MediaPost Behavioral Marketing Forum-- "Effective Targeting" Research on the State of the Industry

A report on ad buyer attitudes toward BT and growth projections.
Emily Riley, Analyst, JupiterResearch



  • What does this really mean when you are trying to reach your consumers?

  • In five years 11% of all ad spend will be online

  • The static banner is going away and rich media is taking over

  • Information overload is a bigger issue than not enough info about audience

  • Only 16% of advertisers have used behavioral targeting, while 30% have geo-targeted and 33% have demo targeted

  • Advertisers are twice as satisfied when using BT

  • BT is becoming more popular for both brand and direct response advertisers. These advertisers are becoming the same.

  • Consumers are not as concerned with “spying” as they are with viruses and identity theft

  • Increasing the use of search behavior within BT is the key

  • Automotive leading the way in BT

  • 80% increase in banner impressions online in the last two years due to social media

  • Verticals with long purchase cycles will begin to embrace BT more thatn contextual etc.



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AOL Buys Tacoda For 200 MM

As I sit at the Mediapost Behavioral Summit, I am listening to Steve Smith announce that the leading behavioral targeting firm, Tacoda, has been acquired by AOL. This cetainly says a great deal about the power of BT, as well as the major push that AOL is making back into the forefront of interactive marketing.
clipped from www.marketwatch.com






AOL to pay $200 mln to $300 mln to buy online ad firm: New York Post









By MarketWatch

Last Update: 5:39 AM ET Jul 24, 2007





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MediaPost Behavioral Marketing Forum Raw Notes-- Personalization & Targeting Strategies: The Marriage of Technology and Creative

Forget about behavioral targeting "theory." In this workshop, you’ll learn real ways to quickly and easily deliver relevant and personalized content on your website and in ads – directly from leaders in the space. Jonathan Mendez and Paco Viñoly of OTTO Digital are pioneers in the personalization and optimization space. Using real-life examples from online marketing innovators, this workshop will go beyond the buzz and show you how to positively impact your bottom line through personalization.

Jonathan Mendez, Chief Strategy Officer, OTTO Digital
Paco Viñoly, Chief Creative Officer, OTTO Digital



  • Discovery of segmentation and affinities

  • Creative approach to messaging to these affinities

  • Testing

  • Different type of segmentation



    • Thick slices gives a larger data set to working and optimize off of



      • Small lifts make a bigger impact



    • Behavior

    • Temporal

    • Source



      • Natural search visitors varies from paid search



    • Environment



  • What does the targeting do to the message and vice versa



    • The message has to be true to the user



  • Behavioral/Contextual messaging based on internal navigation

  • Relevance and reinforcement of intent


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The River Of Politics Flows Faster Than Ever Before

What I find most interesting about tonights CNN/You Tube experiment is the long tail of citizen commentary that will be left behind. That is the most useful part of this whole excerise. As for the submissions that were asked at the debate, they were good, but CNN was simply wagging its PR engine and this event was relatively sterile.
clipped from youtube.com
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The New Media Is The Message, You Cannot Control It

Sure, CNN could not have let every video that was sent in go live on tonights experiment with You Tube, but were they transparent enough with how the selection process happened. One way or another, I am happy that this experiment is occuring and will not throw stones. I am just hoping best practices are learned and this process is optimized for the next round.
clipped from www.nytimes.com

Mr. Jarvis is among many who have criticized CNN for retaining control over which videos are shown, as opposed to showing the ones viewers watch the most or rate as the best.

“It’s our democracy, not yours, CNN,” he said. “There is a need for order, but not control.” He said that although random questions from ordinary people might show “some real turkeys,” it would also show that “people really care, and democracy is in good hands.”

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Accusations Of Lemming Like Activity Becoming Lemming Like

As the conversation about the merits of marketing in Second Life continues, the pendulum seems to be swinging back and forth to the widest extremes. At each extreme sits people who only know one opinion, their own.


To date, the Second Life debate has generated three groups of people (as far as I see it).




