Went to a fascinating talk by Alex Marks of eBay this week.
As a massive online marketplace eBay is naturally interested to see what drives online shoppers. It seems that the drivers online are similar to those offline:
» familiarity with and trust of brands and retailers
» being hooked by offers
» being told about new things for sale
» being seduced by the idea of a treat
Interestingly, trust was often the most powerful reason that people chose a particular retailer, with selection next followed by value. (Looks like QVC should have called themselves QCV!)
Behaviour differed though, with different types of shopping. Where the products were purchased regularly or had a high emotional connection with the shopper, people tended to go to familiar and trusted retailers.
But for products which were purchased only infrequently or which were largely chosen through rational decision making there was far less brand loyalty; here search and comparison were important factors driving choice.
eBay is of course a massively familiar and generally well trusted brand. And it is also a place where you can buy advertising. But, as a retail site, is it a good place to buy advertising? After all people on retail sites are there to buy particular things, aren’t they? So they won’t take much notice of any advertising.
Well, that’s not necessarily true. A lot of behaviour on retail sites is fairly undirected browsing. People are in the mindset of buying on retail sites. But they are not necessarily looking for a particular item. They can be influenced quite easily to try different things.
Which is presumably why advertising on retail sites is so very effective. Indeed according to eBay’s research 61% of people take notice of advertising on retail sites, with 41% noticing it on search sites, 12% on portals and only 7% on social media sites.
And as big retailers like eBay know an enormous amount about their visitors – who they are, what items they have looked at, where they have started the buying process, what they have bought in the past (and when) – they are capable of providing advertisers with highly targeted campaigns.
Retail media (aka sales promotion) is a massive industry in the offline world, large enough to rival traditional media spend. It seems that eBay are leading the charge to make retail media equally significant in the online space.
Jeremy Swinfen Green
Digital Director
07855 341 589
Friday 30 October 2009
Facebook measures how happy we are!
Facebook is even more omniscient than we all thought. It can now chart the world's collective highs and lows – well, nearly!
As we all know, Facebook allows us to update our friends on the minutiae of our day-to-day lives via status updates. With millions of active users (200 million to be precise) that's a lot of data.
Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg has recently expressed an interest in using this staggering amount of data from the updates to generate a kind of 'sentiment engine'. The Facebook data team analysed the rich information from these musings, along what they dubbed a 'Gross National Happiness' metric.
'Measuring how well-off, satisfied or happy with life the citizens of a nation are is part of the Gross National Happiness movement. The graph below represents how the nation is doing from day to day, and measures 'happiness' by looking at how many positive and negative words people are using when updating their status: when people are using more positive words (or fewer negative words) in their status updates than usual, that day is happier than usual!'
In other words, these updates are tiny windows into how people are doing, and Facebook users will soon be able to update their status even more frequently as the application is set to launch on games console Xbox 360 this month.
So does this, and other behavioural targeting (such as IPA’s TouchPoints Survey), mean we will never be served an irrelevant ad in the future? Moreover, will we soon be seeing ads targeted to our moods?
Spotify, like Facebook, already employs demographic targeting for its display and audio ads, and has now announced it will be introducing the new mood-targeting within the year.
If you're a brand that needs to reach people in a relaxed mindset – perhaps they're listening to Ibiza chill-out or Mozart – you can now serve the right brand to them at the right time, explains UK Sales Director Jon Mitchell.
However with this increased information becoming available, brands now need to think even more carefully about the optimum way to deliver their messages in a relevant way to the consumer, in order to avoid alienating their audience.
Claire Turner
As we all know, Facebook allows us to update our friends on the minutiae of our day-to-day lives via status updates. With millions of active users (200 million to be precise) that's a lot of data.
Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg has recently expressed an interest in using this staggering amount of data from the updates to generate a kind of 'sentiment engine'. The Facebook data team analysed the rich information from these musings, along what they dubbed a 'Gross National Happiness' metric.
