OTOinsights

ANA 2007 B-to-B Conference: Harnessing the Power of New Media Platforms

Last Thursday I had the honor of sitting on a panel titled ""HARNESSING THE POWER OF NEW MEDIA PLATFORMS" at the 2007 Association of National Advertiser's (ANA) B-to-B Conference in Chicago, IL.

Joining me on the panel were: Barbara Basney (Director, Global Advertising Xerox Corporation) and Ellis Booker (Editor B-to-B Magazine).  Frank Dudley (Vice President of Marketing Guideline Research) moderated.   Our talk centered around the results of a joint ANA/Guidlines/B-to-B Magazine study that explored the use of search, social networks, user-generated content, podcasts, blogging, etc. within B-to-B and B-to-C marketing efforts.

You may download the results of the study here:

DOWNLOAD PDF  | DOWNLOAD POWERPOINT

Overall findings include:

• For B-to-B marketers, a company’s website is the oldest and most often used new media platform that B-to-B companies are using.  Email marketing, online ads, search engine optimization, paid search engine marketing and webinars are also widely used.  Podcasts, blogs and video on demand look to grow over the next year, while little interest is shown in mobile and second life/social networking media platforms.
• B-to-C companies are also using their own website, as well as email marketing, and online ads. SEO-organic and SEM-paid have been in use for the past 3 years.  Blogs and video, both on-demand and viral, look to grow over the next year.  There are no plans to use webinars, Wiki or Second Life within the next year.
• Comparing B-to-B to B-to-C: significantly more B-to-B marketers have been using email,,SEO-organic and webinars for more than 3 years, and have begun to use blogs.  They are also significantly less likely to use mobile, social networks or viral video in the next year than B-to-C marketers. B-to-C marketers have begun to use these platforms in the past year and the trend will continue.
• Of the B-to-B marketers that use these new media platforms, Brand Building is most frequently accomplished through blogs, second life, social networks, viral videos, wiki and their own websites.  Demand Generation is accomplished through email, online, SEO, SEM, and video on demand– while companies use blogs, podcasts and webinars to generate Customer Loyalty.
• Of the B-to-C marketers that use these media, blogs, podcasts, second life, viral video and wiki are use to accomplish Brand Building.   SEO and SEM are used for Demand Generation. And Customer Loyalty is mostly accomplished through emails, RSS feeds, and blogs.  Cross Selling is an objective for emails and webinars.
• Comparing B-to-B to B-to-C, B-to-B marketers use email and webinars for demand generation significantly more than B-to-C.  Of the all marketers who use mobile and podcasts, significantly more B-to-C marketers use them for brand building.
• Effectiveness varies greatly when looking at B-to-B vs. B-to-C companies.  While both have seen success from their own website, B-to-C companies have seen significantly more success from paid key word searches, online ads, and social networks, B-to-B companies have seen success in webinars.
• B-to-C companies typically look at downloads and registrations to their website and specific events.  While B-to-B companies are more likely to measure effectiveness of new media platforms through purchase behavior, site visits and time spent.
• B-to-B Companies spend significantly less on media than B-to-C companies.  As a percent of revenue, they spend an average of .58%, while B-to-C companies spend an average of 1.18%.
• Currently, B-to-B companies are significantly more likely to allocate a higher percentage of their media budget (more than 20%) to new media platforms as compared to B-to-C companies.
• All marketers expect to spend more on new media platforms in 2007 compared to 2006, with significantly more B-to-C marketers trending towards an increase.
• Of the marketers that expect to spend more on 2007,  B-to-B marketers will spend it on their own websites, email and online ads.
• Typically the responsibility for managing new media platforms is added to an internal group.  New internal groups are formed about 15% of the time.
• Internal Marketing Departments and Interactive/Digital Media Agencies drive the use of new media platforms for B-to-B companies.  B-to-C companies new media strategies are also driven by Internal Media Departments, but also by Interactive/Digital Creative Agencies.
• All marketers are concerned about their lack of experience with new media platforms, followed by their inability to prove effectiveness/ROI.