  1. Those who are 100% sold on the value of marketing in Second Life

    1. These people tend to be:




                                                               i.      Long term residents of Second Life


                                                             ii.      Marketers jumping on the bandwagon, or marketers hoping for a nice PR boost


                                                            iii.      Those who think that Second Life is, without a doubt, the next iteration of the web.




  1. Those who feel Second Life is nothing more than a fad and a waste of time for marketers

    1. These people tend to be:




                                                               i.      The “show me the numbers” folks


                                                             ii.      The people who go against the grain for the sake of going against the grain


                                                            iii.      The lazy folks who would rather continue doing what they know, and not bother spending a little extra time at the office working on experiments




  1. The third group is the smallest of the three. The third group is comprised of people who take an organic, fundamental look at Second Life, as well as what it stands for. These people tend to be:

    1. Those who are willing to put in a little extra time for experimentation.

    2. Those who know that, sometimes early mover advantage is only beneficial in that it provides one with the ability to fail first, learn from the failure, and then proceed to be the first to succeed

    3. Those who don’t really care about Second Life, per se. These people see Second Life and the closest realization of a new wave of communications and know that Second Life may not in fact be the silver bullet




I would tend to liken myself to the third group with one exception. I do care about Second Life on a more personal level. My experimentations in this virtual world have led me to meet some extremely creative, inspired people. Second Life has also allowed me to do some really interesting media experiments such as Virtualive.tv.


Always question extremists


I recently read an article by Rebecca Lieb of Clickz entitled, “Second Life, Lemming Like”. Rebecca is yet another journalist in the wave of anti-bandwagon journalist’s to denounce Second Life as a viable way to market. While I do not fully disagree with everything Rebecca has to say (and completely respect and appreciate her right to speak her mind), I take issue with her approach. r




  1. Rebecca’s stance is staunch. She apparently feels that marketers should not enter Second Life, end of story.

    1. Does she think that every creative idea has already been tested in Second Life?




                                                               i.      Perhaps we have not seen a perfect Second Life campaign yet, but does that mean everyone should stop trying. After all, the barriers to entry are relatively low and the possibilities are endless.


                                                             ii.      For creativities sake, I hope no one takes her advice as gospel. Think for yourself folks. If you have a creative strategy to implement in Second Life and you are aware of the risk and the potential for failure, go for it! Don’t let anyone ever tell you no!



  1. Here is a quote from her piece,





  1.  “All that abandoned corporate property kind of resembles derelict corporate blogs, doesn't it? Same thing, really. Hire an agency, drink some Kool-Aid...then move on and leave the mess behind you (for all to see, of course).




i. Rebecca, this only proves that doing anything poorly will have poor results. I am 100% on the same page with you that there were a tremendous amount of poorly executed corporate blog strategies, but does that discredit the ones that worked?




  1. What do you have against sex anyhow :) ?

    1. Okay, so that point was a joke, but the fact of the matter is that the internet is riddled with pornography. Should we stop marketing on the internet?

    2. My main issue with people continually bringing up the vast amount of sexually charged activity in Second Life is that it adds nothing to the conversation.

    3. This line of reasoning is the default cop out for those making a case against Second Life. The lack of creativity in this argument is becoming increasingly boring.




A Media Circ.us Bottom Line\



  1. Think for yourselves



  1. Take a look at the whole picture before devising a strategy



  1. Second Life is certainly not right for everyone, but it is no ones place to say it is right for no one!


And now to stir the pot a bit. I have chosen a handful of people who have conveyed strong opinions on the merits (or lack thereof) of marketing in Second Life. I tried to put together a list the runs the gamut between love, hate and uncertainty. The one thing that all these people have in common is that they are highly intelligent well respected individuals.


I would love to hear what the following people have to say about Rebecca’s article and this conversation in general. So please except my link invitation :) (of course I would love to hear from everyone, I just this list could produce a great conversation)


Joseph Jaffe


C.C. Chapman


Greg Verdino


John Swords


Jason Heller


Clay Shirky


Darren Barefoot


Alana Semuels


Allison Fass


Prokofy Neva


Mark Wallace


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Jeremiah Owyang, , , , , ,

Fan-Force/Transmedia Storytelling/Experience Planning

Head over to our friends, Fan-Force's blog for a post on the continuing meme surrounding transmedia storytelling and experience planning. It is worth a read!















clipped from fan-force.com





What Prince is proving is:
1. Giving away music doesn’t mean you won’t make any money from it.






