Marketers Studio - David Berkowitz's Marketing Blog

Journalist Generation Gap with Social Media: SNCR & Middleberg

Image via WikipediaI'm a little behind in going through email, but I'm glad I caught this release sent to me about the generation gap in how journalists perceive social media.

The results came out at the 3rd annual Society of New Communications Research Symposium, released by SNCR and Middleberg Communications.

There are two key overall findings released. The first is hardly surprising, but interesting to see quantified: younger journalists are far more optimistic about social media:

Key findings among youngest versus older journalists:
• 100% of Millennial respondents (i.e., 18-29 year-olds) believe new media and communications tools are enhancing journalism, versus 40% in the 50-64 demographic
• 87% of 18-29 year-olds believe bloggers have become important opinion-shapers, versus 60% of 50-64 year-olds
• 87% of 18-29 year-olds confirm that new media and communications enhances the relationship with their audience, versus 42% of 50-64 year-olds

The release also quantified some of journalists' use of social media:

Key findings among all journalists:
• 48% of all respondents use LinkedIn, and 45% use Facebook to assist in reporting
• 68% of all respondents use blogs to keep up on issues or topics of interest
• 86% of all respondents use company websites, 71% use Wikipedia, and 46% use blogs to research an individual organization

The study's still in progress, so I'll be interested in seeing the response rates by age and more details when it wraps. You can view the PDF of the release, or if you're a journalist, you can take the survey.

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Discovering Hot Spots From YouTube Insights

Image by via CrunchBase

The most valuable benefit of marketing videos on YouTube may not be the views but what you learn about the viewers.

Last week, we talked about YouTube's Sponsored Video ad platform and how it's a complement to, but not replacement for, traditional search engine marketing. If you do find value in driving video views, you'll be even more excited about what YouTube tells you about those viewers. We'll review some examples of what Insights tells you and how you can use it.

There are five categories of reports in Insights: Views, Popularity, Demographics, Discovery, and Hot Spots. The first three are straightforward, where you can find out: how many views your video has received over time with breakouts by state, country, and continent;  the relative popularity of your video compared to others on YouTube; and age and gender breakdowns for the video's viewers. The last two require a closer look.

Discovery

This is the dashboard you'll love most as a search marketing junkie. You can find out how and where people are watching the video, including options such as YouTube search, an embedded player, Google search, external links (Twitter is included here), related videos, and a "viral/other" category that means it was passed along via email or IM.

With the search categories, you can click to see which terms people are using. Want to build a keyword list to market your video through Sponsored Video or AdWords? Start with the most effective terms from this list. Maybe there are searches you'd expect to see but don't; consumers either aren't using those terms, or your video isn't optimized for those queries.  Similarly, your video might be ranking for unexpected queries. This all presents new optimization opportunities. And if you optimize well for YouTube's search engine, those videos could potentially rank higher in Google, too.

The referring sources for embedded videos should also be monitored. Would these sources want to embed more of your content? Are there other ways to forge deeper relationships? Would related sites be interested?

Hot Spots

With Hot Spots, you can find out which segments of a video are capturing the most attention, provided the video has enough views. There's an average attention line for your video; "cold" segments indicate viewer drop-off or a lack of repeat viewing, while "hot" areas indicate repeat viewing. I'll use an example of a video clip I posted where  I posed as a Weather.com anchor (see the  write-up from Christina Kerley for the background). There's an introductory segment in the clip that's cold, though it gradually gains steam. Then, 12 seconds into it, right as I start the broadcast, it heats up for the next 30 seconds.

What might I do if I'm a marketer? One idea is that with Sponsored Video ads, I could draw attention to the hot part of the video. If it's a certain cast member people are watching, play that up. If people keep rewinding a racy segment, allude to that. While it's not always easy to predict what the best parts will be ahead of time, usually it's easy to understand why the Hot Spots are on fire.

Let's say you're trying to get the word out through digital word of mouth -- reaching out to bloggers and other online influencers. These people might not have the attention span to watch a two-minute clip. But if you tell them to check out the best 20 seconds so they'll know why it's perfect for their audience, you might strike a chord with those influencers -- and their audiences. Such a strategy can build up links to improve that video's ranking in natural search results, and sometimes they'll link to your homepage or other properties, giving you even more Google juice.

