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Is Mobile Banking Secure?

noreply@blogger.com (sempoi4u) — Mon, 13 Feb 2012 06:07:00 +0000

Online and mobile banking apps provide millions with easy access to their accounts and billpay, but what happens when something goes wrong?

Citibank customers who used an iPad app to pay their bills were charged twice, some without their knowledge, the bank aknowledged this week.

The problem began in July and went undetected until December, the New York Times reported.

Andrew Brent, Citigroup spokesman, said the now-fixed problem impacted less than 2 percent of all transactions executed through the iPad.

"We take seriously the functionality of our products and services as well as the satisfaction of our clients," Citibank said in a statement. "Upon discovering a technical bug in our Citibank for iPad app had caused a limited number of clients to encounter duplicate payments or transfers, we immediately fixed the technical issue. Even more important, we have reached out to clients who were impacted to ensure their individual situations are resolved completely."

Citi's iPad app, launched in July 2011, is one of a handful of mobile and online offerings from Citigroup. Early last year, Citi launched "Click to Call/Chat" via Twitter. In May 2011, Citi teamed up with Google to become the bank partner for Google Wallet, a "smart, virtual wallet" which allows you to tap your phone on a sensor for in-store on online shopping. In January, Citi launched the first Facebook program to enable rewards sharing and says it became the first credit card provider to offer account analysis tools on the iPad.

With the growth of mobile banking apps that allow users to do everything from deposit checks through their smartphones or transfer money, large, traditional banks and start-up companies are joining the fray.

Chase and Charles Schwab offer apps that allow customers to scan and deposit checks from their smartphones.

Schwab launched its brokerage and banking mobile deposit iPhone app in May 2011, followed by the Android app the following month. Nearly 40 percent of all check deposits at SchwabBank came through mobile devices since the launch of the app.

Security precautions and procedures to correct errors vary by bank. Though most institutions recommend you contact your institution immediately if there is an issue.

John Burnett, associate editor of BankersOnline.com, a resource for financial services professionals, said there is some potential for additional error on the mobile side of banking because users often move through a transaction quickly.

"You may not take the time to review what you have done once you have committed to it," he said. "Once you commit to it, it's typically gone."

The Electronic Fund Transfer Act gives some guidelines for transferring money, though Burnett said there's no special standard or compliance for mobile banking.

"So banks have taken a paradigm from online banking, sitting at computers – and translated that to a tiny screen on mobile phones," he said. "And that may or may not work well, given the different varieties of phones. Some are smart, some aren't so smart. There arer always that potential that not all the I's get dotted and Ts crossed."

Burnett said his small bank, Rockland Trust Company, also offers some mobile banking services through a third-party service provider.

Security issues go both ways, Burnett said.

One potential security concern of smart phones is they are portable.

"It's not uncommon for a smartphone owner to store password information right on the phone," he said. "Anyone picking up the phone with a high school education can start doing business with the bank on their phone. That's creating a problem for banks when consumers wake up to the fact that they've been defrauded when their phone's been abused."

Burnett offers these tips for mobile banking users.

First of all, always know where your phone is.

Second, don't allow your banking applications to store a password to log in.

Third, use the phone to review activity on your account regularly so you can check any problems quickly.

Diane Russell, Charles Schwab senior vice president of platform services, said if a customer makes an error in the check deposit amount, it triggers an out-of-balance alert that typically is detected within an hour, but otherwise before the end of that business day.

"As soon as we detect an error, we immediately e-mail the customer to alert them and include instructions to resubmit the check or to contact us for assistance," she said.

Russell said Schwab has not seen errors in check deposit amounts but the company has a process in place to quickly correct any mistakes. To prevent errors, she said Schwab uses image technology on its servers, as well as people to process the checks.

She said the Schwab app captures the information that a customer enters, and the information from the check image itself. If there's a mismatch, it alerts an operator to reconcile the discrepancy. She said this reconciliation process makes errors unlikely.

"If a mistake did occur, we would immediately send an email to the customer to let them know we have a mismatch and give them the option to resubmit the check, mail it in or bring it into one of our branches," she said.

Christine Holevas, spokeswoman with Chase, said as with any discrepancy with an account, the customer should Chase (at 800-935-9935) to inform the bank of the problem.

"We will correct the problem as quickly as possible, but because every situation is unique, we cannot guarantee a specific timeframe, but we understand the urgency of the situation for customers," she said. Subject to limitations, customers are reimbursed for 100 percent of unauthorized transfers to or from their personal Chase checking and savings account initiated through the Online and Mobile Bill Payment and Transfer Service.

The Future Of Online Advertising

noreply@blogger.com (sempoi4u) — Tue, 15 Nov 2011 14:26:00 +0000

I gave a talk on Thursday at the AppNexus Summit in front of a few hundred digital advertising types. The first part of the talk was a macro overview, but when the Q&A session started, all that anybody wanted to talk about was my take on online media. And given how granular the discussions over the course of the rest of the day were going to be, I wanted to push back a bit against some of the unexamined assumptions which I encounter most of the time when I meet online-media people.

The first is that there’s something necessary and inevitable about ad-driven models dominating the online media industry. That’s certainly how things have worked out to date, but there was nothing inevitable about it. From the very early days of the World Wide Web, many extremely smart people pushed very hard to develop a workable micropayments architecture online. Ads looked like a non-starter: as Gary Wolf put it in his history of Wired, “the computer screen was low resolution; the ads themselves were tiny, and they disappeared as soon as the user scrolled down”. A few sponsors would buy ads in order to understand the new medium, but there was never anything particularly promising in online banners.

Meanwhile, people were happily paying small sums for newspapers, for magazines, for coffee, for any number of fast-moving consumer goods. And websites were about as fast-moving a consumer good as the world had. A simple and painless online payments system was clearly the way that the web was going to make money. The only problem was — and is — that the payments world is old, and slow, and very resistant to change; rumor has it that Mastercard actually twisted Marc Andreessen’s arm so that he would remove his <payments> tag from the early versions of the Mozilla browser.

With the US payments system being stuck on ACH for the foreseeable future, payments online have been clunky and unwieldy, based around expensive and cartelized credit-card transactions; the only real competitor, PayPal, is a for-profit company, a wholly-owned subsidiary of eBay which doesn’t clear at par and which has many other obstacles to being adopted as a broad-based payments architecture.

So one of the big reasons why online advertising has done so well is simply the negative one: online micropayments were a disaster, and never took off. But they’re much more compelling as a business model, and there’s a decent chance that at some point in the future the financial system as a whole is going to get its act together and put together something which actually works and which people are happy to adopt. At which point, the online ad industry will face a major threat.

My second point was that black-hat SEO advertisers, like the ones who got in touch with Hamilton Nolan last month, do at least serve one purpose: they show just how valuable simple links — as opposed to expensive branded ad campaigns — can be. Hamilton was being asked to insert links into blog posts he was writing; more recently, I got an email from someone named “Whitney Meyer” offering me $50 every time I added a link to an old post of mine. Google’s PageRank algorithm is a lot more sophisticated than it used to be, but the fact is that it still gives enormous weight to who’s linking to whom, for very good reason. Links are what the web is built on, and a large part of why it’s so incredibly powerful and popular.