'Measuring how well-off, satisfied or happy with life the citizens of a nation are is part of the Gross National Happiness movement. The graph below represents how the nation is doing from day to day, and measures 'happiness' by looking at how many positive and negative words people are using when updating their status: when people are using more positive words (or fewer negative words) in their status updates than usual, that day is happier than usual!'
In other words, these updates are tiny windows into how people are doing, and Facebook users will soon be able to update their status even more frequently as the application is set to launch on games console Xbox 360 this month.
So does this, and other behavioural targeting (such as IPA’s TouchPoints Survey), mean we will never be served an irrelevant ad in the future? Moreover, will we soon be seeing ads targeted to our moods?Spotify, like Facebook, already employs demographic targeting for its display and audio ads, and has now announced it will be introducing the new mood-targeting within the year.
If you're a brand that needs to reach people in a relaxed mindset – perhaps they're listening to Ibiza chill-out or Mozart – you can now serve the right brand to them at the right time, explains UK Sales Director Jon Mitchell.
However with this increased information becoming available, brands now need to think even more carefully about the optimum way to deliver their messages in a relevant way to the consumer, in order to avoid alienating their audience.
Claire Turner
Tuesday 27 October 2009
More Power to King Fry’s Elbow
Earlier this week I wrote about how I been intrigued by Trafigura’s ability to gag the Guardian and their failure to gag online comment. I have come across another interesting example of how the Twitterati are influencing the media.
Last week an article appeared in the Daily Mail, written by journalist Jan Moir, which discussed the recent death of Stephen Gately at the age of just 33. The article was originally titled “Why there was nothing ‘natural’ about Stephen Gately’s death”. Although the article has now been amended in several ways, the original can be read as a (Google Doc.)
Within a few hours of the article being published, a furore had grown around Twitter and blog sites buzzing with anger at the perception that Moir was implying the ex-Boyzone singer’s death was intrinsically linked to his lifestyle as a homosexual.
‘King’ Fry tweeted "I gather a … nobody …has written something loathsome and inhumane," whilst Charlie Brooker blogged a scathing riposte to the article on the Guardian website .
The online backlash was so immediate and effective that by the time I became aware of the offending piece last Friday afternoon, merely hours after it had first appeared, the Press Complaints Commission had already received 1,000 complaints. At the time of writing that number has risen to a record 25,000, whilst the Daily Mail has been forced to remove adverts from around the article, after the advertisers too were bombarded with complaints.
Both this example and my earlier example about Trafigura demonstrate how people like Stephen Fry and other members of the ‘Twitterati’ have realised the potential of social media as a tool for socio-political comment.
The enforced climb-down by Carter Ruck and their ultimate failure to gag the Guardian struck a blow for the supporters of free speech and freedom of press. The reaction to the now infamous Jan Moir article however has sought to make the press more accountable and raised questions about press regulation – it could even be suggested that Moir’s freedom of speech has been curtailed! Certainly, last week was a compelling week on Twitter.
Kyle Seely, Planner Buyer
Last week an article appeared in the Daily Mail, written by journalist Jan Moir, which discussed the recent death of Stephen Gately at the age of just 33. The article was originally titled “Why there was nothing ‘natural’ about Stephen Gately’s death”. Although the article has now been amended in several ways, the original can be read as a (Google Doc.)
Within a few hours of the article being published, a furore had grown around Twitter and blog sites buzzing with anger at the perception that Moir was implying the ex-Boyzone singer’s death was intrinsically linked to his lifestyle as a homosexual.
‘King’ Fry tweeted "I gather a … nobody …has written something loathsome and inhumane," whilst Charlie Brooker blogged a scathing riposte to the article on the Guardian website .
The online backlash was so immediate and effective that by the time I became aware of the offending piece last Friday afternoon, merely hours after it had first appeared, the Press Complaints Commission had already received 1,000 complaints. At the time of writing that number has risen to a record 25,000, whilst the Daily Mail has been forced to remove adverts from around the article, after the advertisers too were bombarded with complaints.
Both this example and my earlier example about Trafigura demonstrate how people like Stephen Fry and other members of the ‘Twitterati’ have realised the potential of social media as a tool for socio-political comment.