That's a Wrap

I'd love to be able to combine these reports even more. For instance, what if you could combine Demographics and Discovery to learn the search terms by age, gender, and country? Might Hot Spots differ for different types of users? All of this could continue to provide even more fuel for video marketing.

Until then, there's enough here to keep busy with. The more views you can attract for your videos, the better the information will be, so it's a virtuous circle that's augmented when you apply the intelligence to improving your campaigns.

Amazon's Kindle: A Personal Review

Image by TheFemGeek via FlickrLast month, as a gift I received Amazon's Kindle Amazon's Kindle.I wasn't ready to get one just yet. I read about a book a week and love having them around, as the scores of books at my office and bountiful floor-to-ceiling bookshelves at home can attest.

My first Kindle experience was with my uncle's. I tried it for a bit and was impressed with the clarity and usability; it's a very short learning curve to get up to speed. But that was a number of months ago, and I've preferred the old-fashioned version.

Books are for me what widgets are for MySpace users. In many ways, they're a form of self-expression:

• There's the physical manifestations on my shelves, so a small number of people encounter them that way.
• Then there's the self-expression by reading books in public; I'm almost always reading on the subway and often when I'm walking I keep a book in my hand. Usually someone will look over to see what I'm reading. I've had some interesting discussions that way, such as when I spoke with a Starbucks barista about Tim Sanders' book Love is the Killer App, or the two people who commented on David Vinjamuri's Accidental Branding - one of whom knew the author.
• Lastly, there's the virtual manifestations - and no, I don't mean the Virtual Bookshelf Facebook apps and the like. I mean how books come up in conversation, and when I ask someone what they're reading and they ask as much as me, it says something about me. 

It's this more meta role - the concept of the book rather than its physical entity - that can still be served by the Kindle, and it's why it can augment rather than detract from my bibliophilia.

So, about the Kindle...

It's light, lighter than most books I read (not that the books I read are too dense). It feels twice as heavy in the cover that's included, which does a good job of protecting it (though if you're in a wet, sandy, or dirty area, you'll want to still keep it in a bag; it's not meant to totally shield it.

Downloading books takes less time than expected. It works on Sprint's wireless EVDO network, which Amazon calls the Whispernet. Full books take seconds to download.

Reading is really easy. You can set the text size to what works for you. The screen clarity's perfect. The buttons for flipping forward and back are easily accessible so you can read the book one-handed.

The weight and usability make it especially easy to read in the subway, even on the cramped Lexington line at rush hour where overcrowding is rampant. There's no need to fumble along to try to turn a page single-handedly or annoy others with newspapers getting in their faces.

Battery life is great - most of the time. If you keep the wireless access off, it can go for several days without a charge while using it frequently. An Amazon support representative told me that instead of turning it on and off, you can leave it on, where a static screensaver appears, and that takes even less energy. Apparently once the screensaver kicks in, it takes no additional power to keep displaying it.

I like taking notes in the back of books, and it's easy to write notes and create bookmarks on the Kindle. Also, there's easy access to a dictionary when you want to look something up.

There are a few negatives:

• You can't search the books or even get to the index. 
• You can tell roughly how far you're into the book, but I miss page numbers, and you can't see how far you are into a chapter. I'll often read a couple more pages in a sitting if it means finishing a chapter, so that doesn't work here.
• It's hard to flip around. In the book I'm reading now offline, William Dalrymple's The Last Mughal, it's sometimes helpful to flip back to the glossary, or flip to the front where the character descriptions are listed. You can set bookmarks in the Kindle, but's not as easy as keeping your thumb in a certain place.
• The battery life caused me my greatest frustration. When I went to Boston for a one-night trip, I didn't bother bringing my Kindle charger as it looked like the the battery was mostly full. Yet it died on me soon after I got to Boston. I may have had the wireless access on too much, but there was still no indication that the juice was about to run out. 
• While the Kindle is connected to my Amazon account, it's not connected to my Amazon shopping cart. I'd love to easily check to see which Amazon print books I've saved in my cart are available on the Kindle.
• The Kindle's a bit hard to hold without hitting buttons because the buttons take up so much space.
• You'll have to shut off the Kindle when a plane's taking off and landing. Those are my favorite times to read as a distraction. I guess there's always the seat pocket magazine.
• You can't get Kindle books autographed. I LOVE autographed books. Dang.
• Sharing books doesn't quite work either.