Finally, after the obligatory plug for Counterparties, I laid out my vision of what online advertising could be. Check out the front page of Reuters.com: we have what is basically an ad unit at the bottom of the right-hand column which acts as an ad for Counterparties. It’s got Counterparties branding, but the meat of it is four links to four different external sites. (As I write this, they’re the NYT, the Guardian, the Economist, and the Huffington Post.) We want you to click on those links; when you do, you leave Reuters.com, and you don’t go to Counterparties.com. Instead, you go directly to HuffPo, or wherever. Reuters gets no traffic when you click on that link: indeed, we’re sending you away. That’s a good thing: we’re providing a valuable service for our readers, pointing them to great content. If you believe in putting the audience’s needs first, this kind of thing is a no-brainer.

What we have cobbled together is something really rather novel: an ad unit that smart readers actually want to click on. I’ve been looking at ads online for over 15 years now, and I’ve never wanted to click on one, with the exception of a handful of very bloggish sponsored posts at Gawker Media, which were interspersed seamlessly between inferior original editorial posts. It’s a known fact in advertising circles that only idiots click on ads — and yet advertisers still think that click-through rates mean something, and that a higher click-through rate means a better ad. It’s the measurement fallacy: people tend to think that what they can measure is what they want, just because they can measure it. And it’s endemic in the online advertising industry.

In fact, with very few exceptions, I’ve never even wanted to look at online ads: its quite astonishing, the degree to which we’ve collectively trained ourselves to ignore ads when we bring up a web page. And what that says to me is that online advertising is missing something really huge.

At one point in the Q&A session, I asked the audience to raise their hands if they read Vogue magazine; maybe three or four people, in a crowd a hundred times that size, did so. Most of the people in the audience literally didn’t know that when people buy Vogue, they want to read the ads; in a very real sense, the editorial is something which just gets in the way.

Leaf through a glossy fashion magazine like Vogue, and you’ll find dozens of pages of ads at the front of the book, with basically zero editorial content to break them up. If advertisers thought that readers only looked at ads insofar as they were adjacent to editorial, then they would ask for placement opposite editorial. But that’s not what happens: the ads all cluster at the front, the editorial gets relegated to the back, and readers spend more time looking at ads than they do looking at editorial features. In fact, the most avid readers of the editorial shoots are the advertisers, who use them for ideas when they’re planning their next campaign.

Vogue is a prime example of the power of advertising: if, as an advertiser, you know how to give people something they want, then you don’t need to rely on second-best stratagems like adjacency. And no one ever clicked on an ad in Vogue. Which is one reason why Gawker’s former ad chief Chris Batty once proposed that all ads on Gawker Media should be images only, and not clickable at all — it would force advertisers to create something good, instead of chasing after clicks from idiots.

Because it’s so easy to measure things like impressions and click-through rates, the online ad industry has missed the real power that advertising can have, and its practitioners tend to sneer at old-media ad money as being largely wasted, in contrast to the carefully quantified campaigns one sees online. One questioner at the conference proposed that ad spend could soon be counted simply as a cost of goods sold in accounting statements, since technology had made the relationship between adspend and sales so transparent.

But there’s something very powerful about brand advertising — something which helps explain why so much more money still gets poured into TV ads rather than online campaigns. Part of it is that TV ads are glossier and more self-contained, not competing for attention with simultaneous editorial content. And another part of it is that Americans have demonstrated quite clearly that they prefer lean-back to lean-forwards: cable TV is still a higher priority for the vast majority of the country than is broadband access. And the content they prefer to ingest in a lean-back way includes advertising.

So what’s an advertiser to do, online? My idea is to move away from the idea of getting people to click on ads, but at the same time to treat with suspicion the idea that it’s possible to deliver a beautiful, self-contained brand proposition online in the same way that you can in Vogue or on TV.

Instead, take a leaf out of the book of sites which really have generated a huge amount of loyalty online — sites like Drudge, or Reddit, or Tech meme, or Fark, or any number of other aggregates and curators with enormous followings. Millions of people love these sites, and visit them with astonishing regularity. Why? Because they send them to fantastic third-party content.

It’s easy to create an ad unit which is primarily links to third-party sites; I’m sure with a bit of effort and creativity you could put one together which is even better than the Counterparties unit on Reuters.com. Start placing that ad over the web, and people will, for the first time, actually have a reason to want to look at your ad; when they see it, they’re even likely to click on it! Sure, that click won’t take them to your site — but it’s still a great measure of engagement. And they will love you for sending them to great content.

And what if it’s too hard for you to put together a dynamically-updated list of great content to link to? In that case, you could always ask the people who do it well if they’d be willing to put together a white-label version of their own links for you. The Browser might be a good place to start — or you could even ask us at Counter parties. And our partners at Percolate are already doing something similar for corporate clients. Here’s how they put it:

In a digital world, we believe brands can be signals. Pointing consumers to valuable information that is not necessarily about the brand directly, but speaks to the brand promise and consumer mindset.

I’m not saying that online advertisers should drop everything and just start linking to third-party sites. But I am saying that it’s worth a try — it’s an idea worth experimenting with. If you do it, and you start getting lots of positive feedback from consumers, you’re probably doing something right. And you might just have discovered a way to build your brand online, even if you’re not necessarily a particularly digital company.

By : REUTERS

NZ in advertising lockdown for Rugby World Cup

noreply@blogger.com (sempoi4u) — Thu, 01 Sep 2011 00:00:00 +0000

By: Hayley Hannan

New Zealand is in an advertising lock down during the Rugby World Cup as organizers keep a vigilant eye out for marketers and advertisers hijacking the tournament's brand.

The International Rugby Board, Rugby New Zealand, the Ministry of Economic Development and local councils across the country are working together to stop unofficial cup brands mooching free publicity off the event.

Companies wanting to be associated with the Rugby World Cup 2011 event have to pay for the use of the name and the logos.

Around many international sporting events, corporates look to capitalist on the games and hype by associating themselves with the event without paying the sponsorship fee, a practice known as ambush marketing.

It's common practice for many brands; at the 1996 Olympics Nike built its own branded village instead of paying the $50 million sponsorship fee.

Anyone found trying to use the tournament's name or brand can be fined up to $150,000 under the Major Events Management Act 2007, and could face legal action if they try to rip off the trademark said IRB general manager Ross Young.

"It's the malicious corporate ambush where people invest tens of thousands of dollars in intricate campaigns, those are the ones we're after."

He said hundreds of educational letters with cartoons and pictures had been sent out explaining what companies can and can't do.

Each of the 12 stadia across the country will be protected by a 'clean zone' for a period before and after the match.

The Ministry of Economic Development was monitoring each zone, and up to 12 team members would patrol Eden Park around the temporary period said ministry spokesman James Funnel.

"The reality is it's become pretty much standard over the last handful of years that major sporting events attract ambush marketing."

Within each clean zone, any existing advertising was exempt from the law - even if it was for rival brands he said.

However, many of the key billboard spaces around Auckland had been per-booked a few years ago by sponsors and the organizers said Auckland Council licensing manager Carole Todd.

