ChasNote

From yesterday’s WSJ in an article about traditional publishers acquiring web services platforms like Conde Nast’s acquisition of FM alum Reddit.

“Usually when publishers acquire technology companies it’s to spruce up their own Web sites. But increasingly publishers such as Conde Nast and Meredith are drawing on the technology to create advertising campaigns for marketers.

“This takes publishers further into the realm of marketing services. Instead of simply selling marketers ad space, they’re rolling up their sleeves and designing the promotions as well. For the next five months, visitors to the Dillard’s Web site will be able to rank products featured in a top-10 list selected by Conde Nast’s Lucky magazine and fashion Web site Style.com. The fashion lists will rotate seasonally, giving visitors the chance to rank new items every two weeks. The top-rated item on the list then will appear in Dillard’s online ads running on nine Conde Nast Web sites, including Teen Vogue, Glamour, Style.com and Vanity Fair.”

Smart. Also not surprising. High-end offline media companies have always had staff and production capabilities to provide marketing services well beyond trafficking and inserting commercials. This is part of what drives premium rates at leading media brands. Advertisers expect their media partners to do more than cash their checks; they demand that their media partners help them succeed among an audience that the media companies know best.

This is why I was confused by news that ESPN has discontinued working with ad networks. I get it that ad networks cause pricing and channel conflict because — despite promising publishers like ESPN to sell their remnant inventory in a blind manner, as part of a “channel” — they sometimes pitch site-specific opportunities. They offer lower rates for the same banners ESPN sells directly. This is a partnership problem, a serious one, but one that should be addressed with tactics short of termination. It’s not religious problem, as ESPN and others have portrayed it. From Mediaweek:

“ESPN’s decision crystallizes a philosophical debate in the online ad sales industry that has intensified since the Interactive Advertising Bureau’s annual meeting last month when during a keynote address, Martha Stewart Living Omnimedia media president Wenda Harris Millard gave her now famous warning against selling Web inventory like ‘pork bellies.’”

My interpretation of Wenda Harris Millard’s pork-bellies battle cry is this. Digital publishers need to remember that they are publishers — companies that engage with high-quality audiences around content in a unique and magical conversation, and service firms that know how to chaperon marketing brands into those conversations. In other words, companies in the mold of Conde Nast, Meredith and ESPN that offer high-touch marketing services.

Whatever ad avails you don’t sell, offer up on the pork-belly exchanges — online we call them ad networks (or Google Adsense), in TV we call them PI or DR rep firms. Hey, people sometimes want pork bellies, and audiences almost certainly don’t want 30-seconds of white static whenever a TV network fails to sell 100% of spots.

But if you don’t or can’t articulate what it is that makes your media brand uniquely valuable to your marketing partners (hint: it’s not your demographics), you’ve ceased to be publisher.

More on the difference between publishers and ad networks from Battelle.

Great thought piece at Searchblog on the value of branded media online.

“Why is it that a brand marketer looking to reach college educated women, 18-34, is willing to pay $40 CPMs in Vanity Fair, but just $3 in an ad network?

“The first and most important reason is engagement — the reader of Vanity Fair is engaged in the magazine, and when she comes across that Lancome ad, the chances that the ‘between the ears magic’ will occur is far greater than at a random site run by an ad network. The second and related reason is creative — a two-page spread is simply a far more effective media vehicle for the brand’s message than the IAB unit.”

Overcoming these two hurdles comes down one thing: Marketers need to think like publishers. Publishers — a term I’m using here to include the creators of magazines, newspaper, websites and TV programming — are deeply committed to converting first-time trial readers or viewers into loyal subscribers or appointment-TV watchers; it costs far too much money buying audience, carriage and circulation (not to mention producing the content) to survive any other way. They must engage that audience. Marketers, meanwhile, recognize that it’s a waste of money to advertise with media properties that haven’t created engagement.