I read two books on the Kindle before writing this - Philip Roth's Indignation and Greg Mortenson's Three Cups of Tea (both great reads and memorable stories. I'm not totally abandoning physical books thanks to the Kindle. I've got a few others, including Mughal, that I have around here and plan to read. I am really excited to have the Kindle with me when I travel (as long as I remember the charger); I'll be away at least 19 days between now and early January, and while I may take a physical book like Mughal that I'm in the middle of, I won't take any others; it's much easier to travel light now.

At some point, I'll have to make more conscious decisions about what I read in which format. Do I want something for the bookshelves? Will I need to flip around a lot? Or do I want the convenience of reading it, and the benefit of saving physical shelf space?

I'd imagine for some great books I'll buy them in both formats. I might download a Kindle version first and then wind up at a book signing where I'll buy a copy there, or I'll love it so much that I want to have the more permanent version.

While I'm a bit torn over some aspects of it, I will keep reading on the Kindle, and it is already changing how I read.

Subway Sounds: 6 Train Subway Rant

Image by kalyan3 via FlickrA little Friday slice of life...

This morning I got on the 6 train at East 86th Street that runs from the Bronx through Harlem down the east side of Manhattan until Brooklyn Bridge/City Hall; it should have been just another eight-stop commute to work.

When I got on, a 50-something woman was arguing with an older man, with her originally telling him things like "You are not God!" and "Obama is my president!" I didn't get it, and still don't.

My first instinct: Should I get off the train?

That was quickly replaced by my second instinct: No way!

And then my third instinct kicked in: I have to record this.

Fortunately I had a Pulse Smartpen from Livescribe on me. I was able to record five minutes of her rant, and the guy comes in if you turn the volume up. Midway through, there's a burst of laughter. The woman narrates it, and she's not exaggerating -- his teeth really did fall out.

Note this is audio only, and this is not safe for work if your workplace frowns on lots of profanity. Rated a strong PG-13.

You can play the subway rant here.

Facebook Page SEO: Will It Matter?

Image by sitmonkeysupreme via FlickrToday I posted an entry on 360i's blog relating to search engine optimization on Facebook. I'm not going to repost the whole thing, but it's an interesting issue, one I've been discussing quite a bit with my colleague Mike Levin. The post includes quotes of mine from MediaPost's coverage of the story.

The impetus for the latest discussion is that Facebook now will include links to Pages (the stuff you say you're a fan of) in public profile listings. Public profile listings are indexed by Google. Google likes links. More links means (to oversimplify it) better search rankings. Do the dots all connect?

There are a few key things you should pay attention to:

1. There are no guarantees that this will have a major SEO boost. The more I dive into this, the more it's apparent that Facebook is guilty of so many worst practices. That can change, but SEO is not high on their priority list.
2. We also don't know how many fans are needed to really rev up the Facebook Page rankings.
3. If the answer to #2 is "a lot," then marketers will have to really earn those fans, so there will be some cost/benefit analysis around that. Do you spend the manpower along with a potential Facebook media buy to push these Pages and get the SEO value, or do you invest resources elsewhere?

Meanwhile, here's some of the coverage from 360i's blog. Click to read the complete entry on Facebook SEO:

If you’ve ever done some vanity searching in Google (come on, admit it) and you have profiles on a number of sites, you probably found that your LinkedIn page, Flickr account, and other links come up before Facebook. We were doing a lot of vanity searching in the office yesterday to test this out, and Facebook links were out there, but generally buried.

Some of this was addressed in MediaPost:

…Potential traffic gains for branded Pages from search engine listings could be limited by Facebook’s lack of focus on search engine optimization. “The way links on Facebook are structured right now, they don’t have the type of permanence that search engines are looking for,” said David Berkowitz, director of emerging media and client strategy at search engine marketing firm 360i.

He continued: “Facebook does evolve pretty quickly, but so far they’ve been a little behind the curve when it comes to SEO.”