The council is monitoring the wider Auckland area and up to 35 council officers will patrol Auckland every match night, looking for any leaflets, freebies, posters, billboards or products that don't have a permit said Ms Carole Todd.

The officers will also be monitoring noise and liquor licensing mainly around areas close to the stadium, the viaduct and any special celebration zone.

Council has given out permits for any kind of sale or giveaway on the streets which protect the sponsor's rights, she said.

She said council was looking out for "clever" marketers offering something as simple as a beanie emblazoned with a non-official logo being given out on the way to the stadium, that don't have permits.

Advertising agency TBWA chief executive David Walden said sponsors such as Heineken would have paid "millions and millions" to be associated with the tournament.

"The biggest ambush marketing used to be a streaker with Vodafone across their bottom running across the field when the All Blacks was sponsored by Telecom."

He said advertisers were now more interested in using publicity to create sales, rather than just pulling a stunt - but he still expected to see a few attempts at publicity stunts.

Darien Rush security guards is on the lookout for any companies that are daring enough to try and unleash a streaker across the Eden Park pitch.

The security company had a special team that had been trained to restrain and deal with pitch invaders, said human resources manager Colin Brown.

Small businesses have inexpensive advertising option

noreply@blogger.com (sempoi4u) — Thu, 04 Aug 2011 07:16:00 +0000

Submitted by DEBRA MITCHELL, U.S. Postal Service

The U.S. Postal Service’s promotion of Every Door Direct Mail (EDDM) is producing results. Since its introduction, USPS has closed millions in annualized sales with hundreds of customers who are using the product to promote their goods and services.

EDDM - a form of Simplified Addressing used by the Postal Service for years - allows business mailers to use mail delivery route information, instead of names and exact addresses, to reach target customer groups in urban areas. It has long been an accepted addressing option on rural routes and for government mailings.

With EDDM, businesses can send advertising mail without acquiring an address list or printing addresses on each mail piece. Instead, letter carriers deliver EDDM along with the day s mail to every address on routes customers want to reach.

EDDM is simple and cost-effective. There is no postage permit required, no mailing list is needed, and plenty of room is available on the mail piece for the business message. The target audience can be identified by a specific neighborhood or a specified distance from the business. Mail is dropped at the Post Office that services the carrier routes being targeted. Payment can be made for postage via cash, check, or debit card. The cost is 14.2 cents per piece.

Standard mail flat-size requirements must be used it must be more than 11 1/2 inches long or more than 6 1/8 inches high, or more than 1/4 inch thick. It can weigh up to 3.3 ounces. A minimum of 200 mail pieces must be used and up to a maximum of 5,000 mail pieces can be mailed per day.

Every Door Direct Mail information is available at usps.com/everydoordirectmail. To obtain letter carrier route information visit smp.usps.gov. A mapping feature is available that will identify letter carrier routes within 1-5 miles of a specific address when the location feature is selected. For more information call Debra Mitchell at 573-9638.

For more information about purchasing stamps, stamps by mail, postal regulations, a free subscription to USA Philatelic magazine, Post Office events, the location of the nearest postal store or contract unit, or for answers to your specific Postal Service questions, contact USPS at 1-800-275-8777, or visit www.usps.com'>www.usps.com. To schedule a presentation for your community, club or group on how the Postal Service brings the Post Office to your home or office computer, call 239-573-9638.

Mr. Zip’s Tip: There are more than 42,000 Zip Codes in the U.S.

A self-supporting government enterprise, the U.S. Postal Service is the only delivery service that reaches every address in the nation, 150 million residences, businesses and Post Office Boxes. The Postal Service receives no tax dollars for operating expenses, and relies on the sale of postage, products and services to fund its operations. With 32,000 retail locations and the most frequently visited website in the federal government, usps.com, the Postal Service has annual revenue of more than $67 billion and delivers nearly 40 percent of the world s mail. If it were a private sector company, the U.S. Postal Service would rank 29th in the 2010 Fortune 500. Black Enterprise and Hispanic Business magazines ranked the Postal Service as a leader in workforce diversity. The Postal Service has been named the Most Trusted Government Agency six consecutive years and the sixth Most Trusted Business in the nation by the Ponemon Institute.

About Face: Should We Take a Stand on Standards of Beauty?

noreply@blogger.com (sempoi4u) — Mon, 01 Aug 2011 05:48:00 +0000

Sure, there’s truth in advertising. Like, that dress you saw on Giselle in Vogue? Isn’t going to look like that on your body. And that ad for make up featuring the Face of Lancome? Isn’t going to make your skin glow like Julia Roberts.

Well now it turns out that without Photoshop, even Julia Roberts doesn’t look like Julia Roberts. That’s the takeaway from the recent news that a Lancome ad featuring Julia Roberts and a Maybelline ad featuring Christy Turlington were banned in England for being overly airbrushed.

Britain’s Advertising Standards Authority decided that they "breached the advertising standards code for exaggeration and being misleading.”

The panel investigated the ads after being alerted by Jo Swinson, a member of Parliament who’s on a crusade to stop advertisers from using manipulated photographs.

"We should have some honesty in advertising and that's exactly what the ASA is there to do. There's a problem out there with body image and confidence. The way excessive retouching has become pervasive in our society is contributing to that problem."

"Pictures of flawless skin and super-slim bodies are all around, but they don't reflect reality," said Swinson. "Excessive airbrushing and digital manipulation techniques have become the norm, but both Christy Turlington and Julia Roberts are naturally beautiful women who don't need retouching to look great. This ban sends a powerful message to advertisers – let's get back to reality.""

Here’s some interesting reality: L’Oreal refused to show investigators the photographs of Julia Roberts before “airbrushing” —indicating, says the Guardian, that the flawless skin she has in the ad is unattainable beauty even for Julia Roberts

So they banned the ad.

If this seems extreme, equally extreme are the lengths women and girls are going to in order to reach the standards of beauty in the ads. Girls are on diets before they can read; eating disorders are epidemic; plastic surgeons are busier than plumbers.

And though a few stars notably Kate Winslet, have tried to fight doctored images, and a few companies like Dove have tried using models with less than perfect bodies, truth in advertising is far from being a trend. I think it’s encouraging that someone, somewhere is drawing a line---(and leaving in some lines). And that hopefully the ridiculous quest for physical perfection is slowly beginning to do an about face---it’s about time.

Tiger may trigger new trend in Japanese advertising

noreply@blogger.com (sempoi4u) — Tue, 12 Jul 2011 04:11:00 +0000

Tiger Woods is about to return to Japanese television screens, although not lifting another golfing trophy, as he may have wished.

Out of the top 10 in the sport, and having just pulled out of the British Open, the former star of the game has signed a contract to promote a heat rub for muscle and joint pains by a Japanese company.

"Kowa Co., Ltd., is pleased to announce the use of Tiger Woods as the image character of Antiphlogistic Analgetic Vantelin Kowa series," the Nagoya-based company said in a statement.

The commercials are due to be screened from later in July and could conceivably herald a new wave of foreign stars of the worlds of music, movies and sport appearing in Japanese adverts.