2. An artists BRAND is more important than his music…Prince’s BRAND was leveraged to get this deal in the first place






3. The music is just the beginning of the road…the real money is in the added value to your brand, the touring, the merchandising, the licensing.






4. Saying FU to the labels while wearing assless chaps is classic!








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More Talk Of Yahoo Acquisition

It is not news that there has been a lot of talk about an acquisition of Yahoo by MSN, but perhaps there is another suitor that makes sense? After all, there is another media company that could benefit from Yahoo's digital distribution network. Brad Berens of iMedia thinks that an appropriate suitor may just be Sony...hmmm. Not a bad idea!
clipped from www.bloomberg.com

July 18 (Bloomberg) -- The chance Yahoo! Inc. will put
itself up for sale has increased after the most-visited U.S. Web
site lowered its revenue forecast, according to Stanford Group.
Microsoft Corp. is a candidate to buy the company, analyst
Clayton Moran said.

A Yahoo-Microsoft union ``could be a significant challenger
to Google and could increase Microsoft's competitiveness,'' Moran
said in an interview.

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Test Of Clip To Blog

This is a test of Clipmarks, Clip To Blog (which is totally coo!). I was having issues getting it to work with Wordpress, not becuase it is hard to do, becuase I am a fool . Eric Skiff was nice enough to help troubleshoot but in the end, my favorite way of trouble shooting paid off, guessing!!!!
clipped from www.imediaconnection.com
The new rules of interactive marketing include finding ways to monetize the "my" generation of users who want control over their information flow.
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Who Are You, Digitally Speaking?

I just started reading Pierre Levy's "Collective Intelligence" and it got me thinking about digital identity, knowledge communities and knowledge networks, and how through these various channels, we as a people, are able to extend ourselves and our intelligent nature in democratically organized directions never before possible.

Chrisbook

This morning I read a post by Chris Brogan Superstar which spoke about the various things he would do if he could rebuild Facebook. Without even reading his list I knew I agreed with every point he was about to make. Not because I trust his opinions :) , but because a truly democratized digital persona, operating within the confines of our new digitized, social economy, should have the ability to define themselves, and the way in which they are able to define themselves in any way they see fit.

Sure, a platform needs to be able to be monetized and so does content (Brad Grier ponders this over at his blog) but that needs to be a secondary or even a tertiary thought, as a platform without mass will never be monetized anyhow. As someone in the ad industry I know this all too well!

Facebook As AOL 2.0

Here is a meme worth propagating. I first saw the link at Brogan's blog and then followed it over to Kottke.org:

Have a look at these two posts (ok, I am riding the long tail with these. They are a few weeks old):

Facebook is the New AOL

Facebook VS AOL Redux

I am going to reserve judgment on these posts for now and be content in my meme propagation. I really need to think more about these posts before commenting.

Sir Owyang Always Sheds The Light

Jeremiah Owyang wrote this:

"Facebook is a closed garden with one way doors. Data in, but no data out. With so many companies, startups, ecommerce companies building widgets for this platform did anyone stop to consider that they’re not letting data flow out?"

How can a truly democratized knowledge community thrive in a walled garden?

So What Does A Media Cir.us Think?

How can we maintain our digital identity and the digital identity of our knowledge community?

I love Facebook and think that it adds a lot of value. Yes, I can get a great deal of the same value through the organic platform that blogger's have created by leveraging various open source platforms, but will this ever scale to the point that I can truly achieve the type of collective intelligence that Pierre Levy says can only grow out of a intelligent knowledge communities or networks?

Many of the smartest people I know will never have a blog, don't care to use Twitter and cannot even pronounce Jaiku, and many of these people are individuals that I want in my pool of knowledge.