.

Pausing To Rate YouTube’s Sponsored Video

Image via CrunchBase

Let’s agree right away that YouTube’s Sponsored Video isn’t the next Google Killer.

It’s not even the next Yahoo killer, even though comScore recently reported that YouTube is now the second largest search engine. Fittingly, around the time that the comScore news broke, Google publicly launched search-triggered Sponsored Video ads on YouTube. Does this mean marketers need to consider YouTube over Yahoo and Microsoft?

It’s not going to quite work out that way. First, it’s helpful to understand how YouTube search ads work:

• You need to promote a video that’s on YouTube. This is designed to drive video views, not site traffic.

• You must have uploaded the video through your YouTube account. For my trial, I used this video I titled “Soufflecam,” a grainy, shaky shot of a waiter serving chocolate soufflé while at a dinner with New York Times columnist David Pogue.

• You can target videos for words and phrases, and they’re supposed to be relevant to the video, though I’ve found many ads running on completely irrelevant terms. Presumably Google is focusing on driving up inventory for now rather than fine-tuning relevance. For my video, I used phrases like “chocolate soufflé” — surely a top query.

• Ads run on a cost-per-click basis.

This is all very different from search advertising. With a typical search engine marketing campaign, not only are direct response metrics critical, but you get penalized for branding messaging. With sponsored videos, you have some flexibility to include branding, and you’re promoting content.

Taking a step back, the consumer mindset is very different on Google and YouTube. On Google, a consumer might be looking to buy a new car. On YouTube, a consumer might be looking for a cool car commercial. Viewing that commercial might improve various branding metrics, but there will be a large percentage of people who just want to watch the commercial that everyone’s talking about.

Google and YouTube also differ in terms of the marketers they attract. Google AdWords opened up to everyone. It got to the point where marketers stopped asking if they should advertise on Google and instead asked how much they could spend there while still reaping a return on ad spending. Google’s not the most important platform for every marketer, but every marketer needs to consider it, and just about everyone can get at least some value out of it.

YouTube Sponsored Video is something else entirely. Yes, more marketers are uploading videos to YouTube, but how many of those videos will benefit from paid promotion? Some marketers can quantify it. Movie studios want to get people to watch their trailers, and they understand the value of it. Bands can use music videos to try to fill up a venue. Marketers can also pay to promote their responses to major issues and crises, such as when JetBlue founder and then CEO David Neeleman published a video apology for a string of lengthy delays. At the time, that segment might have benefited from Sponsored Video. Today, that apology comes up first when I searched for “JetBlue” on YouTube, so JetBlue might want to run an ad to direct searchers to something a little more upbeat.

While more marketers will find ways to use Sponsored Video, it won’t be for everyone. Not everyone’s in the brand-building business online, and not everyone who is will have video assets that are good enough to merit promotion on YouTube. Marketers who try to promote subpar content may find themselves with negative reviews and ratings, so it’s important to be selective.

On the flipside, video ratings are included in the Sponsored Video ad, so great videos will attract even more viewers with their four- and five-star ratings. I searched for James Bond on YouTube the Monday after the latest movie premiere and an ad from Activision appeared promoting a trailer for the video game based on the movie. The game trailer is rated five stars, and clicking the video shows it received 19 ratings, so YouTube’s community validates Activision several times throughout the experience. That’s unique to YouTube, and the advertiser benefits even without a click (in some ways, the advertiser benefits more without clicks since impressions are free).

The first step, as Activision learned, is uploading good content. There’s no official Quality Score, but don’t get lulled into a false sense of complacency. While Google won’t judge you here, your potential customers will.

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Exploring Your Social Constellation

I've seen some social graph applications on Facebook before, but the one that fascinates me the most is Nexus, which maps your entire graph.

Below I've shown an annotated version of mine; the interactive one's up here. 

It's fascinating to see how the constellation shapes up.