The list of people from abroad who have endorsed Japanese products in the market here is long and varied - from Jodie Foster and Leonardo DiCaprio selling the Honda Civic to Sean Connery marketing Suntory Whisky and Sylvester Stallone appearing in an advert for ham.

But the pendulum has swung back to domestic stars in more recent years.

In part, that was traced back to the advent of the internet and YouTube, which made the faintly embarrassing performances by A-list Hollywood stars accessible to viewers outside Japan.

The situation was not helped by Bill Murray sending up the stars' performances in Japan when he appeared as a celebrity on the decline pitching whisky in the movie Lost in Translation.

Singers from homegrown boy bands such as Smap and Tokio, as well as Seattle Mariners baseball star Ichiro Suzuki, have recently dominated Japan's 30-second advertising spots, but other locally based companies will be watching the results of the alliance between Tiger Woods and Kowa to gauge the impact on domestic consumers.

And if they are offering enough of a financial incentive for stars who have perhaps been down on their luck for a few months, then that might be sufficient to sign them up.

iPhone Application Advertising

noreply@blogger.com (sempoi4u) — Wed, 16 Mar 2011 07:51:00 +0000

The iPhone is perhaps the best mobile advertising vehicle because it is optimized for rich media applications and mobile browsing. Over time, iPhone application users have become an attractive demographic for advertisers because of their higher engagement with online media. iPhone application advertising thus emerged out of this engagement quotient and enterprises, especially retail, used this platform to show chase their individual USPs.

Riding on the new wave of iPhone application advertising, a host of median and technology companies have emerged to provide advertising related tools and analytic for iPhone developers. Many have a dedicated business unit for iPhone and are serving a host of Fortune 500 companies. Adidas, Chanel, Audi, and Levis are some of the companies who are cashing on iPhone application advertising.

It’s not difficult to gauge the popularity if iPhone application advertising where technologies like GPS is integrated with video and content. Video can react to user movements and you can add voices and control interactions. The advertisements, in future, will be available to users when the iPhone is in offline mode. This is attributed to advances in pre-caching technology and is expected to be a hit with 3G subscribers.

Apple’s App Store is flooded with applications which is certainly good news for Apple shareholders and analysts. As the store matures, they will be challenged to maintain the growth, innovation and dynamism of their applications. Moving away from the App Store, app developers have started exploiting social media tools like Twitter and Facebook. iPhone application advertising features heavily on these sites where users can download the app and subsequently rate it.

iPhone Application Advertising: Revenue Models

In the first model, companies deliver the content in multiple formats and target a mass market. The free app is advertising supported and hosted on media like Wired, Facebook, and NY Times.

In the second model, companies create a buzz around the app by offering it for free and marketing it to as many users as possible. Companies drive users to their website, create a campaign and find a source of revenue by selling data collected through market research.

In the third revenue model, companies sell the apps ranging from 99 cents to $4.99. These apps specialize in gaming and language translations. Advertising is done at a low price point and is aimed to achieve straight revenue.

iVdopia is the advanced mobile advertising platform and network, pioneering rich media and video advertising on iphone, android and other smart phones, including Pre-App video and social networking options on smart mobile devices providing better monetization opportunities for app developers. iVdopia’s brand-centric mobile advertising network and platform is used by top developers and brands such as Coca-Cola, Warner Brothers and Miller Lite to deliver premium advertising campaigns.

Advertising on Radio

noreply@blogger.com (sempoi4u) — Wed, 09 Mar 2011 02:59:00 +0000

Advertising is a form of communication intended to persuade an audience (viewers, readers or listeners) to take some action. It includes the name of a product or service and how that product or service could benefit the consumer, to persuade potential customers to purchase or to consume that particular brand. Modern advertising developed with the rise of mass production in the late 19th and early 20th centuries.

Advertising is a brilliant idea to increase business for all type business. Radio is still surprisingly inexpensive for advertising. The medium has been around for about 100 years. Many businesses give radio a pass because of the misconception of the return on investment.

The greatest advantage of radio is its ability to go after a very specific kind of market. Advertising on radio is the largest pre-buyer of national radio advertising and print advertising.

It own multi-million dollar blocks of national radio advertising network time. This media gives its clients consistent profitable returns on their media dollars. Local, regional, national…straight media or performance based.

Today, everyone talks about ROI and the need to make marketing more accountable. Print and radio advertising measurement systems tells which media components work, for rapid ROI improvements. Print & Radio is the largest pre-buyer of national print advertising. In print media, the advantage of catering to specific target audience opens up countless opportunities to enhance sales figures. A fashion magazine would highlight cosmetic products and fashion accessories.

At the same time, a sports magazine would display sports related ads to cater to its readers. There is no wastage of resources as ads get to reach the target audience. They offer programs that cut the risk of advertising by clients, through the use of some programs.The Hispanic population generally spends an average of 26-30 hours a week listening to the radio – 13% more than the rest of the population. Additionally, readership of weekly community and free newspaper remains high and consistent.

The internet has transformed the way the world works in so many ways it is impossible to document. Of recent with the development of the dynamic web and free access to the internet we are seeing the decline of traditional media sources and the birth of online internet radio, TV, podcasts and ezines. People are no longer the confined audience of what the big networks deem is important according to their advertisers and big sponsors.

Radio Advertising Costs has a growing user base of both broadcasters and listeners. People are broadcasting their messages to their niche audience. Most of it would never have seen the light of day with traditional media outlets. These niche audiences are thirsty for good content pertinent to their interests. With the relatively low cost of software and the profusion of social networks like YouTube, Blogtalk Radio and Ustream there are more and more free internet radio stations hitting the airwaves all the time. Some people even speculate that the music industry will have a rebirth of sorts using these streams and the power of community connection.

For those that are going big and developing a business model around their broadcasting there is still cost involved to running it before going into profit. To make it a business success it is important to monetize what is being built. Once a large audience of 50 thousands listeners is achieved, companies wanting to connect with a particular group will be open to buying online radio advertising in the form of 30 second radio ads and infomercials or branded shows.

Billboard Ads Under Scrutiny

noreply@blogger.com (sempoi4u) — Thu, 16 Dec 2010 03:29:00 +0000

Billboard advertisements, some of which were among the top 10 complained-about ads of 2010, will be scrutinised by a parliamentary committee in 2011.

Four billboards, five television advertisements and one internet advert on Tuesday were named as the focus of public anger in 2010.

They dealt with sexuality and nudity, social values, discrimination and vilification, language, health and safety, the Advertising Standards Bureau (ASB) said.

Federal Member for Moreton, Graham Perrett, said the House of Representatives Social Policy and Legal Affairs Committee, which he chairs, would look at the effectiveness of self-regulation and whether advertising reflected community standards.

Earlier this year, Mr Perrett called for a ban on offensive billboard advertising, saying it was time to "reclaim public spaces" and protect common decency.

In particular, he objected to one billboard, for an erectile dysfunction treatment, which was on a busy road and likely to be seen by children.

"I thought it crossed the bounds of decency, and I'm certainly no prude," Mr Perrett said.

"If I think it's a bit risque I'm pretty sure my mum would and I'm pretty sure I wouldn't want my kids, to have to explain it to them," he told AAP.

