Apple has officially unveiled its new mobile advertising platform, iAds for its new iPhone 4.
The new iAd platform will be built directly into the iPhone 4 OS interface potentially meaning users get little say as to whether they chose to opt in or not. Apple suggest that iAds is being developed to change the face of advertising, but surely this is just a pop up that's been made almost impossible to opt out of as it's preloaded to your handset?
Fear not, Mr Jobs has stated that far from rehash a 10 year old technology, he has in fact identified a flaw of both standard online advertising and TV advertising — the combination of interaction and emotion. The key is that ads will keep users within an app, rather than redirecting users to a browser window. So don't worry that you are seemingly trapped inside a never ending advert as you will be 'enjoying' being 'emotionally interacted with'. Sounds like something a catholic priest might be accused of!
I'm sure all you Apple evangelists will gush that iAds is great and that the ads are so engaging, so relevant, lets just wait until you've been served your 20th 'flab to fab' ad and see how engaged you are! Then again I'm sure there's an app for that.
Bodhi Morrison, Head of Digital MC&C
Monday 28 June 2010
The Budget: every cloud…
Doom! Gloom! Swingeing cuts! While the emergency budget may make for depressing reading for many sections of the UK, what does this practically mean for the advertising and marketing industries?
The advertising industry is one of the most cyclical of all industries – by this I mean that it very closely tracks macro economic movements in terms of UK GDP. Typically, it follows GDP’s suit around two quarters later which means good news over the next year or two if the government’s forecast and the Bellweather Report are to be believed.
Clearly however, the changing financial landscape will affect parts of the UK differently. Were I parent relying on child benefit or a public sector worker seeing consumer goods prices rise thanks to VAT while knowing that my pay was frozen for the next two years, I would not be enthralled by my prospects. Broadly though, the prime ABC1s beloved of advertisers will still be available and willing to spend, so what is the big impact going to be? Regionality – that’s what.
To be more specific, it is not macro regionality, but dynamic shifts within regions at a much more micro level. This will particularly be evident in place such as the North East where there is a high level of public sector employment. Where the region as a whole will probably be adversely affected, some specific areas will remain relatively unaffected thereby creating pockets of people who are disproportionately wealthy compared to their surrounding peers.
This clearly represents an opportunity for highly targeted strategies – where the difference between good and bad targeting can be as wide as just a street or a town, this is extremely vital. What we will see coming into effect is the increased use of micro-targeting, particularly with techniques such as IP flooding, retargeting and postcode level display and emails.
mc&c have previous in this area – have a look at the First Bus case study on the website to see how successful such a strategy could be.
These techniques will enable you to reach customers in more intricate ways – perhaps even down to single contacts. I’m not sure that we could target your vitriol at George Osborne though.
Tim Part, Business Development Manager
Doom! Gloom! Swingeing cuts! While the emergency budget may make for depressing reading for many sections of the UK, what does this practically mean for the advertising and marketing industries?
The advertising industry is one of the most cyclical of all industries – by this I mean that it very closely tracks macro economic movements in terms of UK GDP. Typically, it follows GDP’s suit around two quarters later which means good news over the next year or two if the government’s forecast and the Bellweather Report are to be believed.
Clearly however, the changing financial landscape will affect parts of the UK differently. Were I parent relying on child benefit or a public sector worker seeing consumer goods prices rise thanks to VAT while knowing that my pay was frozen for the next two years, I would not be enthralled by my prospects. Broadly though, the prime ABC1s beloved of advertisers will still be available and willing to spend, so what is the big impact going to be? Regionality – that’s what.
To be more specific, it is not macro regionality, but dynamic shifts within regions at a much more micro level. This will particularly be evident in place such as the North East where there is a high level of public sector employment. Where the region as a whole will probably be adversely affected, some specific areas will remain relatively unaffected thereby creating pockets of people who are disproportionately wealthy compared to their surrounding peers.
This clearly represents an opportunity for highly targeted strategies – where the difference between good and bad targeting can be as wide as just a street or a town, this is extremely vital. What we will see coming into effect is the increased use of micro-targeting, particularly with techniques such as IP flooding, retargeting and postcode level display and emails.
mc&c have previous in this area – have a look at the First Bus case study on the website to see how successful such a strategy could be.
These techniques will enable you to reach customers in more intricate ways – perhaps even down to single contacts. I’m not sure that we could target your vitriol at George Osborne though.
Tim Part, Business Development Manager
Sky Sports News: it’s just not cricket
Friday 18th June was a disastrous day for sport. Forget England’s passable impression of an over 70s team in the scoreless bore-fest with Algeria, I’m talking about Sky’s decision to withdraw Sky Sports News from Freeview and turn it into a pay TV channel. One quotation which appeared beside the BBC report caught my eye. It reads as follows:
“There is a broad, emerging consensus that in the multi-media era it is insane to give content away for nothing”
Tim Luckhurst, Professor of Journalism, University of Kent
Interesting. Provocative. Utter claptrap.
