hoping to offer a tighter, deeper integration between event attendees and sponsored content. Eventbase believes that location aware apps will become a differentiable platform to market products and services to customers who are looking to make local purchases. And that means it's good for business and good for marketers.

Improving LinkedIn Lead Generation in 4 Easy Steps

How B-to-B Marketers Can Improve Leads with LinkedIn

http://adage.com/article/btob/b-b-marketers-improve-leads-linkedin/297386/

According to this recent Ad Age article, many ad sponsors shy away from LinkedIn due to the perceived low ROI and conversion rates from the popular career social networking site. However, the author presents 4 key issues and focal points that allow advertisers to maximize their LinkedIn ad ROI, resulting in customer acquisition costs that can be only half of that which is offered by other competing content providers.

1.       Measure the right part of the acquisition funnel

LinkedIn offers less broad-based customer targeting capabilities than some other content producers. The right marketing strategy is to focus on a narrow target segment. By measuring lead qualification at a lower part of the funnel, advertisers can realize significant acquisition cost savings in leads generated per x ad dollars spent.

2.       Build the right post-click experience from LinkedIn

Emphasis needs to be put into making the landing page as highly relevant and non-generic to the target audience as possible. This is because a lot of potential leads will get upset if they find non-specific information or a generalized product landing page. The idea here is that the conversation started by the ad itself needs to be continued and expanded upon in the landing page, to give the potential customer a highly relevant and informative search experience.

3.       Make better use of the data LinkedIn provides

This specific advice is given based on the fact that a lot of advertisers are not using the lead generation tools that LinkedIn provides via its tools for advertisers. Hence, customer targeting isn’t being done optimally and thus the response rate drops and acquisition costs climb. LinkedIn already provides a lot of relevancy and segmentation controls from information provided by members in their profiles; this information is available via selections in the tools, but advertisers are sometimes mis-targeting by not honing in on the appropriate customer segment.

4.       Know what to do with the other 80%

By optimizing the lead generation funnel, this author suggests that 20% conversion rate is possible on LinkedIn. He also proposes a strategy for keeping the other 80% of the users that did not convert, by retargeting them on other sites they visit and extending the conversation. By retargeting based on user behavior, the advertiser can have additional opportunities to convert some of the 80% that did not originally.  

Startups Face Digital Advertising Squeeze

http://www.alleywatch.com/2015/02/startups-face-digital-advertising-squeeze/

According to this Alleywatch news article, 2014 was a good year for digital media advertising startup consolidation as large players such as Facebook, AOL, and Yahoo in the business scooped up smaller rivals and startups through acquisitions. M&A activity in the digital media space rose 32 percent year on year from 2013 to 2014, with a net acquisition value from $2.3 B to $7.5 B, according to investment bank CoadyDiemar Partners. Also according to the same source, the number of deals has risen from 76 to 100.

The bigger media companies are purchasing smaller firms to reduce competition, gain market share, and build their own digital ad products, and typically claim to offer more comprehensive set of ad servicing vehicles and products than their smaller rivals. Startups, on the other hand, claim to be more agile and nimble than their bigger rivals, reports The Wall Street Journal.

According to the same article, the overall market for digital media ad spend remains one of the highest growth opportunities in advertising industry, with spending forecast to nearly double to $80 B from 2013 to 2017, according to Woodside Capital Partners.

CoadyDiemar also reported that as advertising becomes increasingly more prevalent, and as digital channels become more sophisticated and mature, further consolidation in the sector is likely to continue and increase both in terms of the number of deals as well as the overall transaction dollar amount.

Will Podcast 'Golden Age' Unlock Brand Advertising Budgets? Slate Introducing Podcast Network Panoply

http://adage.com/article/digital/podcast-golden-age-unlock-brand-advertising-budgets/297299/

http://adage.com/article/digital/podcast-golden-age-unlock-brand-advertising-budgets/297299/

Since the first airing of “Serial”, a podcast that describes a 1999 crime, it has racked up nearly 72 million downloads. US podcast consumption has risen, partly due to this podcast, 18% between spring and fall of 2014, according to Edison Research. Americans are consuming 21 million hours of podcasts daily.

This has been hailed by the New York magazine as the “great podcast renaissance”.

Before “Serial”, podcast ad spending was forecast to remain at a mere $34 million annually through 2016, and 80% of these ads prompt listeners to visit a website or call an 800 toll-free number. There is a resurgence of interest in podcast advertising, as content makers improve the quality and quantity of podcast material.

According to the Adage article, this renewed interest could inspire brand advertisers to devote a bigger portion of their budget to podcasting. This shift is expected to fuel greater demand for media companies as well as celebrities to meet the demand. Companies that build podcasting networks would also benefit, such as PodcastOne, which aggregates and sells ads against more than 200 podcasts. Slate is also announcing the launch of Panoply, its own podcasting network.

Slate produces 15 podcasts with a monthly download of 6.5 million, and is aiming to produce podcasts for other media companies. Ads will be the monetization vehicle for these podcasts.

Despite the renewed interest in podcasts, there are concerns that keep advertisers on the wary side. First is the audience size. Podcasts do not attract the large audiences that advertisers target. Consumer data is also difficult to obtain, such as demographics about the audience.

Google Puts Ads in Its App Store to Court Mobile App Marketers

http://adage.com/article/digital/google-putting-ads-app-store-s-search-results/297315/

According to an Adage report, Google is going to start exploring ways to monetize its mobile app store by displaying ads as part of the search results in the Google Play app store. The ad will be labeled in yellow. In many ways it is similar to how Google search currently functions. This is expected to yield another way for users to find relevant apps available through paid search. Says Jerry Dischler, Google’s VP-product management for AdWords.

Google hasn’t released any details around the pricing model of this new mobile app store search ads, whether ads will be priced based on per-click, per-install, per view, or other basis. Google’s move is a sign of the rising importance of app publishers as an important advertising segment. Makers of such “freemium” game apps as Candy Crush, Clash of Clans, like King Digital and Machine Zone, have all advertised in the Super Bowl this year.

The new mobile app search app model may be a new way for Google to recoup some of the costs it has spent promoting its app developers, as the company has driven hundreds of millions of downloads through Google-sold ads promoting the apps. In the past 12 months, Google has paid $7B to developers through app store sales.

 

Google is not the only online ad seller to monetize the app search customer base. Facebook, Twitter, and Yahoo all offer their own ad products to increase downloads for app developers. To help it consolidate its product, Google recently acquired Toro, a company that specialized in Facebook ads.