The enforced climb-down by Carter Ruck and their ultimate failure to gag the Guardian struck a blow for the supporters of free speech and freedom of press. The reaction to the now infamous Jan Moir article however has sought to make the press more accountable and raised questions about press regulation – it could even be suggested that Moir’s freedom of speech has been curtailed! Certainly, last week was a compelling week on Twitter.
Kyle Seely, Planner Buyer
Monday 26 October 2009
The Power of King Fry and the Twitterati
Last week I was struck by an example of the ever-increasing power of social media.
On Monday, a question regarding oil company Trafigura’s dumping of toxic waste on the Ivory Coast was tabled for the forthcoming Prime Minister’s Question Time. When the Guardian attempted to report on it Trafigura’s lawyers, Carter Ruck, were quick to seek an injunction preventing them from doing so. However, the very same evening online blogs and Twitter users, unconfined by the same legal restrictions gagging the Guardian, had already uncovered all the details and they were freely available in the public domain.
By noon on Tuesday, the three most popular search terms on Twitter were "outrageous gagging order trafigura dumping scandal", "ruck" and "guardian". Trafigura and Carter Ruck, in attempting to keep the story under wraps, had inadvertently added fuel to the fire and grossly underestimated the power of the internet and social media. The injunction was dropped and Stephen Fry, surely the unofficial King of Twitter, proclaimed to his many followers, "Can it be true? Carter Ruck caves in! Hurrah! Trafigura will deny it had anything to do with Twitter, but we know don't we?"
People like Stephen Fry and other members of the ‘Twitterati’ have realised the potential of social media as a tool for socio-political comment. As this concept enters the mainstream it will inevitably have a huge effect on the way corporations try to manage online word of mouth.
And that's a great opportunity for marketing agencies...
Kyle Seeley, Planner-Buyer
On Monday, a question regarding oil company Trafigura’s dumping of toxic waste on the Ivory Coast was tabled for the forthcoming Prime Minister’s Question Time. When the Guardian attempted to report on it Trafigura’s lawyers, Carter Ruck, were quick to seek an injunction preventing them from doing so. However, the very same evening online blogs and Twitter users, unconfined by the same legal restrictions gagging the Guardian, had already uncovered all the details and they were freely available in the public domain.
By noon on Tuesday, the three most popular search terms on Twitter were "outrageous gagging order trafigura dumping scandal", "ruck" and "guardian". Trafigura and Carter Ruck, in attempting to keep the story under wraps, had inadvertently added fuel to the fire and grossly underestimated the power of the internet and social media. The injunction was dropped and Stephen Fry, surely the unofficial King of Twitter, proclaimed to his many followers, "Can it be true? Carter Ruck caves in! Hurrah! Trafigura will deny it had anything to do with Twitter, but we know don't we?"
People like Stephen Fry and other members of the ‘Twitterati’ have realised the potential of social media as a tool for socio-political comment. As this concept enters the mainstream it will inevitably have a huge effect on the way corporations try to manage online word of mouth.
And that's a great opportunity for marketing agencies...
Kyle Seeley, Planner-Buyer
Wednesday 21 October 2009
We are shortlisted for the DMA awards
We have just had the call: We have been shortlisted for three DMA awards.
Eight short words on a screen that as I write them convey none of the passion this event engenders.
Let me try to explain in a paragraph or two.
We strive every day to deliver on our brand-promise to clients: creating new value for them. We take fierce pride in this, and the results we generate.
Then once a year we take the best of our work and try to explain that year's work in three sides of A4.
Some 160 of our peers come together in a rigorous three-day process to ask: does our work have an insightful and coherent strategy; have we been creative rather than derivative in our execution of that strategy; and have we generated outstanding results?
At the end of that three days of debate, considering 600 or so entries from more than 100 agencies, the short list emerges from the conclave like white smoke from the Vatican.
And this year we have been shortlisted for three awards - for work we have done for the RSPCA and for Which?
And the thing I am most proud of? In the category that really matters to us, the “best results of the year” category, which is the closest thing to our brand, our entries are two of the three finalists.