Here's a brief guide to mine:

1. The heart of my constellation is my connections through work. In the social media space, so many people are so intimately interconnected, forming that dense web.
2. These are mostly my 360i colleagues, along with some partners and clients, all more densely interconnected with each other than with my other contacts, though many have some ties to the middle.
3. Here are my iCrossing colleagues, where I worked before 360i. Some of them also pop up in the middle too.
4. The lower right shows my college friends almost exclusively.
5. The lower left is my more distant past - elementary and high school. There are very few people in this group I've spoken with in the past five years, and many here I barely knew at all when I went to school with them.

There are two lines of thought that come up as I look at this.

First, I'd love to use this to explore mutual connections. It's great for unearthing some hidden relationships. Click on any person and you can see who you know in common, and then what kinds of groups and interests you have in common with that circle.

The other thing I wonder about is how marketers may use this information. With one click on Facebook, I opted in to give the app access to this info. It doesn't automatically know the sorts of information available in my annotations, but there also is some public information (like people sharing how they know each other) that could be tapped.

If marketers could access all of it, or say if Facebook could on behalf of marketers, or if Nexus used this to power an ad network - the scenarios are limitless - then what would it mean for ad targeting? It's evident here that not all connections are created equal. I'm tightly intertwined in some networks while marginally in others. Some of my networks are more likely to talk to each other, so some of these small communities could have a lot of pull. My wife is just one node here, more off to the side and most closely linked to my college friends (my family is mostly aligned just a bit further out and to the left of my college circle), and yet she has more pull with me than any other hundred nodes combined.

In light of that, I can't say I know where it will all go, and we have a lot of research and experimented needed, but it's a sign of where things are going.

Have Gadget, Will Search - Searching from the iPod Touch, Amazon Kindle, and Chumby

Image by The Rocketeer via Flickr

Today's Search Insider, Originally Published in MediaPost

The biggest prediction I’ll make for 2009 is that it will be the first year where the device you search from will matter almost as much as what your query is. Having mobile scale as a viable search marketing channel will be the biggest driver, but this extends beyond smartphones. Consider how GPS is making in-car telematics mainstream.

As I’ve been trying out some alternative devices lately, today we’ll look at the search experience on the iPod Touch, Amazon’s Kindle, and the Chumby.

iPod Touch
It’s a different mentality searching from the iPod Touch than from an iPhone. Both devices are similar, except for three key differences: the iPod Touch relies on Wi-Fi rather than the 3G/Wi-Fi combo the iPhone uses; there’s no GPS for the Touch, but it can hone in on location via Wi-Fi signals; and the Touch doesn’t have a camera.

Searching Google from the Touch delivers a mobile version of search results, where some ads appear above the natural results, but there are no ads to the right. Yahoo and Live.com also use the single-column approach. While it can vary from publisher to publisher, the experience is generally a hybrid of the Web and mobile, and as it evolves will only get better as a practical but powerful search driver.

I’m not yet willing to rely on AT&T and switch to the iPhone as a phone, but I love the Touch interface more than my Samsung i760 smartphone. When I want to quickly check email in the morning or look up a few things on the road, I reach for the Touch first, with the Samsung as a backup. As more data comes out, marketers will come to have a better understanding of what Touch users search for.

Kindle
I’m not ready to give up on books (or bookshelves) quite yet, but after plowing through Philip Roth’s “Indignation” on Amazon’s Kindle, I’ll keep it on me for awhile. It was great traveling on an overnight trip to Boston where I could finish “Indignation” and download another book on the road rather than taking two volumes with me.

The Kindle’s experimental options include a Web browser, with bookmarks to Google, Yahoo Finance, and the Yellow Pages. Amazon operates on what it calls the “Whispernet,” a free Wi-Fi based connection to Sprint’s EVDO data network that has worked well anywhere I’ve tried to use it.

Trying to search Google on the Kindle requires several extra clicks to enter the term in the field and search. The concept of the first page of results is different here too, as you generally need to hit the “next” button to cycle through a few screens. Google’s results come from its PDA-optimized browser, although on the Kindle it’s in black and white. I couldn’t find any ads running.

The most useful search engine on the Kindle is its NowNow service where you can ask a question and humans respond with the result, sometimes within minutes. I asked it which U.S. president was the first to be inaugurated in January, and I received a page of facts and links about Franklin D. Roosevelt and his 1937 inauguration.