He said it was necessary to differentiate between press, radio, television and internet advertising - where the media could be turned off or ignored - but outdoor advertising billboards were different.

"If you're driving in your car, on your way to school or in the train, you don't have a choice what you see outside your window," Mr Perrett said.

Self-regulation of advertising generally worked, he said, and there had been a change to the particular billboard about which he complained.

Mr Perrett said advertising regulation was not about never causing offence to anyone, but about meeting community standards.

The committee of four Labor and three coalition MPS would report in June, after extensive public consultation, he said.

Preliminary figures show the ASB received complaints about more than 520 advertisements in 2010, of which the board determined that in excess of 40 breached voluntary advertising standards.

Of the 10 most complained-about ads, the ASB upheld objections to three and dismissed objections to seven.

The advertisement which drew the most public ire was a television ad for the Advanced Medical Institute and featured a cookie jar on top of a cupboard. A man offers his wife an erect penis as a step.

It resulted in 220 complaints from the public. The complaints were dismissed.

Fast-Food Chains Alluring Kids with Marketing and Advertising Efforts

noreply@blogger.com (sempoi4u) — Thu, 11 Nov 2010 02:50:00 +0000

A research report released on Monday revealed that fast-food restaurants are working hard on their marketing plans to allure children and toddlers towards themselves and unhealthy food products by employing means such as television ads, websites and even menus.

The one-year study was led by Jennifer Harris, of the Yale University Rudd Center for Food Policy & Obesity in Connecticut and colleagues. They analyzed menu items and kids' meal combinations of 12 renowned fast food chains for calories, fat, sugar and sodium content.

The researchers found that the expenditure that the food industry made on marketing and advertising their products and chains on television, the Internet, social media sites and mobile applications stood at more than $4.2 billion in 2009.

The report contains that there are 21% more fast food ads on TV today than in 2003 that the toddlers are exposed to and the proportion is 34% more in case of other children.

Harris said, "Despite pledges to improve their marketing practices, fast food companies seem to be stepping up their efforts to target kids".

There are 13 websites of McDonald's Corp, which fascinate 365,000 new child visitors every month aged below 12. The site known as ronald. com specially aims at toddlers. In an average visit, the teenagers buy 800 to 1,100 calories or half the calories they consume in a day.

The report have called for Government's efforts to curb the marketing initiatives taken by various food-chains by declaring children a s protected group that could help solving the problem of increasing obesity among US kids.

Facebook Revenue to Top $1 Billion in 2010

noreply@blogger.com (sempoi4u) — Fri, 16 Apr 2010 03:55:00 +0000

Initial estimates of a $550 million year for Facebook in 2009 may be lower than expected. In fact, the company may have brought in as much as $700 million, though it is notoriously tight-lipped about the size of its coffers. In what was clearly a banner year for the social media site, it also moved into positive free cash flow territory – and the number of users continues to rise across the board.

Facebook's revenue trajectory – at least to the extent that it can be gauged – has been impressive. From $150 million in 2007, it grew to an estimated $280 million to $300 million in 2008 and a 2009 result that could range from $600 million to $700 million. Revenue has at least doubled every year, a trend that Inside Facebook expects to continue. Of course, these are all third-party estimates, and Facebook isn't saying a thing.

Brand advertising was where Facebook made a major push in 2009, chasing major players with multimillion advertising budgets and committing to improved campaign data through a relationship with Nielsen. At the same time, Facebook experimented with new ad types and saw its user base grow from 150 million at the beginning of the year to 350 million toward the end – driving a lot more impressions, especially in valuable regions like Europe and the U.S. Inside Facebook estimates a year-end total of $225 million for brand advertising, based on a rumor of $125 million through July.

Revenue from Facebook's deal with Microsoft (MSFT) is a bit harder to pin down and isn't believed to have had a serious impact on its 2009 results. The international portion of the deal was killed a year early. The rumor of $150 million for roughly the first half of 2009 is thought to be the top line before Microsoft's cut.

The contribution of virtual goods to Facebook's top line is much smaller. It could be as low as $10 million, since the Credits feature spent most of 2009 in testing. Yet, some estimates put revenue from this source as high as $75 million.

The top revenue source in 2009 was performance advertising, which grew by approximately $150 million through the end of the year relative to its July rumor of $200 million (resulting in a year-end estimate of $350 million).

Inside Facebook projects brand and self-service advertising to increase next year, along with virtual goods. This year, Facebook could cross the $1 billion threshold. Brand advertising could soar as high as $350 million in 2010, with performance advertising showing the potential to push past $500 million.

Apple Building Up Team for Mobile Advertising

noreply@blogger.com (sempoi4u) — Tue, 06 Apr 2010 06:02:00 +0000

Silicon Alley Insider reports on an Apple job posting published last month for a position dedicated to "next generation mobile advertising". The manager position involves oversight of a team of Apple developers leveraging frameworks in the iPhone SDK for mobile advertising purposes.

The iPhone team is looking for a manager to work on supporting next generation mobile advertising. This will involve managing a talented team of developers working on the frameworks included in the iPhone SDK. The ideal candidate will be responsible for the day to day management of the engineering, as well as related frameworks. He or she will spend much of their time interacting with the engineering team, program managers, other engineering teams, and executives. We need someone who is comfortable working in a fast paced environment with rapidly changing priorities.

A glance at Apple's jobs site reveals several other newly-posted positions related to mobile advertising, including a user experience/design engineer and concept designer based in Cupertino and a web user interface developer in Boston.

Apple purchased mobile advertising firm Quattro Wireless, which is based just outside of Boston in Waltham, Massachusetts, several months ago and has reportedly been looking to revolutionize mobile advertising to address Apple CEO Steve Jobs' view that "mobile ads suck".

Twitter’s Ad Plan: Copy Google

noreply@blogger.com (sempoi4u) — Thu, 25 Mar 2010 02:27:00 +0000

What will Twitter’s long-awaited ad platform look like? Something like Google’s.

That’s the general description of Twitter’s plan, according to people who have been briefed by the company.

Here are the very broad strokes:

Ads will be tied to Twitter searches, in the same way that Google’s (GOOG) original ads were. So a search for, say, “laptop,” may generate an ad for Dell (DELL). The ads will only show up in search results, which means users who don’t search for something won’t see them in their regular Twitterstreams.
The ads will use the Twitter format–140 or fewer characters–and will be distributed via the third-party software and services that use Twitter’s API. The services will have the option of displaying the ads, and Twitter will share revenue with those that do.
Twitter will work with ad agencies and buyers to seed the program, but plans on moving to a self-serve model like Google’s, down the road.

The caveats: Everyone I’ve talked to cautions that the plans are evolving and that there are plenty of details to work out. Including a launch date, though it seems as if the first half of this year is a very safe bet.

But at first blush, this seems like a relatively straightforward way for Twitter to get into advertising, without upsetting its growing user base: You won’t see the ads unless you use Twitter to search for something, and Twitter’s advertisers will have at least a vague idea of what you’re interested in.