So now we have to wait until December 9th to learn if we have won bronze, silver or gold. I will blog again on this subject on December 10th. It may not be quite so coherent though!
Mike Colling, Managing Director
Eight short words on a screen that as I write them convey none of the passion this event engenders.
Let me try to explain in a paragraph or two.
We strive every day to deliver on our brand-promise to clients: creating new value for them. We take fierce pride in this, and the results we generate.
Then once a year we take the best of our work and try to explain that year's work in three sides of A4.
Some 160 of our peers come together in a rigorous three-day process to ask: does our work have an insightful and coherent strategy; have we been creative rather than derivative in our execution of that strategy; and have we generated outstanding results?
At the end of that three days of debate, considering 600 or so entries from more than 100 agencies, the short list emerges from the conclave like white smoke from the Vatican.
And this year we have been shortlisted for three awards - for work we have done for the RSPCA and for Which?
And the thing I am most proud of? In the category that really matters to us, the “best results of the year” category, which is the closest thing to our brand, our entries are two of the three finalists.
So now we have to wait until December 9th to learn if we have won bronze, silver or gold. I will blog again on this subject on December 10th. It may not be quite so coherent though!
Mike Colling, Managing Director
Tuesday 20 October 2009
Hiscox insurance calls a spade a spade
Snapshot whilst waiting for a train this morning: a strong outdoor ad for a potentially dull brand.
Insurance company Hiscox are out to prove they speak plainly to their customer base, cutting through all the usual jargon spouted by a lot of their financial and insurance competitors. In this case, literally calling a spade a spade.
In a world where your office water-cooler arrives via local "water-dispensing solution delivery operatives" and your household rubbish is collected by "refuse waste removal management systems", it's quite refreshing to see a spade called, well, a spade.
Insurance company Hiscox are out to prove they speak plainly to their customer base, cutting through all the usual jargon spouted by a lot of their financial and insurance competitors. In this case, literally calling a spade a spade.
In a world where your office water-cooler arrives via local "water-dispensing solution delivery operatives" and your household rubbish is collected by "refuse waste removal management systems", it's quite refreshing to see a spade called, well, a spade.
Claire Turner
Is Social Media really worth bothering with?
Of course social media is (are?) at the top of the agenda for a lot of businesses.
But is this all hype or should we be taking it seriously?
Unfortunately a lot of the noise around social media marketing is enthusiastic hot air. "Everyone's doing it!", "You can get a dialogue going with all your consumers!", "It's replacing advertising!" Etcetera. Etcetera.
None of these are real reasons for investing in social media.
But there are a number of extremely strong strategic business benefits that social media can deliver. They won't all be relevant for all businesses. But the chance is that at least one or two will be relevant for your business.
Let's start with marketing. Social media can help with acquisition. At its simplest you can use social media to inform and enhance SEO and paid search campaigns. And you can also use it to contribute to advertising campaigns by seeding discussions. It's an important PR tool as well which you can use for monitoring and managing your brand's reputation. All with the aim of getting new customers.
Probably best not to be too overt about direct marketing though (unless you are talking to a group of very strong fans who want to be sold to.)
And you can use it for retention as well. Establish a dialogue with consumers and you can tell them about new products and special offers as well as identifying (and addressing) areas of unhappiness.
As part of this you can also use social media for delivering customer service where it can help retention and also deliver cost savings, by enabling your customers to help one another, and by enabling a common problem to be addressed on a one-to-many basis.
You can also use social media to affect product evolution and to guide new product development. Listen to what your consumers are saying about your products and you will have a good idea as to where your product set should be heading.
Undertake some competitor analysis using social media and you will have an even better idea about your marketplace.
Combining competitor and customer analysis will help guide investment decisons in staff, marketing and production (is your customer service up to scratch, are you wasting your advertising budget, are your products built robustly enough...)
Then there is recruitment: social media is increasingly used in this function, as a way of delivering marketplace intelligence, locating and evaluating candidates (with or without the help of recruitment agencies), and enabling candidates to find and develop positive feelings about your business. Don't forget your current staff either. Social media can powerfully develop feelings of team and increase staff morale.