Chumby
The Chumby, a Wi-Fi enabled touch-screen device, is an odd duck of a gadget. You can select from a constantly growing list of Web sites, games, and utilities to add, and the Chumby cycles through them every 30 to 60 seconds; if you interact with one, it will stay on longer.

Some selections are meant for viewing, like clocks, while others are designed for interaction, like the addictive game Chumball. Certain selections can be personalized, like Facebook or Twitter, where you can view friends’ updates. Most have some interactive component. The Chumby can even play videos such as David Letterman’s Top Ten lists, which update daily.

There’s no actual search engine on the Chumby. With Yahoo Buzz or Google Trends, you can view recent top movers, but you can’t search beyond that. Google News shows top stories, but no other information beyond a brief synopsis. You can preprogram a query for Google Blog Search and Chumby will show the latest results, but that’s it. The best search experience I found is with the Twitter Search module, where you can enter a query through the Chumby’s on-screen keyboard.

Looking Forward

If mobile devices are considered the third screen (after the TV and computer), the Kindle must rank somewhere around the 11th screen — and the Chumby might be the 28th. Don’t even try to figure out the iPod Touch, which alternates between acting like the first screen when playing videos, the second screen when running applications, and the third screen when accessing the mobile Web. With all of these Web-enabled screens, there are opportunities for searching. The nature of the device, from its usability to where and why people use it, will impact the queries.

Not all screens will be search drivers. I’d be surprised if any agencies started to specialize in CMO — Chumby marketing optimization — or KIBRO — Kindle browser optimization. But since it’s easier to build in Web accessibility to a wider array of affordable devices aimed at the mass market, search engines will spill over into the new frontiers — and when searches from these devices reach any magnitude of scale, marketers will inevitably follow.

Obama is Our CiCTO - Commander-in-Chief Technology Officer

This is ridiculous. He's been president-elect for under 48 hours and Obama's already reworking governing through the Web.

Case in point: Change.gov.

President-Elect Obama has spoken about creating a Chief Technology Officer position for the country, but does he need it? Can't he just be our Commander-in-Chief Technology Officer?

Here's what Change.gov does right:

1. It turns his campaign platform into America's platform.
2. He makes his transition about change, not Obama.gov. Even McCain campaigned on change. It's a memorable domain too.
3. It welcomes user-generated content, or at least user submissions. The biggest homepage call-out is for users to share their stories.
4. It stresses "you" wherever it can - note "Your Administration" above Obama and Biden on the lower left.
5. The agenda's prioritized - his first five stand out prominently:
   1. Revitalizing the economy
   2. Ending the war in Iraq
   3. Providing health care for all
   4. Protecting America
   5. Renewing American Global Leadership
6. There's a blog - expect continual updates.
7. He promotes community service. It's clear that he will be calling on Americans to take action, and he devotes a prominent spot on his navigation bar to this.
8. There's good search functionality up top. Here are the search results for 'Afghanistan'.
9. It's very easy to get around, from the top navigation bar to the sitemap on the bottom. Google's going to love this site (and the .gov domain will send it through the roof).
10. There's an email signup form up top to keep you up to date. It's the only drawback I've found on the site in terms of best practices though. There are no privacy reassurances, nor can you find out how often he'll be e-mailing you.
11. You can apply for a job.
12. You can learn way more than you ever will need to know about the transition. Unless you're one of the many people so inspired by President Elect Obama that you're considering running for office yourself.

Thanks to Paul McEnany for sharing this.

ad:tech New York Press Briefing Coverage

Covering ad:tech NY's press briefing:

Image by toprankonlinemarketing via Flickr

Sometrics - Ian Swanson, CEO

• Specializes in brand advertising for social web
• Industry leader in social analytics
• Announcement: "Social Branding" - 'real ROI for brand advertisers'
  • Brand exposure
  • Demographic audiecne insight
  • Engagement levels
  • Brand assessment
    • Identify users by harvesting data from social space to deliver the right ads
• Create interaction, target/identify brand advocates, measure performance
• Show someone ad unit (eg video), take them through survey (how likely are you to purchase?), then call to action (join fan page, click here to site, join newsletter, etc).

eZanga - Richard Kahn, CEO

• 5 year old search engine marketing company
• News: redesigned site 
• Now has social network for members - mainly women 25-45 (if I heard correctly)
• "They get to do the same stuff they do with MySpace or YouTube" - but why would they want to do it somewhere else then? - and they earn points for stuff to earn prizes. Oh, so provide extrinsic motivation to decrease consumer interest. Great way to weed people off social networking.