As much as I hate to say it, I have no strategy to achieve such a community other than a strategy that adopts simple rules (I recommend the essay Strategy As Simple Rules, as I have found it has influenced my business life as well as my personal life). Sometimes 100% definitive strategies serve as nothing more than blinders to experimentation and optimization.

What I am really trying to say is, I am going to keep my eyes open. Heed Jeremiah's warning and continually listen to my intelligent network.

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Widgetry Needs To Go Back To School


I think that Rodney Dangerfield had it right in the classic 1986 comedy, Back To School, when he asked the following question:


Dangerfield: "What's a widget?"


 Professor: "It's a fictional product"


Dangerfield: "Yeah, try tellin' that to the bank"


It does seem as though this fact has been told to the bank (or at least the investment bankers), and they are listening.  Why shouldn't they?


After all, comscore reported a 24% growth in widget reach to 230 million (I cannot seem to find the press release but it seems to be quoted everywhere).


I have a few questions:




  • Are we really getting to the heart of the matter when we focus all this attention towards something that economists once used as a word to describe a variable, or a fictional product?




  •  Is it possible we are looking too closely at the surface and not examining the engine that is powering this new widget craze?




  • The nature of this recent game change does not lie in the widgets themselves.




  • The shift is in the way we are beginning to consume media, and this new mode of media consumption is not endemic to the widgetosphere (yes, I heard someone use that term. I believe that I heard this term last week at WidgetCon).




If my memory were a bit better I would be able to tell you who said the following:


 “Widgets are no more than RSS with a dress”


Verdino, did you say that at Widgetcon?


Even if you did not, you should claim it as your own as it was the most poignant thing that was said all day (I also enjoyed Ian Schafer of Deep Focus’s proclamation that he was changing the entire nature of his business to widgets)!


When looking at content syndication, it is imperative to consider the dynamic between form and function and the importance of the power structure between the two in modern media. The widget is merely a form by which the function of pull style syndication is carried out.


Without the widespread desire for the function, the form would not be needed.


So are widgets a game changer or are they a product and a symbol of a larger game change?


(Insert your comments here, please!)


A MEDIA CIRC.US BOTTOM LINE


Be creative!


Consider your overall position, story and goals. Then decide what vessels are essential in implementing your overarching strategy.




  • Widgets are not a strategy, they are a media vehicle




  • Podcasting, Blogging and Second Life are not strategies




  • New Media is not a strategy




All of these things are simply vehicles to drive your strategy. Do you know what your strategy is?


If so, remember that you are, were and always will be in the driver’s seat. For your own sake you better hope that a widget cannot possess the ability to drive your strategy, as you may very well find yourself out of a job.



...and now for you viewing pleasure, the triple lindy!





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Life Before The 30 Second Page View

In a long overdue, but highly celebrated and respected (by some of us) announcement, Nielsen has stated that they will not longer rate sites based on the page view, rather they will be rated on time spent on site.


What does this mean for the media planner?


The first thing that it means is that not enough agency people are reading the trades/ or the game changing impact of this news was not as obvious as I think.


Last week there was a lot of chatter about this announcement however, in comparison to talk about the iPhone, this news may well have been a weather report.


Where is everyone?


I had a busy week and did not write about this for a few days, perhaps it was a busy week all around, as this is one of the top 3 things to happen to the industry this year and potentially one of the top ten things to ever happen to the interactive space and I feel there was very little noise made. I hope the truth is that I did not do a good job in keeping up with the news last week and simply did not hear all the quality noise.



  • Interactive Media Planners: Drink up, enjoy your publisher lunches and perks while you can. Your jobs are about to change and there will be a lot of work involved!!!

  • Traditional Media Planners: This is your last chance to get in on the future. We will be needing your skills, only we will need you to work with us.



DEATH TO THE CHASM BETWEEN TRADITIONAL AND NEW MEDIA PLANNERS, LONG LIVE THE EXPERIENCE PLANNER!


What does this mean for the publisher?


Publishers, are you ready for this? Have you thought about how exactly you are going to sell your media in the new world?



  • Have you thought about the fact that impressions may not be the way to sell media?

  • Perhaps it is time to start looking at qualitative ways approach media sales.