The fact is that as the world becomes more advanced in terms of multi-media content, the easier it becomes to find content of similar quality and substance. Since I churned from the Sky platform to Freeview and subsequently Freesat last year, I have not once laid eyes on Sky Sports and my scarily useless knowledge of all things sporting has not diminished as a result. BBC Sport does the same job in terms of headlines and there are scores of places I can get my Spurs and Surrey fixes earlier than Sky could ever report the gist of the story. Indeed, most of the time Facebook and Twitter get there first.
There are three possible reasons why Sky have taken SSN away from Freeview.
1. They actually think it a valuable commodity. As discussed above, this is crazy. As media fragments, generic content such as SSN becomes less valuable, whereas the crown jewels become the prize. Where else can the UK public watch shows such as 24, Lost or Premier League Football? Professor Luckhurst described SSN as a “loss leader”. He is probably right, but will Sky 3 +1, which has replaced SSN on the Freeview EPG, be as successful?
2. They want to annoy Freeview. In times of recession, downturn and economic strife, downtrading becomes a serious concern for premier businesses. By taking away even the smallest piece of content from Freeview, Sky are flexing their muscles in a public way. It is worth PR in itself.
3. Murdoch’s pay wall is writ in stone. This could be a clear indication that Sky are aggressively pursuing the pay-per-view model for all of their content.
Whatever reason it is, I doubt that there will be serious ramifications for either Sky or Freeview which just makes the decision all the more puzzling.
Going back to the dear Professor, I think I may have been a little unfair. He is not entirely worng – he is just missing a word. Had he said “the wrong content” he would have been spot on. Giving away some of your content as a sweetener is vital – we have seen from our years of work with Which? that giving a free guide gives a much better quality of customer than prize draw. Customers recruited on brand values stay longer and are more profitable than those lured in on a false premise whose latency and inertia provides any revenue. These themes are explored in an article on the subscription business model which can be found on the mc&c website.
Tim Part, Business Development Manager
Friday 18th June was a disastrous day for sport. Forget England’s passable impression of an over 70s team in the scoreless bore-fest with Algeria, I’m talking about Sky’s decision to withdraw Sky Sports News from Freeview and turn it into a pay TV channel. One quotation which appeared beside the BBC report caught my eye. It reads as follows:
“There is a broad, emerging consensus that in the multi-media era it is insane to give content away for nothing”
Tim Luckhurst, Professor of Journalism, University of Kent
Interesting. Provocative. Utter claptrap.
The fact is that as the world becomes more advanced in terms of multi-media content, the easier it becomes to find content of similar quality and substance. Since I churned from the Sky platform to Freeview and subsequently Freesat last year, I have not once laid eyes on Sky Sports and my scarily useless knowledge of all things sporting has not diminished as a result. BBC Sport does the same job in terms of headlines and there are scores of places I can get my Spurs and Surrey fixes earlier than Sky could ever report the gist of the story. Indeed, most of the time Facebook and Twitter get there first.
There are three possible reasons why Sky have taken SSN away from Freeview.
1. They actually think it a valuable commodity. As discussed above, this is crazy. As media fragments, generic content such as SSN becomes less valuable, whereas the crown jewels become the prize. Where else can the UK public watch shows such as 24, Lost or Premier League Football? Professor Luckhurst described SSN as a “loss leader”. He is probably right, but will Sky 3 +1, which has replaced SSN on the Freeview EPG, be as successful?
2. They want to annoy Freeview. In times of recession, downturn and economic strife, downtrading becomes a serious concern for premier businesses. By taking away even the smallest piece of content from Freeview, Sky are flexing their muscles in a public way. It is worth PR in itself.
3. Murdoch’s pay wall is writ in stone. This could be a clear indication that Sky are aggressively pursuing the pay-per-view model for all of their content.
Whatever reason it is, I doubt that there will be serious ramifications for either Sky or Freeview which just makes the decision all the more puzzling.
Going back to the dear Professor, I think I may have been a little unfair. He is not entirely worng – he is just missing a word. Had he said “the wrong content” he would have been spot on. Giving away some of your content as a sweetener is vital – we have seen from our years of work with Which? that giving a free guide gives a much better quality of customer than prize draw. Customers recruited on brand values stay longer and are more profitable than those lured in on a false premise whose latency and inertia provides any revenue. These themes are explored in an article on the subscription business model which can be found on the mc&c website.
Tim Part, Business Development Manager
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