You show me yours and I’ll show you mine….

Share your ADDY® Awards Competition photos at the AdclubCincy Flickr Group by clicking here.

How to share your photos?

1. Create a Flickr account.  It is free and you can use your yahoo login.
2. Upload your photos to Flickr.
3. Go to the AdclubCincy Flickr Group by clicking here.
4. Click add to the pool and drag and drop your photos into “the pool”.
5. Alternately, if you have lots of photos you can open this group in organizr and add many photos at once.
6. That is it!!!!!  Your photos will be in the group for everyone to see.

Whether you have photos to share or want to find a snapshot of yourself, checkout the Flickr group.

Leave a comment if you have any problems/questions.

- Krista Neher , Marketess Consulting

Q: I’m not in the adclub, can I still go? Yes. You can register here.

Q: I don’t work in advertising, but I heard that ad people like to party, can I still go? Yes. You can register here.

Q: Aren’t awards shows boring? Generally yes.  But the Cincinnati ADDY’s are more than just an awards show. After the awards there will be games (cornhole, video games, carnival games, etc), food and alcohol to keep you entertained.  Think of it more as a party.

Q: What if I’m not expecting to win anything? Good news. You can still score.  The ADDY’s will feature games, drinks, music and prizes (for the games).  So, even if you aren’t there for the awards you can still score.  What more could you ask for?

Q: I watch MadMen and love it. Will you have people from the show there? No, but their modern day equivalents in Cincinnati will be there.  These include but are not limited to Judy Thompson a modern day Peggy Olson and Todd Jessee the modern Don Draper.   Also, you may be able to drink Manhattans and OldTimers.  So register here.

Q: I’m not sure if I’ll know a lot of people.  Will I feel like a loser? We can’t control how you will feel, but we are friendly people, and generally don’t bite.  This is a great event to come out and meet people in the industry and possibly make some new friends.  If nothing else I’ll be your friend (look for the girl taking pictures).

Seriously, the ADDY’s are the premier event in Cincinnati where we will recognize some of the most talented people in the ad industry.  But more than that, it is a great party with great people.

I spoke with Todd Jessee the organizer of the ADDY® Awards Competition.  The vision is for the ADDY’s to be more than a stuffy, boring awards show.  With what he has planned it promises to be anything but boring.

Come out and Score at the ADDY® Awards Competition.

- Krista Neher

Marketess Consulting

Benjamin Palmer, Co-Founder and CEO of The Barbarian Group gave a killer keynote that highlighted some of the most successful campaigns that his team has put out as well as their scalable creative process.

Be Your Audience – Milwaukee’s Best Light

The Milwaukee’s Best Light campaign was a wonderful blend of hystericalness (yes, I know that isn’t a word) and effectiveness.

About the Campaign:

- Terms of Service (usually boring) are in a video read by a dude who is clearly in their target.

- “Act Like a Man” game – You have to look at your buddy’s sisters boobs without getting caught. The game was so popular that is was reposted (illegally and the lawyers freaked out) on over 15,000 sites (this was a key learning – the content needs to be shareable).

- The Beer Cannon – Seemed particularly appropriate for this audience (they probably like to blow stuff up) you watch a homemade cannon launch different objects (like beer cans, potatoes, etc) at various other targets (a TV, a can of mayo, etc).

Why it Worked?

- It represents the character of the brand.

- It talks to consumers on their level. The brand is “one of them”.

- Not afraid to be offensive – took a risk.

Subservient Chicken

Check it out at www.subservientchicken.com – an online campaign that was a viral hit for Burger King.

About the Campaign:

- You type in a command for the chicken (dance, die, throw something, etc) and a man dresses in a chicken costume will do it.

- Tied in to the “have it your way” theme of BK marketing

- Try it. Seriously.

Why it worked:

- Was simple and low budget

- Probably wouldn’t have been approved by the client if it had to go through typical approval processes (it was created under the radar).

- On equity and inline with current campaign theme.

- You control the brand – gave control to the consumers.

Kashi Healthy Lifestyles

Creative process

- Put the brief online and about 50% of company can comment and share ideas.

- Team is selected based on interest online in the idea and who shows enthusiasm and ideation around the content.