Prime Visibility - Andrew Hazen, CEO

• SEO, SEM firm
• PRIMEbuzz - social media measurement
• Certain things get certain weight value - how often bookmarked, views a video gets, how often it's voted up on digg, etc - 
• 10 metrics that are way too tiny to cover here - whoa, TMI alert, but not in the usual way. Pure textual sensory overload. And then it happens again on the dashboard slide. Head spinning.

3rd Dimension - Eric Joseph, President and COO

• Mobile play - show ads before live camera feeds (for weather, traffic)
• Mobile ad or PSA served, ad remains on screen until camera goes live
• NBC exclusive seller of Mobile Eyes network
• NBC speaker - handles local stations - 10 markets
  • NBC Mobile media platforms include WAP sites, video, SMS, downloadable apps
  • Platform includes multi-platform traffic sponsorship (online traffic page, newsletters/direct marketing, traffic cam app/WAP site, TV traffic reports/product promos)
  • Hyperlocal action - target to actual exit on I-95
• Back to 3D - served 4 million ad views in last few months

Augme Mobile - Anthony Iaovone, Chief Strategy Officer

• Wasting first minute saying how powerful mobile devices are - really? spending your 5 minutes that way?
• Augme Mobile: turnkey platform... still waiting
• Mobile response mechanism - create SMS codes, QR codes, etc - rich media can be assigne for downloading
• Content adaptation platform - deliver content in mobile-rendered platform
• Analytics as part of it
• Solves "mobile spaghetti maze"

Rubicon Project - Founder, CEO

• Setup: bad ads are killing publishers, ad networks, etc
• Ad networks are proliferating
• RP: Ad network optimization
• Optimizes 17 billion monthly impressions, 300 top networks, reach 250 million uniques
• Process:

ion Interactive - ...

• Online Marketing TCO/ROI Modeling
• Online Marketing ROI Calculator

comScore -Evan Neufeld, VP Ad Effectiveness

• Brand Metrix: measures impact of online ad on awareness, attitudes, perceptions around brand
• Info based on ~240 studies across a bunch of verticals
• Across the board: Onlnie shows positive impacts for measures
  • Online ad recall - 6.3% lift
  • Likelihood to purchase - 7% lift
• Impact of online advertising continues even 4 weeks after first exposure - it's not just about immediate actions
  • Week of 1st exposure: 65% lift
  • Weeks 1-2 after first exposure: 53.8% lift
  • Weeks 1-3 after first exposure: 49.1% lift
    
  • Weeks 1-4 after first exposure: 45.7% lift
• Brand ads drive trademark, branded search
  
• Synergies between search & display - strong outpacing sum of results of display/search separately
  • % making purchase on advertiser site (retail)
    • Display online - 42% lift, search only 121% lift, search & display 173% lift
    • % making purchase offline (retail only)
      • search only 10% lift
        
      • display only 35%
      • search + display 52%
        

eMarketer - Geoff Ramsey, CEO

• Media spending growth in US - all latest #s are getting hurt
  • TNS: above the line spending down 1.6% in first half of 08 alone
• ANA - 53% of US marketers would reduce ad budgets over next 6 months as of July/August
  • Now going 65%, 70%
  • MarketingProfs - 1/3 already cut budgets
• Traditional budgets - half to well above will cut. MarketingProfs survey - 85% will cut (n=600 marketers, Oct 08).
  
• US online ad spend growth for 08
  • eMarketer: Aug 08 - 17.4% for online ad growth - eMarketer plans to cut that, nip and tuck but not a chainsaw
  • 15.2% growth in H108 - IAB, 15% growth for MSFT in Q3, 22% for Google in Q3
  • Search will be stronger than display, but video will start to pick up on branding side
• US online ad spend for 2009: eMarketer in Aug said 14.5%
  

THE WINNER:

Sometrics, plus great research from comScore and eMarketer