There are lots of gritty details that Twitter either hasn’t worked out or hasn’t disclosed to the people I’ve talked to. For instance:

How will advertisers buy and price the ads? Will they use a Google-like cost-per-click model or something else?
Twitter searches are popular, but very crude. Can Twitter refine them to make them more useful to users?
Google’s ads work because Google has reasonably good idea of both users’ intent and identity. Twitter knows much less about its users. How can it gather enough data to make its targeting more meaningful?

Twitter has been careful not to position its ad plan as the core of its business. And the company has made a point of stressing that its initial ad rollout, like other initiatives it’s launching this year, are merely “tests.”

That’s one of the of ideas behind the $100 million funding round Twitter closed last summer–it gives the company the time to play around with different business models. But this one seems to have plenty of potential.

"Advertising for Health" on View at the Wolfsonian-FIU

noreply@blogger.com (sempoi4u) — Wed, 24 Mar 2010 04:28:00 +0000

MIAMI BEACH, FL.- The Wolfsonian–Florida International University presents Advertising for Health, an installation that explores nearly a century of advertising for medicine, pharmacy, and public health. The installation features rare advertisements, printed ephemera, and posters from a recent gift by William H. Helfand, a recognized author and print collector. Together with a selection of printed materials and objects from a rarely-exhibited segment of The Wolfsonian’s collection, these works reflect, through their design strategies, changing ideas about health in the Americas and Europe between the late nineteenth century and the Second World War. The objects on view also encourage reflection on the “pursuit of health” in the present by conveying the lively history underlying issues that remain current today.

The Wolfsonian has a particularly rich collection of books, periodicals, and ephemera about physical culture in the U.S.; publications regarding housing reform and urban planning related to health and hygiene; public health campaign materials; and personal care and hygiene objects, such as razors, massagers, and sunlamps. “Mr. Helfand’s gift significantly deepens our collection in the area of medical and pharmaceuticals advertising,” says Marianne Lamonaca, curator of the exhibition and The Wolfsonian’s associate director for curatorial affairs and education. “The installation also relates to a substantial future project, explains Lamonaca. “The Wolfsonian is in the early stages of organizing a large, traveling exhibition, Better! Cleaner! Stronger! Design and the Pursuit of Health, 1918–1945. Its focus will be on a time when European and American designers were called upon to remake the physical and visual world for the sake of healthier individuals and societies. It will explore the impact on that era’s visual and material culture of ideas about health—ideas that shaped the policies of states, that drove social movements, and that inspired visions of the future.”

The installation Advertising for Health is organized to celebrate two milestones at Florida International University : the inaugural year of the FIU Herbert Wertheim College of Medicine and The Wolfsonian’s fifteenth anniversary. “On the occasion of the museum’s fifteenth anniversary,” notes Wolfsonian director Cathy Leff, “we are recognizing the important contributions of donors to our collection. We are also showing a complementary exhibition, Bernarr Macfadden and the American Physical Culture Movement: Selections from the Gift of Robert J. Young in The Wolfsonian’s Rare Book and Special Collections Library.” The library display, curated by Francis X. Luca, Wolfsonian chief librarian and FIU adjunct professor of history, opened on February 5 and focuses on Bernarr Macfadden, a pioneer of the American physical culture movement, a body-builder, and a self-made millionaire. Macfadden used his publishing empire to distribute popular magazines and books that championed his crusade against Victorian prudery, exposed early twentieth-century medical establishment quackery, and advocated better living through a healthy diet and physical fitness.

Creative MINI Cooper Advertising

noreply@blogger.com (sempoi4u) — Tue, 23 Mar 2010 07:35:00 +0000

February 16th, 2010 | Inspiration |Collection of the most unique and creative MINI Cooper advertising campaigns from all over the world.

MINI Billboard

Two curved palm trees used to create an illusion of speed and power. [link]

MINI Cooper Yo-Yo

Real MINI Cooper placed on the side of a building moves up and down, just like a yo-yo. [link]

MINI Drives on Water

Jet Ski converted into a MINI Cooper so it looks like the car is driving on water. [link]

MINI Cooper in a Box

Creative outdoor advertising features a real MINI Cooper in a box. [link]

MINI Headlights Billboard

Cool billboard with cleverly places lights promotes

MINI in Toronto. [link]

Banner Ad Blueprint -Internet Advertising Systems In The End Discovered

noreply@blogger.com (sempoi4u) — Wed, 17 Mar 2010 07:58:00 +0000

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Blogging is viewed as an honest information provider. By that I mean individuals surfing the Internet are at all times cynical about the number of publicity and the claims made by vendors on the Internet. Blogging is assured as normal individuals sharing their thoughts and information for the benefit of others. It is so a direction to construct faith with your potential customers and would encourage them to get a customer.By delivering quality information on your niche subject you could construct your credibility with your people who love reading and start to be assured as an expert in your region and a individual who could help others. Again this would make your people who love reading more inclined to get customers and to acquire from you. This moreover gains you credibility within the blogging community and would help to drive recent traffic to your blog. In addition if you transport excellent blogs and as your readership grows you may get approached by advertisers looking to market place on your web log page, a new beginning of income for the Internet Marketer.

Loopt Launches Local Advertising

noreply@blogger.com (sempoi4u) — Tue, 16 Mar 2010 02:48:00 +0000

Competition is heating up in the social location space, with companies like Yelp, Gowalla and Foursquare recently raising fresh capital and adding new features and partners. And then there's Google, entering the fray with tools like Near Me Now and Latitude.

To keep up, Loopt has partnered with Mobile Spinach to provide special offers and discounts from local businesses through its social mapping service. The deal will allow mobile users in San Francisco to get offers on their phones from nearby restaurants and retailers. The promotions can then be redeemed directly at venues by showing the messages or sent via SMS text message or email.

The offers will be available only through the Loopt mobile application, not its Web site.

"We love adding fun to the Loopt experience, especially when it brings real value to our users by allowing them to save money on everyday things they want and need," said Sam Altman, CEO of Loopt, which shows the location of a user's friends and what they're doing on interactive maps.

Loopt says it has 3 million users, a third of which are on the iPhone. While the company has previously run advertising from national chains like Jack-In-The-Box, the new initiative is its first foray into small business advertising.

The effort pairs its mapping technology and demographic data with Mobile Spinach's database of local San Francisco offers and deals to send people the right promotions in the right place at the right time.

Altman did not provide details of the business arrangement between the companies or on what basis Loopt will get paid for carrying the new advertising. But he said the program will provide dozens of new offers weekly and eventually be expanded to other major cities such as Los Angeles and New York.

The local ad push follows other recent steps by four-year-old Loopt to enhance its service including adding local ratings and reviews and the ability to "check in" at restaurants, bars and other venues. And more ad-related features are on the way. Loopt will soon introduce offers similar to 10-drink coffee punch cards, where the 10th drink is free.

The twist is that the promotions will try to reward certain behavior, like a coffee chain that only punches mobile drink cards between 2 p.m. and 5 p.m., when business is slow. Or they provide some type of "social credit," credit, encouraging people to invite friends to join in the deal. Altman said Loopt already has several national chains on board for the program kicking off in about a month.

"We're seeing the market really focus on these offers with a lot of excitement around them," he said. And will Loopt venture into the gaming territory carved out by Foursquare, where users earn honorifics and points for going out? "That's a logical assumption," added Altman. Looks like the local mobile sector is turning into a tough neighborhood.