- Internally use social media to harness the ideas of the whole company

- Don’t have to be geographically collocated to share ideas

This panel included:

Doug Spak, VP Connection Planning, Northlich

Chris Strong, Territory Online Sales Manager, Cincinnati.com

Tim Glover: Digital Media Manager, Empower Media Marketing

Jim Getgey, Regional Sales Director, Digital Platforms, Hearst-Argyle Television Stations

Rob McCracken, General Sales Manager New Media, Bonneville Cincinnati

Engagement = relevance – that is what we (publishers) need to do a better job at. How do you engage people by giving relevant ads? To do this we need to learn more about our consumers and what they are doing.

What do you have to do to ad value to your website beyond just a website for a radio station? For example a radio station can’t “outdo” the local news channels. What they can do is create sites that are “hyper local” and provide something above and beyond what the other sites are doing.

Relevance is KEY

Banners need to be relevant. One of the issues/barriers to this is the difficulty in purchasing across multiple sites; we heard at the keynote yesterday about quality issues with ad networks. How does the industry need to evolve to create a system for media buyers where they can purchase more relevant ads in a scalable way?

• Gannett is streamlining sites with a standard platform
• Bonneville pays people with “points” for them to provide information – consumers specifically answer questions about what they are interested in so that the ads can be better targeted.
• Online you are speaking with 1 person and “hypothetically” can change the message for each person (ie. with targeting etc)
• Where does the message go – targeting options are greatly improved.
• Reach the target – contextual or content focuses on impact moments. When the consumer is more likely to be interested in your brand. Sweepstakes you can go to a network and blanket people. For specific objectives you need to make buys that are more relevant when consumers are looking for that specific content.

Revenue Generation

How can websites generate revenue beyond just banner ads?

• There are many local banner campaigns that still work, but in order to continue to be relevant and provide ROI more is needed.
• Some news sites are doing advertorial videos right now – they shoot and script them for the clients. By focusing on content and providing information vs. simply advertising these can provide real value.
• Gannett is launching a local music site for local bands to upload music and compete. Creating niche sites like this can provide unique value to advertisers.
• “The demise of the banner is greatly exaggerated” – Rob McCracken. Banner ads are going to be here, and if they are relevant they will continue to be successful.

- Krista Neher

- Jim Price, VP Media Innovation

- Mike Adams, Director of Digital Media

- Tim Glover, Digital Media Manager

- Michael Lamontagne, Digital Analytics and Search Strategist

Before You Start

The internet presents a plethora of ways to measure campaigns. One key thing to think about prior to selecting your measures is What are your objectives? Marketers often get caught up in some of the rich metrics that the web provides, but the real questions to ask are:

1. What are the marketing objectives of the campaign? and

2. What best measures those objectives?

For example, a branding campaign may not best be measured by clicks and a social media influencer campaign may not best be measured by number of impressions. Different measures are appropriate for different campaign objectives, and understanding the objectives is the starting point.

Gain alignment and approval on the metrics. Push to get the data that you need to measure success.  Three key takeaways:

Optimization

The internet is a more agile advertising format; campaigns can be changed relatively easily versus traditional media and measurement data is often more robust and comes in quicker. When running online campaigns you need to check data and adjust regularly. In traditional media there is typically little room for trial and error. Online campaigns should use a “shotgun” approach and rely on trial and error to improve over time.

Run multivariant testing to assess what is most effective. Do more of what works and less of what doesn’t. Test items such as:

- A/B Splits

- Test campaigns

- Multiple creative or call to action

There is a “growing chasm between traditional agency approach and newer more fluid approach.”

The Challenge of Social Media

Social media is quickly becoming a new hotspot in online marketing, especially in measurement as it is one of the more difficult mediums to measure.

Online discussion is rampant. Do you know:

- What online consumers are saying about you?

- Where online consumers are talking?

- How online consumer discussion affects you?

- How to respond?

The Solution – Chatterwatch

Empower talked about a proprietary tool they created called chatterwatch. Chatterwatch allows them to see what people are talking about and propose actions. The idea is not just to watch social media but to develop actionable strategies. For example, if the same question is asked again and again on social media a company could run a search campaign around that question to get involved in the conversation upfront.

Jim Price, VP Media Innovation also talked about the need to bring social media campaigns back to strategy. “Everyone wants to start a facebook page”, and while there is no doubt in Facebook’s popularity, it may not necessarily be the right medium for your marketing objectives.