Marketers are also wasting money if they place advertising in high-engagement environments yet fail to provide creative that likewise engages the audience. The best TV commercials from the past six decades are 30-second and 60-second films that have overcome their miniature running times with brilliantly-crafted narrative arcs, evocative performances, catchy music and captivating cinematography. In other words, with filmed content. The creative units attached to online ad campaigns must move beyond call-to-action blinking banners. They need to become portals into content experiences that rival the great content at the best media sites.

Battelle takes a deep look at the difference between media companies and ad networks at Searchblog, and how the big online portals are confusing the two.

“Do we [in the media business] sell inventory to the highest bidder via algorithms, automated processes, and platforms? Or do partner with marketers and creators of media to build brands - both media brands, and consumer marketing brands?

“I know how the folks who no longer work at AOL, Yahoo, or MSN feel about this question. They’re all brand people. And it’s entirely clear how the Google-chasers have answered that question: They’ve collectively spent billions of dollars amassing ‘access to inventory’ and ‘ad platforms’ in single-minded competition with Google.

“It seems the future, according to AOL, Yahoo, and Microsoft, is in ad networks.”

Meanwhile, one of the top brands in quality content and marketing relationships with global brands, ESPN is severing ties with ad networks:

“The sites like ESPN have cut ties with Specific Media and several other ad networks saying that ad selling that relies heavily on arbitrage and algorithms is not for them. ‘We’re heading down a path where it no longer suits our business needs to work with ad networks,’ said Eric Johnson, Vice President, Multimedia Sales, ESPN.”

Jeremiah Owyang, at his site, writes up a case study of Dell’s Facebook Graffiti Contest, part of its ReGeneration campaign. His “what could have been better” section — that conversational campaigns should be given longer life spans, and that the content they produce should be given more exposure too — is worth a full read at his site. His summary of the campaign overall:

“Unlike most marketing campaigns that deploy heavy ads, fake viral videos, or message bombardment, this campaign let go to gain more. Overall, this is a successful campaign as they turned the action over to the community, let them take charge, decide on the winners, all under the context of the regeneration campaign. The campaign moved the active community from Facebook closer to the branded Microsite, closer to the corporate website, migrating users in an opt-in manner that lead to hundreds of comments was clever. Well done.”

And MediaPost’s Social Media Insider blog says:

“There are a lot of impressive stats here: 1.1 million people voted on their favorite illustration, 7,300 people entered a submission, the contest has almost 1,300 friends, and there are currently 209 comments to the post at ReGeneration.org announcing the winners. Clearly, Dell’s ReGeneration effort supports [FM CEO John] Battelle’s contention that social media may finally make online advertising much more interesting to users than the ongoing crop of forgettable banner campaigns.”

More on this from my colleague James Gross. I’d argue this has always been true — the best TV commercials are ones we watched because they were mini films that touched us or short, clever comedic sketches that made us laugh or 30-second songs we sang along to — or some weirdly wonderful combination of all three.

New research commissioned by Starcom, Comscore and Tacoda finds that optmizing for clicks likely means optimizing away from building brand with your best customers.

“CHICAGO – Media agency Starcom USA, behavioral targeting network Tacoda, and digital consumer insight company comScore collaborated on a research study whose results call into question click-through rates as a primary source of accountability for Internet display advertising aimed at brand-building. Called ‘Natural Born Clickers,’ the study reveals that a very small group of consumers who are not representative of the total U.S. online population is accountable for the vast majority of display ad click-through behavior.”

The power clickers have less desirable demographics:

“The study illustrates that heavy clickers represent just 6% of the online population yet account for 50% of all display ad clicks. While many online media companies use click-through rate as an ad negotiation currency, the study shows that heavy clickers are not representative of the general public. In fact, heavy clickers skew towards Internet users between the ages of 25-44 and households with an income under $40,000. Heavy clickers behave very differently online than the typical Internet user, and while they spend four times more time online than non-clickers, their spending does not proportionately reflect this very heavy Internet usage. Heavy clickers are also relatively more likely to visit auctions, gambling, and career services sites –- a markedly different surfing pattern than non-clickers.”

And there’s no correlation between clicks and brand metrics.