  • Perhaps it is time to start selling engaging experiences


I buy media. I would buy a quality experience not based on impressions if I felt that you spent time devising a quality strategy.  


What does this mean for the growth of The Experience Web?


Ok, anyone who reads this blog or has heard my speak lately knows I have a one track mind (The Experience Web…no that does not mean Second Life).


I have not heard one person talk about selling experience in light of Nielsen’s recent announcement. If time spent on site is really how we are going to be measuring media, how else can it be bought and sold?


Are we going to start selling thirty second page views at the risk of having Joseph Jaffe coming to your house and killing you with lectures (Joe, you know I am huge fan, have listened to everyone of your rants and loved them all)?


The answer is of course, no (although I would love Joe to come to office and give a lecture to my team. I am still waiting for CC as well :) ). What we are going to have to start doing is planning experiences that are engaging and that add value. That is the bottom line. That has always been the bottom line and will always be the bottom line. The difference now it that we have the metrics to prove it.


My question for all of you is, how will you be engaging and provide valuable experiences?


Who Else is Talking


Read/Write Web


AJAXIAN


All Things Digital


Computerworld


Webpronews


Arun Rajagopal



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Just A Roundup Of Some Stuff

Yahoo Suggest


I think we can put this in the who cares file...



Habbo Continues To Engage. They Totally Get It!


If you want to look at people who understand how to operate in a Virtual World keep your eyes on Habbo. They continually engage their audience and give them a reason to keep coming back. Have a look at the DJ contest they are having to promote their totally cool Trax Machine.


Nokia Adopts Open Collaboration


Do you want to sell product? If so, why don't you work with the people who will be buying your product. Is this so complicated? Not For Nokia who is hosting the second annual Mobile Rules,  mobile development competition. Take a look here for more info.


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Making Friends At The iMedia Summit

The iMedia Entertainment Summit a few weeks ago was great! One of the best parts was the networking and the discussion that I had with my new homeboy Russell Scott, CEO of Jetset Studios. While they cut out the funny bits from our conversation, it is still worth a watch.


See it here (iMedia is not yet doing the embed thing, I will chat with them :) )


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Steve Rubel @ Widgetcon-- RAW NOTES

Steve Rubel, SVP, Edelman




  • The Picture in A Picture Web




  • The widgetosphere :)




  • See things from other sites from wherever you are




  • We had a moment of silence for the page view




  • I don’t think Steve was here when someone showed that slide this morning




  • Google has changed the way they calculate the impact of widgets




  • Death of the page view as a “Berlin Wall” type moment




  • Web 3.0




  • When websites become web services




  • You can plug data in anywhere




  • Content that finds you across distributed platforms




  • Bite Sized Entertainment—Snack Culture




  • Technology as steroid or catalyst for social change




  • Developers have taken ownership of platforms such as Google IG




  • How do all these platforms connect across various technologies




  • Mobile is the next big frontier for widgets




  • Distributed content, embed code was the first step




  • People don’t have time to go to 400 social networks, we are facing an attention crash




  • Talked about CBS feeding content to Google Earth




  • Fit In—Think about how to make your content small so it could fit into wherever people wants to consume it




  • Share—Web Standards for widgets (Steve wants to see more effort towards sharing)




  • Google Gadget Ventures




  • Think Win Win




  • Connecting-- do you let people connect in a way that is going to be useful to them




  • Be Open—“The not invented here syndrome is deadly”




  • Open systems win




  • Television as a platform for widgets




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More Raw Notes From Widgetcon

Case Study Set 1


Ed Anuff, CEO, WidgetBox


3 distinct types of Advertising Widgets 




  • Branded Content




  • In Widget Advertising




  • Objective Editorial




  • Branded Content




  • Ad Supported




  • E-commerce




Widgets themselves need to need to be marketed


Eyal Gever, CEO/Co-Founder, Gizmoz


(the creator of the MTV Taco Bell campaign)




  • Personalized avatars based on a picture of yourself and enter it into a widget




  • Create an MTV audition for a Taco Bell commercial




  • Answering Machine widget





Hooman Radfar, Founder, Clearspring Technologies




  • Widgets are bringing the web directly to the consumer




  • Active versus passive approach




  • User initiates the relationship





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The Morning at Widgetcon (RAW NOTES)

Opening Remarks


Chris Cunningham, Freewebs, Master of Ceremonies


A witty opening video routine by Chris Cunningham kicked off the show. A lost Cunningham traversed the city asking passers by, “what is the best way to sell a widget?” Pretty funny stuff, even to  cynics like me :)


Opening Keynote: Advertising 2.0: When will Marketing catch up to Media?