Bringing it all Together

The reality is that when measuring campaigns a holistic approach must be used to assess the impact of both online and offline mediums and how they interact with each other and generate synergies. Measurements need to be integrated.

The panel provided meaningful insights on measurement but left me wondering, if you aren’t a client of Empower and don’t have tools like Chatterwatch to measure your social media effectiveness, what do you use?

- Krista Neher

Regional telecoms, like other “dinosaur” or “traditional” businesses are clearly struggling to embrace the new realities of the shift towards digital. Brian asked how many people had a landline and about 5 hands went up (of about 25 people in the room). He then asked how many people have used a phone book (like the giant one that is delivered to your door) in the past year and even fewer hands were raised. Clearly, the traditional business model of Cincinnati Bell is changing.

Monetizing Zoomtown – Why the heck do people keep it as their homepage?

Cincinnati Bell’s internet business is called zoomtown, and when you first sign up, it will automatically set zoomtown.com as your homepage. Apparently, many people never change it (they have no idea why) and it gets about 10 million page views/month (the quality of these views is another discussion. Soooo…. Since people are going there, we should monetize it!!! Cincinnati Bell initially went with an outsourced model and made about a $0.25CMP. They switched to a hybrid insourced model and are now making between $1 and $17 CMP. Not sure how that compares to the increased costs and complexities of incourcing, but Brian seemed to think of it as a positive.

Advertising on Your Phone

Seriously. This is a real product that Cincinnati Bell currently has in Beta called xipto.

How does it work?

When someone calls your phone they listen to an audio ad before the call connects and the phone owner gets about $0.05 per ad listened to. So I call you… instead of ring, ring I get an ad “Company X has great widgets, you should really try them”. Then the call connects. You earned about $0.05 depending on the ad. You can select the advertisers on your phone, so you have complete control. You can also donate your balance to charity (they anticipate that an average person will make around $4 or $5 per month).

Results to date?

Brian said that his fiancé hates calling him and doesn’t want to listen to it, but apparently in the beta test with Cincinnati Bell staff about 10% of the people using it like it. In terms of advertisers, apparently they like that the impressions are measurable, but no research has been done on the quality of the impressions.

Coupons on Your Phone – CellFire

The other service that Cincinnati Bell is offering to help bolster their revenues with innovative advertising products is CellFire, a service that sends coupons directly to your mobile phone. With this service you’ll get the coupons directly on your phone and show them or have them scanned by the cashier when you pay. This application seems like a no-brainer, and can really create efficiencies in the coupon industry.

What do You Think?

Do you have zoomtown as your homepage? If so why? Would you try Xipto? What do you think about it as both a user or as an advertiser? How about CellFire? Would you prefer digital coupons?

- Krista Neher

People are inundated with ads and have a lesser propensity to tolerate them than before.

- Internet TV

- Watching DVD series

- ITunes

- Madden 08 is going up (gaming) and watching live TV sports is going down

Technology is giving consumers control to skip ads:

- DVR

- BitTorrents/Illegal Downloads

- FireFox Ad:blocker

- Popup Blockers

- Banner Blindness

“Going digital” is not the answer

- Myspace, facebook – are not profitable

- No good business models

- Government is cracking down on targeting tools

In general, CEOs are often dissatisfied with their marketing; the average tenure of a CMO is only 2 years, and the average tenure of an ad agency is 4 years.

New Concept

Bob presented a new model for marketing, especially for digital where marketers can connect with and interact with consumers on a much deeper level. Marketing with meaning is about marketing that people choose to engage with; marketing that improves peoples’ lives. Yup that’s right. The marketing improves their lives, not just the product. This is a fairly consistent theme from the non-conference; I think that Bob did the best job of really building a framework around what this actually means.

The new model is based on Maslows Heirarchy of needs – move up from needs to self-actualization in the hierarchy of meaningful marketing.

Base – Solution

- Information, relevant, help save $$ or time, give rewards

- Samsung proves charger stations at airports – offers a service with branding.

Middle – Connection

- Entertaining, social

- Workinglunch

o Insight: about 60% of people eat lunch at their desks

o Healthy Choice created an online TV show that is a mix of the office and whose line is it anyways. You can see the characters in a live show where the audience decides what happens next (for Healthy Choice).

o I watched it – it was funny but also extremely annoying at the same time. Being able to vote made it more entertaining.