Clever and Creative LEGO Advertising

noreply@blogger.com (sempoi4u) — Mon, 15 Mar 2010 06:37:00 +0000

Builders of Tomorrow

Memorable and creative LEGO advertising campaigns from all over the world.

LEGO Airplane

LEGO Building Ad

LEGO Shipping Containers

LEGO Ship

LEGO Train

LEGO Making History

LEGO Pavement Ad

LEGO Education Centre recently opened in Brisbane, Australia and to create awareness Publicis Mojo Brisbane took advantage of the safety bubble-mats found on steps and footpaths around the city.

Free advertising: Stephen Colbert and Pee Wee Herman get Apple iPads

noreply@blogger.com (sempoi4u) — Sat, 13 Mar 2010 02:36:00 +0000

Apple's tablet computer makes cameo appearances at the Grammys and on Funny or Die

David Pogue and Walt Mossberg, eat your hearts out.

America's premier tech columnists — at the New York Times and the Wall Street Journal, respectively — are dying to spend some quality time with Steve Jobs' latest creation.

But they're going to have to wait their turn.

First Pee Wee Herman brought what looked like a non-functioning iPad to his Playhouse in a 2-minute FunnyOrDie.com skit.

And then, in a triumph of product placement, Stephen Colbert capped his Grammy monologue Sunday night by pulling a live one out from under his belt to read the nominees for Song of the Year.

Both cameos were clever and self-deprecating. Both seemed designed, in part, to defuse the unfortunate association with feminine hygene products.

"The consensus on the Internet," Magic Screen tells Pee Wee's Puppetland pals, "is that its name closely resembles a popular brand of sanitary napkins.

Colbert had also poked fun at the moniker the guys at Apple (AAPL) chose for their new device — a name, he deadpanned last week on the Colbert Report, "that just barely beat out the TamPod."

The audience laughed and clapped when he whipped out his iPad at the Grammys. The camera cut first to a celebrity couple (Nichole Kidman and Keith Urban), then to Jay-Z ("Did you not get one of these in your gift bag?"), and finally to Colbert's daughter Madeline, who indicated, with a slight shake of her head, that no, this did not make her dad look cool.

Negative Advertising In Political Campaigns

noreply@blogger.com (sempoi4u) — Fri, 12 Mar 2010 02:29:00 +0000

Negative advertising seems a common phenomenon in political campaigns here, thus banning this kind of advertising is considered necessary to many.

On the other hand, this issue is still much debated, as this practice raises questions regarding ethics and the responsibilities that politicians and society need to take into account concerning particular negative effects of negative political campaigning. A variety of different arguments have been put forward about the issue.

It is claimed that negative advertising is an excellent strategy, which is often used in political campaigns in many other countries (Tanuwidjaja, 2009). This is true because negative advertising in political campaigns can persuade voters.

However, in reality this negative advertising is not really effective. This is clearly because voters can differentiate which one is the best candidate. They cannot be fully influenced by negative advertising.

Furthermore, negative advertising is only effective for low-income people, who are more gullible as they are mostly uneducated and tend to easily believe the claims mentioned in the negative campaigns.

Claiming that it is better to legalize negative advertising because voters need to know a candidate’s background, whether it is good or bad, seems to be true. Nowadays, many people do not care about politics.

And this problem could be solved by creating interest in politics such as by giving the background and achievements of the candidates. Indeed, negative advertising in political campaigns is one method that can be used to change people’s perception about politics. As a result, this measure can create intelligent community politics.

However, negative advertising in political campaigns often produces “the politics of the personal”, focusing on the personality or personal qualities of the candidate. In fact, the politics of the personal is not appropriate for developing countries, such as Indonesia which is a new democracy.

The politics of the personal may result in provocation that can easily end in violence in Indonesia. For instance, many ethnic conflicts occurring in Indonesia recently were triggered by provocation and racial issues raised in political campaigns.

Furthermore, the politics of the personal may damage the democratic process. The main reason for this is that the candidate and the sponsor may create a defamatory campaign to win the election. For example, during the 2009 presidential election, the wife of Boediono (then running mate of SBY) was accused of being a Christian although she is Muslim.

Martinez and Delegal (1990) claim that negative campaigns are an effective medium to create a fair and open competition in political elections. By attracting and criticizing each other through negative advertising, voters will get enough information before they decide to choose a candidate. This is because the balancing role of the mass media and civil society can monitor the fair running of the election.

In contrast, as Rainer Adam (2006) states, a negative campaign strategy often fails because voters give a negative reaction to the candidate who insults other candidates unfairly.

Indeed, there is a little difference between legitimate criticism and harsh insults. For example, during the 2009 presidential election, Andi Mallarangeng (one member of SBY’s election campaign team) said that this was not the right time for a Makassarese to become Indonesia’s top leader.

It is clear that Election Day will prove whether supporters of negative political campaigns are right and successful or not. The evidence suggests that negative political advertising should be banned.

Although negative campaigns may be based on truth, however the truth has often been abused to attack the opponent. Politicians and candidates use many strategies to win the election, although some of these may be illegal and unethical. Politicians and candidates perhaps apply the Machiavelli theory, i.e. we can use all means to get and defend political power.

Furthermore, negative political advertising in political campaigns can produce a dangerous bureaucratic and social backlash. The bureaucracy and the people may split into two groups — one in support of those in power and another that supports the challengers.

As a result, the bureaucracy cannot focus on their jobs as they are disrupted by the campaign activities. The insult campaign between presidential candidates SBY and JK during the 2009 presidential election is a good example of negative advertising in political campaigns.

In my opinion, negative advertising in political campaigns should be banned, or at the very least, it should be strongly regulated by governments.

Only in this way can the valuable political education that the Indonesian people need develop, while at the same time encourage the contributions of all productive members of our society to develop our country.

People’s perception about politics will change gradually if we succeed in reducing the use of negative advertising in day-to-day politics.

Effies introduces new category to recognise marketing is more than just advertising

noreply@blogger.com (sempoi4u) — Thu, 11 Mar 2010 02:33:00 +0000

This year’s Australian Effie Awards for effectiveness will include a new category intended to recognize marketing efforts that go beyond advertising.

Announcing the call for entries for this year’s Effies, awards chairman Matthew Melhuish revealed there will be a new Best Marketing Campaign category.

The revamped Effie Awards – a joint effort by The Communications Council and the Australian Association of National Advertisers - are in their second year.

Melhuish, who is also CEO of BMF, said of the new category: “It is trying to offer the opportunity for someone to talk about a campaign that may include some advertising but could get much bigger than that.”

The criteria for the category is to “showcase how a business can generate effectiveness using multiple aspects of the marketing mix including pricing, communications, product/ packaging, distribution and (if appropriate) service”.

Meanwhile, judge Joe Talcott, chairman of the AANA, said that a winning entry took “a brave client, an innovative agency and pretty fair success”.

And Scott Davis, strategy planning director at Leo Burnett said that the secret of writing a winning entry was in making a simple argument, telling a straightforward tale and putting it in plain language, which he dubbed “wifey speak”.