Jeremi Karnell-President, One to One Interactive

Desktop Applications, Screen Mates, Widgets, Gadgets, Modules, Oh My!!!

Consumer control of media continues to shatter old paradigms of content publishing and distribution.   More and more enterprises are exploring disaggregated media strategies that embrace the web as a platform for services and allowing consumers of information to install, embed, and/or configure small executable applications that are customized to fit into very individualized and personalized media portfolio.  From Branded Desktop Applications such as Southwest Airline’s Ding! to Apple’s iPhone Mobile Widgets, the marketplace is heating up with new and innovative solutions to answer the consumer cry for rich, modular, and customizable streams of content and information. 

Last week, One to One Interactive and MITX hosted the second Digital Marketing Series event that explored these emerging platforms, case examples of successful deployments, and best practices.  Participating in the session was Chris Heitmann, EVP One to One Interactive & Managing Director of OTOlabs, Stephen DiMarco, CMO of Compete.com, Nick Quagliara, M.S. IU School of Informatics, and Dan Gallagher, VP Audience & Architecture of NetworkWorld. 

The presentation and survey data that was discussed at the session may be downloaded here:

Speakers' Presentation (PDF, 11MB)
Compete Disaggregated Media Survey (July 2007)

Special thanks goes to Jeffrey Bardzell, Ph.D. and Shaowen Bardzell, Ph.D. for their valuable contributions.

Forrester Research Points to OTOinsights

Thank you Brian Haven, Senior Forrester Research Analyst, for pointing to OTOinsights  in a recent report titled "Interactive Marketing Channels to Watch in 2007" as an example of how marketers should leverage their email and RSS content to support their initial steps into the blogsphere. 

Brain writes:

" Make your first strides into social media with RSS and blogs:  Last year, we said holding off on social media was OK>  But rapid consumer adoption of these channels indicates that the time is now to enter this space.  How to dive in?  RSS is relatively simple first step for marketers with mature email marketing programs in that initial RSS feeds can consist of repurposed email content.  Likewise, email or RSS content can also create initial blog posts.  For example, interested users can find insights from interactive agency One to One Interactive from its blog, via RSS, or in email alerts."

In addition to leveraging existing e-mail/RSS content to support initial blog initiatives we would like to add to Brian's advice by recommending that marketers actively educate their internal constituents on their company's corporate blog strategy and, when appropriate, seek regular contributions from their staff as a way to begin generating new and more relevant content.  Additionally, marketers would be well served by incorporating social bookmarking (like De.licio.us) into their blog strategy as a way to augment their existing content with complimentary content on the Web authored by external sources.

Blogs, Podcast, & RSS Advertising on the Rise

According to the Center for Media Research and the PQ Media's Alternative Media Research Series, ad spending withing blogs, podcasts and RSS feeds grew to $20.4 million by the end or 2005, a 198.4% increase over the 2004 level. Spending on blog, podcast and RSS advertising is projected to climb another 144.9% in 2006 to $49.8 million.

The executive summary of the report goes on to highlight the following key findings:

• User-generated media remains primarily national in scope with 98.1%, or $20.0 million, of all advertising spending coming from the broader market in 2005
• Advertising networks and click-throughs are the largest ad insertion methods, generating $8.0 million and $7.8 million, respectively
• Blog advertising accounted for 81.4%, or $16.6 million, of total spending on user-generated online media in 2005, but blog ads will comprise only 39.7%, or $300.4 million, of overall spending in 2010
• Podcast advertising totaled only $3.1 million in 2005, but is projected to reach $327.0 million in 2010, when it will account for 43.2% of all user-generated media advertising
• Spending on RSS (Really Simple Syndication) advertising totaled $650,000 in 2005 and will grow to $129.6 million in 2010
• Total spending on user-generated online media is forecast to grow at a compound annual rate of 106.1% from 2005 to 2010, reaching $757.0 million in 2010
• Technology was the largest single category at $4.0 million in 2005, due primarily to the technology-savvy early adopters of user-generated media
• Auto was the second largest marketing category, generating $3.9 million in 2005, as car manufacturers utilized user-generated media to market their higher-end models to the "influential" demographic
• The media industry spent $3.2 million to advertise in user-generated media in 2005, as the industry tried to capitalize on its advanced knowledge of the consumer shift away from traditional media