“Further preliminary Starcom data suggests no correlation between display ad clicks and brand metrics, and show no connection between measured attitude towards a brand and the number of times an ad for that brand was clicked. The research presentation suggests that when digital campaigns have a branding objective, optimizing for high click rates does not necessarily improve campaign performance.”

Sez Erin Hunter, EVP at Comscore:

“‘While the click can continue to be a relevant metric for direct response advertising campaigns, this study demonstrates that click performance is the wrong measure for the effectiveness of brand-building campaigns,” said Erin Hunter, executive vice president at comScore. “For many campaigns, the branding effect of the ads is what’s really important and generating clicks is more of an ancillary benefit. Ultimately, judging a campaign’s effectiveness by clicks can be detrimental because it overlooks the importance of branding while simultaneously drawing conclusions from a sub-set of people who may not be representative of the target audience.”"

From Business Week:

“Social networks have some of the lowest response rates on the Web, advertisers and ad placement firms say. Marketers say as few as 4 in 10,000 people who see their ads on social networking sites click on them, compared with 20 in 10,000 across the Web. Mark Seremet, president of video game publisher Green Screen, stopped advertising on MySpace last spring because of a 13-in-10,000 response rate. ‘It’s really hard to make money on that anemic click-through rate,’ says Seremet.”

Google admits they’re struggling with the same issue, and their stock got hammered on the news.

Meanwhile, advertisers who recognize that building awareness, preference and affinity with customers involves activities other than clicks alone are finding more success in social networks. Examples include Intel, Dell, Wacom and HP, to name a few.

Despite the belated timing for such a proclamation, I appreciate Business Week’s validation of conversational marketing in Ted Shelton’s January 18, 2008, Viewpoint column:

“Dove and a growing number of brands are finding that the kind of marketing the 20th century perfected is becoming less effective in the 21st. A recent McKinsey report predicts that, ‘Traditional TV advertising will be one-third as effective in 2010 as it was in 1990.’ Other advertising media aren’t working as well as they once did either. Not as many people are dialing the 800 number, clicking the banner ad, or remembering the tagline, regardless of whether it’s a radio spot on a CBS broadcast, an ad in The New York Times, or even a banner on Yahoo!. In fact, marketing that seeks to control has become an annoyance in a media environment of virtually unlimited choice. In a 2006 study, researchers found that only 53% of consumers said they believed ads were a good way to learn about new products. That was down from a 78% response in 2002….

Shelton goes on to argue that advertising can and will change (and I agree), but his notion that conversational marketing is limited to consumers, experts and competitors literally talking about brands and commercial services misses the broader implications of the internet — brands need to join their customers in whatever conversation those customers are having, not just the ones about buying stuff.

“Before you entirely discard the notion of advertising, however, it is worth noting that it can and will change. Companies will recognize that there is a conversation going on in the marketplace that they should join, not dominate. Consumers, experts, and competitors are all talking about your company, its products, and the competition’s products. Joining that conversation means providing information, answering questions, and responding to concerns instead of just broadcasting one-way messages. Participating allows a company to correct misinformation, offer insights, develop a reputation, and create a relationship with the most influential people in a given market.

“Once a company has become a part of the conversation, conventional one-way advertising can serve a meaningful purpose. It can draw attention to the conversation and to the company’s participation. It can alert a market to change. It can be a form of information that is valuable again—information about where and when the market is operating and how to engage with it.”

I’ll make sure Shelton gets an invitation to our next Conversational Marketing Summit!

Ain’t it the truth. Even better than being true, the line now has its own conference, one I hope to attend.

A year ago, HP signed on as sponsor to a collection of sites that cater to designers and digital artists, what we call (in FM-speak) the Graphic Arts federation. They took a PBS-style “sponsored by” approach to their messaging, and left the authors and readers of those sites alone to have their haute design conversations without any interference. Pay respect to your core audience, HP figured, and you just might win its affection.

The approach appears to be paying off. Jean Aw, author of “indiellectual” design and aesthetics site NOTCOT, blogged her experience walking the floor of CES: “I must say that i was proud to have our sites sponsored by HP when i walked into this booth… ”