- Customization and engagement – customize Pringles, Jones soda labels, M&Ms

Top – Achievement

- Actual value-ad achievement where people feel good about themselves

- Kraft cooking school – actual solution where people feel good about themselves for learning how to cook.

- Healthy Choice – Opportunity to actually make healthy life – meal planner, questionnaire that assesses and rates your health choices across a # of areas. Helps people make changes to improve their lives.

Expectations are Rising Across Brands

Consumers are demanding more from their brands, and the demands are coming from other industries.

- Example – The Pizza Tracker. People expect to have their packages tracked (from UPS or FedEx). Now they want their Pizza tracked – Dominos pizza launched a Pizza tracker (hysterical). It worked because:

o People are addicted to information.

o Dominos saw savings in fewer phone calls regarding the status of orders.

o Hit their millionth user in 2 months with no advertising.

- Example – Updates. On social networking sites like Facebook and Myspace users get updates to their mobile phones. Now airlines are giving updates to mobile phones.

o Builds positive equity as customers are notified immediately of changes.

Find out who is setting the bar in a space. It is not good enough to be best in class within industry. Look outside the industry for best-in-class examples to build off of.

What do YOU think?

Is this new model of engaging consumers on a more meaningful level the way of the future? How can brands better meet rising demands of consumers? Do you have any examples of brands who are doing this well?

- Krista Neher

Chris Heile, VP of Advertising at HyperQuake showed us some of the things that are cookin’ in the HyperQuake technology kitchen.

Consumers want to take the internet with them, and as a result, the internet is being consumed in smaller and smaller mediums – they even showed a bracelet that connects online. With the mobility of the net it is 1) shrinking and being viewed on smaller screens and 2) quality is being sacrificed for the sake of mobility.

With new technologies emerging at lower and lower costs it is easy for marketers to jump onto the latest trend, BUT there are some fundamental questions that need to be asked.

- How can technology add value to the relationship?

- Can it provide something of value beyond the product?

- How can it engage consumers where they are?

- Brand is how you connect to consumers. How do you reach them, but not violate them?

- How do we marry the giant technology of the web with everything else? There are more products, new products and consumers have instant access to them. Consumers ask ‘what else can you do for me?

Create value beyond the product itself – status, access, content, insider information, rewards, exclusivity – and use technology to deliver these things.  The digital innovation discussion can also be found here.

OK, so what is HyperQuake cookin’? They showcased an interactive screen that they are building (yes, literally building – with screens and wood and saws) that consumers can interact with.

The concept: Top Shelf

The screen would be placed in a bar. From the screen you can look at pictures, order drinks, send requests to the DJ and interact with other tables. You can even share your photos or send drinks to other tables. The concept is pretty cool…. I’m not sure that it will ever result in a viable business model (they have not yet tried to sell it in to bards), BUT the concept and creativity are what really matter here not the specifics or viability of this particular use of it. There are probably a number of other uses for this type of technology – from airports to trade shows to shopping malls.

Digital and Interactive are no longer words reserved for the internet; they are expanding to include mediums far beyond. Finding smart ways to leverage these technologies can help brands interact in ways that were not previously possible.

- Krista Neher

Adam Symson, EVP of Interactive at E.W. Scripps Television Group kicked off the Digital Non-Conference Conference with a presentation themed “Think Profitably, Act Locally”. The theme of the presentation – essentially local targeting is more valuable – was obvious from the start, but Adam provided some interesting insights into the issues with online advertising and what the future may hold.

Quality vs. Quantity in Online Buying

Online advertising has a number of issues, one of the largest being effectiveness. “It’s like quality branding went out the window and brand associations aren’t important”, said Adam, commenting on the impact of ad networks, “It is like efficiency has taken precedence over quality”.

The basic issue is that ad agencies often sell ad space on a large # of publications, and advertisers lose control over where their ads are placed. When advertising on a large # of small publications it is difficult to know exactly what content your ad will appear next to. So why do advertisers do it? Because it is cheap. CMPs for advertising with ad networks are often much cheaper than on local targeted websites. You get what you pay for. Ad networks are degrading online advertising because the ads aren’t targeted. The client does know what they are going to get.