Top drivers of the above trend include continued media fragmentation, perceived ineffectiveness of traditional advertising, and the desire to more effectively reach the 18-34 year old market.

Quicktime 2 RSS

According to the Guardian, Apple is working on something called 'QuickTime 2 RSS,' which will allow someone to record a lecture and then have it automatically encoded for playback on a video-enabled iPod and seeded to an RSS feed, which would automatically be populated on the iTunes Music Store. The best part of this? It would be free, you just need to buy the camera and the Mac to run it on.

Adventures with Web 2.0

Over the weekend, while adding a Del.icio.us Web 2.0 RSS feed to my  NetVibes homepage, I ran across a link entitled "Discover New Music - Pandora" which linked me to the Pandora.com web site.  The site is created by the Music Genome Project which was launched on January 6, 2000 by a group of musicians and music-loving technologists.  Their idea was to create the most comprehensive analysis of music ever - "at it's most fundamental level".

Over the past 5 years the project has profiled over 10,000 songs by literally hundreds of musical attributes or "genes". Taken together these genes capture the unique identity of a song - everything from melody, harmony and rhythm, to instrumentation, orchestration, arrangement, lyrics, and singing and vocal harmony.  They continue to update their database continuously with new music. 

Pandora.com hosts a Rich Internet Application on the home page that allows you to create your own music station by first entering your favorite artist or song.   Pandora then searches the Music Genome database to create your personalized radio station of full-length streaming songs that have similar "genes".  For example, when I entered "Paul Oakendfold" into Pandora, it automatically configured a  station of music that has similar "genes" such as "Dreams" by DJ Icey, "Face to Face" by Daft Punk, and "Murder" by The Crystal Method. Pandora allows users to easily share their radio stations with others as well as listen to the top shared stations in the Pandora community.  The application also allows users to create their own favorite song lists and provide feedback on whether or not they like or dislike a song so that Pandora can optimize its play list with more songs that the user likes.

A post on Pandora's blog (http://blog.pandora.com/pandora/) states that since the launch of Pandora over 1 million stations have been configured with over 70,000 unique songs and artists.  The application is free to users, however they have begun to experiment with different advertising forms on the site.  Users will be able to choose an ad-free experience by registering on the site.  The ad-free version of the application costs $36 per year which allows users to listen to unlimited music streaming, maintain up to 100 stations at a time, and access their stations from any computer.   

I would expect to see a desktop application of Pandora soon that allows users to configure and stream their own radio stations locally from their computers, without having to visit the site. I would also expect to see more advanced community features and functions that allow users to better profile their music interests as well as search and interact with other users in the community that have similar musical interests. 

Adverts in RSS Questionable

In a recent article titled "The Price of Full Feeds", the Guardian offers some interesting insights into the early attempts to monetize RSS with advertising.  The emerging format discussed centers around publishers who offer subscribers the choice of the blog's full text with adverts, or a partial feed with no ads but linked to an ad-supported web page.  Top line issues include:

• Subscriber protest over not being able to receive full feeds
• RSS not initially built to support rich forms of digital advertising
• RSS disintermediating ad supported websites
• No "real" revenue associated with formats like Google AdSense
• Lack of consumer understanding of RSS Technology
  • Only 11% of 1,000 blog readers surveyed are using RSS for content consumption.
  • 66%, either "did not understand the technology of had never heard of it"