He said: “You’ve got to use normal language – I call it wifey speak.

“You need to state the problem clearly and you need to show clear linkage between results, the problem and the challenges.”

He added: “Data is king, and to get access to that you need to involve your client.”

Microsoft Calls For Online Advertising To Adopt Traditional Offline Metrics

noreply@blogger.com (sempoi4u) — Wed, 10 Mar 2010 02:38:00 +0000

SAN FRANCISCO -- Brands demand the promises and the guarantees of performance -- the same performance and fundamental metrics they have come to know in traditional media, such as television and radio.

During his keynote at OMMA Performance Monday, Young-Bean Song, senior director at Microsoft Advertising Institute, told attendees the online industry needs to adopt traditional performance metrics into online to make brands that traditionally advertise on television and radio feel more comfortable about moving advertising on the Web.

Data needs to prove the outcome of a campaign. But that outcome has become complex. So, marketers continue to look for ways to take the data and prove the outcome. During the next few years, companies will bring traditional media metrics to online media plans. The industry will also design new standards for return on investments (ROI).

Today, the industry talks about cost per activation and cost per sale, but that will change. Within the next year or two, Microsoft will have the ability to fill in some of the missing data. Not only will a company know it spent $100,000 and provide a forecast that the media plan will reach about 7.8% of the target audience -- it will provide a GRP that gives them the offline equivalent for an online campaign.

Investments in online advertising from brands will follow the metrics -- not just the click-through rates, but traditional metrics, such as reach frequency and GRPs, a metric fundamental to offline brand advertisers.

"We're not translating our media plans," Song says. "It's one reason we're not seeing traditional media dollars move online, because they don't know what they're buying."

Not just impressions and click-through rates. It must be traditional brand metrics, such as reach, frequency and GRPs. And making the tradeoffs in terms of cost per point and where they get the most result for the investment.

Advertisers also need to measure more than the last ad. If a marketer's view remains on the last ad, they will start at the purchase funnel. "You may end up with a great ROI, but just a handful of conversations. And we all know that's not sustainable."

Opera Scoops Up Mobile Advertising Firm AdMarvel

noreply@blogger.com (sempoi4u) — Tue, 09 Mar 2010 08:00:00 +0000

Opera announced today that it has acquired mobile advertising firm AdMarvel. Opera says the acquisition will enable it to expand its portfolio of products and services to include "highly scalable ad magnetization services" for Opera branded mobile products and services.

"In our fast-growing industry, mobile advertising represents an interesting long-term revenue opportunity. Every month, nearly 50 million people access the Web using Opera on their mobile phones and together with AdMarvel, we think we can play an important role in the evolution of mobile advertising," says Opera CEO Lars Boilesen.

AdMarvel is based in San Mateo, California. It was founded in 2006, and works with a lot of different advertising firms around the world. It's official description says:

AdMarvel makes mobile advertising work by enabling mobile publishers and operators to easily source, provision, manage and track advertising from virtually any ad network or direct sourced advertising inventory. As the leading trusted third party in mobile advertising, AdMarvel works with mobile publishers, developers, carriers, ad networks, agencies and advertisers to optimize advertising inventory and revenue. AdMarvel services work across mobile web, WAP, SMS and in-application modalities.

What’s Next for YouTube? Self-Serve Overlay Ads

noreply@blogger.com (sempoi4u) — Mon, 08 Mar 2010 02:16:00 +0000

YouTube might reach profitability this year, which means it’s time for parent company Google to figure out ways to make it even more profitable. That might happen by making it even easier for small advertisers to build overlay ads to run over YouTube videos, according to a patent filing spotted by GoRumors.

In a patent application entitled “Video Overlay Advertisement Creator,” Google outlines the “methods and systems for creating video overlay advertisements suitable for use with digital videos.” The system basically allows advertisers to specify the attributes of an overlay ad through a browser-based user interface, which would be communicated back to the YouTube server. The server would then provide a preview of the ad in the advertiser’s browser. In other words, it lets advertisers build their own overlay ads, without having to hire an agency to do so.

An image of what Google has in mind is embedded below:

The ability for advertisers to create their own video ads could lead to an increase in the number of small and medium-sized businesses advertising on YouTube, which previously didn’t have the resources to create the ads themselves or the cash to hire someone to create the ads for them. As Google writes in the patent application, “The conventional techniques for development of such multimedia advertisements are complex, requiring resources beyond the means of many small to medium-sized organizations.”

By opening up advertising on YouTube to companies that previously weren’t capable, Google could democratize video advertising business in much the same way that it democratized search advertising through AdWords. It could also create a brand new revenue stream and possibly monetize user-generated content that big brand advertisers don’t want to be associated with.

Does Online Advertising Really Work?

noreply@blogger.com (sempoi4u) — Fri, 05 Mar 2010 02:20:00 +0000

I look at hundreds, if not thousands, of online ads each day, but the chance that any one of them will seduce me into making a purchase -- let alone clicking on an ad -- is pretty to close to zero. And I have to think I'm not alone in this.

But new research suggests that the mere presence of online ads has an influence on the products and services we buy, and that businesses that advertise online are probably getting a better bang for their advertising buck on the Web than in other media, like television, radio or print.

There have been plenty of attempts made at computing how advertising influences sales, but actually doing this is no easy task. That's largely because the relationship between ads and revenues is a two-way street. For example, many companies set their marketing budgets as a percentage of sales. That means when a company expects a good quarter or year, it's more likely to budget more ad dollars. So in the real world it's very difficult to tell if sales are being driven by marketing or the other way around.

To get around this problem, two researchers at Yahoo, Randall Lewis and David Reiley, set up a clever controlled experiment. Teaming up with a national retailer, Lewis and Reiley identified 1.6 million registered Yahoo users who were also in the retailer's customer database. (The study did not name the retailer. Large companies that participate in studies like this typically choose to remain anonymous for competitive reasons.) They split these users into two groups. The first, comprising some 924,000 users, was able to view three ad campaigns from the retailer while surfing on Yahoo sites between the fall of 2007 and the following winter. The second group was restricted from viewing any of the retailer's ads on Yahoo sites.

Surprisingly, Lewis and Reiley found that users who had seen the retailer's ads (which were not shown more frequently than other ads) wound up spending more than 10 times the ad campaigns' cost to the retailer. That sort of return on investment is way beyond estimates for other media.

Lewis and Reiley also unearthed a few other insights into how ads can influence users:

* Online ads don't necessarily generate online sales. The vast majority, 93 percent, of sales associated with the three campaigns took place offline rather than on the Web.
* While the marketing industry is very concerned with how many people click on ads, it turns out that 78 percent of generated sales came from users who did not click. (But, as would make sense, people who click on ads are much more likely to buy online.)
* Users who saw ads were likelier to spend more than they usually would at the retailer.
* The effects of the ads persisted for up to four weeks after the campaigns were over.

While it's always tricky to generalize, these results would seem to provide some optimism for the troubled news industry, which has seen much of its fortunes evaporate in the Internet era.

Lewis and Reiley's findings suggest that if evidence of the effectiveness of online ads grows, news sites should expect to see the return of some of the ad dollars that have disappeared in recent years.