Adam used an interesting analogy when comparing ad network buys to local media buys. If you went grocery shopping at the Dollar Store you could probably get enough “food” type products to sustain yourself for significantly less than a grocery store. However, you won’t be getting the same quality of food – you get what you pay for. Can you guess which is the ad agency and which is the local media site?

There is no doubt that this is an issue – monetization of long-tail content was also brought up as an issue at ad:tech in New York. A part of the question (which was not addressed in the session) is how can we better build efficiencies and leverage technologies to remove the quality issues in the long-tail publications.

“There is an undercurrent in the ad industry that if the ad runs is more important than where it runs”. Well put. Measures for online such as CPM and CPC don’t do the best job in assessing the quality of an impression.

Media Consumption is Moving Online

Adam shared some interesting view points that are important for advertisers and marketers as consumers flock to the internet for media consumption (especially news, which was the focus of the presentation).

• 44% of college graduates get their news online every day
• 40% fewer people are watching news on cable
• Other media (TV programs, movies, radio, music) are also increasingly consumed online.
• Online consumption is growing and will continue to grow.

Return to the Roots of Marketing

The internet and the ability to measure things like clicks and actions changed the way that marketers think about advertising. In focusing on metrics like clicks and search marketers seem less focused on branding, equity, awareness and impressions. An impression is still an impression. A click campaign is essentially a lead generation campaign. There is a time and place for both types of campaigns.

Search also continues to grow in popularity among marketers with 40% of online dollars going towards it. Some companies report spending their entire online budget on search. While search is important it is 1 component of the marketing mix, like out of home, direct mail or television. How do you run a successful branding campaign with only search? It is one part of the marketing mix but not the be all and end all of online.

The Future?

People want interactivity in their media consumption – they want to consume media when, where and how they choose. They want to be able to share media with their friends freely across the net. Media is now ad supported directly in the medium (ie. ads that go with the video) so that the content is both sharable and monetizable.

The future lies in niche sites – which cost more but can deliver more relevant impressions. Additionally, sites need to leverage multiple touchpoints and types of media (video, microsites, etc.) to better engage consumers and not rely on banner ads. Ad networks need accountability in their metrics to return to quality in digital online.

What do You Think?

So what do you think? Are ad networks degrading quality in online advertising? Is search getting more attention than it deserves?

- Krista Neher

(you can also see what Steve Phillips had to say on this at his blog here.)

]]> http://adclubcincy.wordpress.com/2008/11/18/the-non-conference-conference-kicks-off-with-adam-symson-from-scripps-%e2%80%93-think-profitably-act-locally/feed/ 1 adclubcincy Adam Symson, Scripps - AdClub Keynote http://adclubcincy.wordpress.com/2008/11/17/the-shwag-is-in-the-bag/ http://adclubcincy.wordpress.com/2008/11/17/the-shwag-is-in-the-bag/#comments Mon, 17 Nov 2008 19:37:21 +0000 adclubcincy http://adclubcincy.wordpress.com/?p=26 Continue reading →]]> When attending a conference, the first question is: how good is the Shwag Bag?  The Non Conference Conference had a great shwag bag with items that were both useful and clever from a marketing perspective.  Thank you to all of our sponsors for participating!

To Reward Shwag Creativity (this is a marketing conference afterall) we have created the Shwag Awards – bringing you the best of the swag bag!!!!

Most Useful: Joseph-Beth Booksellers included a coupon for 20% off your entire purchase…  So head to Joseph Beth and be sure to stop by the restaurant (Bronte – awesome food – although not included in the coupon).

Most Relevant: White Castle included not only a coupon but also a car air freshener stick to help with the post-White Castle aroma.  Both useful and relevant.

Best Time-Killer: Platform A included a rubik’s cube to help kill time in between sessions.

Cleanest: Greenebaum Breakthrough Law provided pocket hand sanitizer spray…

Most stuff: Nokia included a bunch of stuff from branded life-savers to a guitar-shaped key chain bottle opener….

Greenest and Smartest: Frost Brown Todd Attorneys (yes, it came from lawyers) – See the photos below…. we’re all sick of carrying around random useless shwag.  Frost Brown Todd included a bookmark with a clever tag “Looking for another tchotchke?  Sorry…. Instead, we set up a group at www.ecologyfund.com to save the world.  Join us there.”.  WOW.  The back provides some entertaining potential alternative uses for the bookmark….

- Krista Neher