Chris Jones, Former CEO, JWT


Disclaimer: Chris sits on the board of freewebs




  • A self evident truth that you can divide the world into two type of people

    • The people who can divide people into 2 groups and people who cannot




  • Digital Natives

    • You cannot be a digital native if you are over 30



  • Digital Immigrants

  • “you will not find me seeking to display native skills”


  • Advantages to being an immigrant

    • Enthusiasm based on knowledge of the old



  • The world is not yet certain about the robustness about any business in the digital space

  • Disruption—The internet has not created chaos, it has simply revealed it

  • “It may have been a consumer society but the gods were the television networks and the temples were walmart…”

  • Agora- The greek marketplace


(this is a very interesting sermon, history lesson :) )



  • Talks about distribution via railroad etc. pioneers


(while this is all very interesting, I am loosing the sense of relevance….the historic account is great, but it has been going on for about 15 minutes at this point)



  • Distributed power and literacy


  • 3 great forces powering the interactive space

    • Bandwidth

    • Search

    • UGC (17 MM people have posted content on the web)



  • The digital worlds lives in the Agora, not in the temple (I dig that one)



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Amazon Gives You What You Want, Where You Want It...and Plays Games.

Everyday there seems to be a new acquisition by Google, a new product offering by Yahoo and new innovations from Microsoft and Apple. So where is Amazon you ask? Everywhere you want them to be…(well?)


Amazon Unbox On Tivo


When I first heard about Amazon Unbox I thought, the masses are not yet accepting of downloading movies on iTunes, what makes Amazon think that people will download from them?


The next strategic move in the “let's pretend IPTV is something new and dress it up for the masses” space came from Apple with its iTV. This move was less than inspiring (although I am sure there is an Apple fanboy or two who would argue that statement, whether or not they have ever used an iTV). Why are people going to shell out 3-500 dollars to do something that they can already do with their home computer (and are largely not doing)?


Not Sold!


Now Amazon has fired back with a strategic alliance with Tivo. This to me makes the most sense so far. People already have their Tivo’s hooked up to their TV’s, getting rid of the need to connect a PC to a TV (of course, I, and the rest of the digerati have this type of setup, but I am not so sure the mass market is setup this way). I don’t think it is a silver bullet, but it is a step in the right direction.


On To Something Completely Different; Askville (so Amazon wants to play games, huh!)


The quest for the perfect search engine continues. Jason Calacanis is in with his Mahalo human engine, there are about 200 new multimedia engines, and now Amazon has thrown its hat in the ring (ok, I know this is not true, their hat has been in for a while but it feels like they are only now getting serious), but why I ask? What are they trying to do with this? Are they going to compete with Google and Yahoo, or are they simply adding value to their current empire?


With their recent launch of Askville it is apparent that Amazon is going to be getting more aggressive with their A9 product. But are they innovating?


Well, they say they are with their lofty claims about Clickriver Ads and Open Search, but to me they seem like no more than a PPC program and a meta search engine. I suppose I could be wrong, I will just sit here and wait for someone from Amazon to contact me and fill me in.


Anyhow, the reason for my initial interest was due to the fact that I saw Mark Wallace blog about this on 3pointD. Due to the fact that Mark does not generally blog about search, I knew that there was something else here, and indeed there was. Take a look at the gaming nature of how Amazon has set up their human powered engine. To me this is very intriguing, although I am not so sure that the wisdom of crowds will be able to combat the wisdom of spammers that will inevitably attempt to stifle this effort.


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