And finally one should not forget The City. Social media can be used very effectively for financial PR which can positively affect share price and business stability.
The noise surrounding social media is clearly not just hype. But that doesn't mean social media campaigns are always delivered well. Far from it! But a structured and commonsense approach, combined with a willingness to experiment (and sometimes fail) will take your business a long way on the road to benefiting from these exciting new opportunities.
Jeremy Swinfen Green
Digital Director, MC&C
jeremy@mcand.co.uk
But is this all hype or should we be taking it seriously?
Unfortunately a lot of the noise around social media marketing is enthusiastic hot air. "Everyone's doing it!", "You can get a dialogue going with all your consumers!", "It's replacing advertising!" Etcetera. Etcetera.
None of these are real reasons for investing in social media.
But there are a number of extremely strong strategic business benefits that social media can deliver. They won't all be relevant for all businesses. But the chance is that at least one or two will be relevant for your business.
Let's start with marketing. Social media can help with acquisition. At its simplest you can use social media to inform and enhance SEO and paid search campaigns. And you can also use it to contribute to advertising campaigns by seeding discussions. It's an important PR tool as well which you can use for monitoring and managing your brand's reputation. All with the aim of getting new customers.
Probably best not to be too overt about direct marketing though (unless you are talking to a group of very strong fans who want to be sold to.)
And you can use it for retention as well. Establish a dialogue with consumers and you can tell them about new products and special offers as well as identifying (and addressing) areas of unhappiness.
As part of this you can also use social media for delivering customer service where it can help retention and also deliver cost savings, by enabling your customers to help one another, and by enabling a common problem to be addressed on a one-to-many basis.
You can also use social media to affect product evolution and to guide new product development. Listen to what your consumers are saying about your products and you will have a good idea as to where your product set should be heading.
Undertake some competitor analysis using social media and you will have an even better idea about your marketplace.
Combining competitor and customer analysis will help guide investment decisons in staff, marketing and production (is your customer service up to scratch, are you wasting your advertising budget, are your products built robustly enough...)
Then there is recruitment: social media is increasingly used in this function, as a way of delivering marketplace intelligence, locating and evaluating candidates (with or without the help of recruitment agencies), and enabling candidates to find and develop positive feelings about your business. Don't forget your current staff either. Social media can powerfully develop feelings of team and increase staff morale.
And finally one should not forget The City. Social media can be used very effectively for financial PR which can positively affect share price and business stability.
The noise surrounding social media is clearly not just hype. But that doesn't mean social media campaigns are always delivered well. Far from it! But a structured and commonsense approach, combined with a willingness to experiment (and sometimes fail) will take your business a long way on the road to benefiting from these exciting new opportunities.
Jeremy Swinfen Green
Digital Director, MC&C
jeremy@mcand.co.uk
Monday 19 October 2009
TV Response: the new rules
So last Thursday Louise and I went to a Thinkbox event entitled ‘TV Response, the new rules’.
Not since the late 1990’s has any real research been done into DRTV and how response is being generated, so we had high hopes that this could back up all that we say on a daily basis to our clients. On a basic level it did – so hoorah!
Now the difficulty with this research is that the clients included (anonymously of course) were not all pure DRTV clients. One who chose to wave anonymity was Honda and I don’t think they could even class themselves as a BRTV client! So possibly the 15% could be increased for many clients – maybe to as much as 50%. Where does the other response go?…
According to the study 66% of web traffic during the analysis period came via a search engine, 16% recalled the URL from the ad while the remaining 18% guessed the URL!
We still know though that putting a URL on the ad does increase web response – but maybe that’s simply because they then know they can go online – think of it as a green light to search.
The web traffic came at different times to the ads themselves though – more in the evening and more at weekends – shifting the response patterns once again.
1) There are no rules!
2) We can’t totally control the routes to response – we need to allow for the fact that the stimulus and the route to response is far less connected than before
I know though that I for one would like to attempt to get some more answers from our own responses – maybe try to replicate the study but with pure DRTV brands.
Now then who’s up for that challenge?
Nicky Legg, Broadcast Director
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