In the afternoon, partners split up into separate tracks: Search Partners and Integrated Partners. Here are a few highlights from the afternoon sessions:
Deep mobile, common courtesy, spooky display and refining your campaigns
Yahoo's Paul Cushman checks his Twitter feed at SES
Day two of the Search Engine Strategies confab was, in a way, even more intense than the first, with sessions going deep into the details of mobile, search and display advertising. Here are some lessons learned.
Give their thumbs a rest
It’s one of Paul Cushman’s (he’s Yahoo!’s Senior Director of Mobile Sales Strategy) favorite truisms, invoked at the session “Getting Mobilized: Mobile Marketing Strategies: “Mobile is a channel, not a strategy.” Panelists Cindy Krum (Rank-Mobile), Sandeep Aggarwal (Caris & Co.) and Michael Martin (Mobile Martin) then proved his point, going way deep into the geek weeds of mobile SEO and usability.
One key takeaway for mobile eCommerce marketers is a simple one. “It’s a pain in the butt to enter your financial information on the phone with your thumbs,” said Krum. Instead, consider employing a payment solution like PayPal to make it easier on the user—and always provide a bail-out, one-touch phone number. After all, mobile users are on the phone, right? (Which, not incidentally, is another Cushmanism.)
Courtesy counts, online and off
At the session “Twitternation & Automation,” moderator Matt McGowan, Publisher and Head of U.S., Incisive Media, announced a surprise panelist. In addition to the previously announced speakers (Tracy Falke of Freestyle Interactive and Paul Madden of Crea8 New Media), 140Conference founder, renowned twitterphile and friend of Yahoo! Jeff Pulver would also be presenting.
Pulver gave his stock, “it-all-started-with-HAM-radio” and “Twitter is about love” speech while the other panelists patiently waited their turns. When it was time for Falke to give her talk on how she handles multiple Twitter accounts, Pulver pounced, interrupting repeatedly with quips and snide, though intelligent, remarks. During Madden’s admittedly “gray hat” Twitter automation talk, Pulver ejaculated, “You are EVIL.”
Granted, Madden pays legion of sweat shop copywriters in the Philippines $1.40 an hour to create fake Twitter personas and stories, but the effect was that of a teenager flaming others in an online forum circa 1999. It did, however, make for one of the liveliest sessions at SES. Pulver eventually backed off a little, saying during the Q&A period, “It’s evil, but it’s also brilliant, and I respect that.” Well, after all, the best panelists are entertainers and the best entertainers are insult comics.
Fun facts and one big preview from Yahoo! at SES San Francisco
The Search Engine Strategies conference in San Francisco kicked off with a bang and ended with, well, a Y bang (Y!).
The opening bang
Jeffrey Hayzlett, former “Celebrity CMO” for Eastman Kodak gave the kickoff keynote, recounting his sometimes hysterically funny journey through the corporate rocks and shoals while trying to re-invigorate one of world’s great heritage brands with new life—a company at one time so out of touch it actually let its trademark “Kodak moment” expire. The key? Getting people involved, by talking and evangelizing the brand through social media. (They actually renamed a poorly named product using suggestions via Twitter in a few days.)
“Build hearts and minds not eyeballs and ears… the rest will follow,” he said.
Companies, said Hayzlett, should build “emotional technologies,” strong enough that people would run back into a burning building to save them (like family photos). And build them fast. “It’s OK to make mistakes, but if you’re going to make ‘em, make ‘em big… no one’s gonna die!”
Dueling Y-bangs
You’ve heard the old Gap Band song that goes, “you dropped bomb on me, baby.” Well, that’s just what Yahoo’s Wendi Sturgis did in one of the afternoon sessions. Its “stage name,” as Wendi put it, is the Yahoo! Content Syndication Exchange, and it’s poised to revolutionize the way publishers aggregate and present content. The new, open platform will allow publishers to draw together not only Yahoo! premium content but also search content (such as the Yahoo! Trending Now module), and user-generated content from sources like Twitter, among others. Bang, there it is! Stay tuned for further announcements.
Yahoo! Rich Ads in Search secures victory for “Battlefield: Bad Company 2″
Electronic Arts Inc. (EA) creates cinematic, immersive experiences for its video game users—qualities that don’t come across in a traditional text-based search ad. So when it released Battlefield: Bad Company 2, it used a kind of search marketing campaign with images and video that grab a gamer’s attention: Yahoo! Rich Ads in Search.
The Challenge
EA, which owns high-profile video game brands like Battlefield, The Sims and Madden NFL series, wanted to get maximum exposure for Battlefield: Bad Company 2, the latest title in its video game series. The game embeds players deep into an expansive yet totally destructible combat landscape filled with detailed vehicles and weaponry. It already had a built-in audience of gamers, millions of whom had bought its predecessor, so EA knew it could reach them through its usual mix of display and targeted television ads.
In order to build on the success of the previous titles in the series, EA needed to broaden its target market beyond what it could reach with its usual methods. It considered search marketing, but the company’s proven strategy of using visuals meant it wasn’t convinced that search would be effective.
“Gamers were eagerly anticipating the release, but we knew it had the potential to be an even bigger success than the first one,” says Leslie Shinn, senior marketing manager at EA. “We needed a way for a new audience to see for themselves how amazing the game is.”
The Solution Search agency iProspect recommended Yahoo! Rich Ads in Search, which allowed EA to use the power of strong imagery while gaining the benefits of search marketing. Since EA already had created the visual assets, there was no additional cost to repurpose them for Rich Ads in Search.
Yahoo! Rich Ads in Search drives consumers using deep links
Online advertising for Hyundai is complex. Its website serves consumers throughout the purchase cycle. Yahoo! Rich Ads in Search made it easy for the car company to engage with consumers at all stages of the process by offering brand awareness via videos to upper-funnel customers and deep links with lower-funnel activities to customers ready to buy a Hyundai.
The Challenge It’s a busy time for Hyundai. With several of its models collecting awards for being best in class and as a major partner of the FIFA World Cup, Academy Awards, and sponsor of the 2010 Super Bowl pre-game show, the auto company is increasing its brand reach. These recent marketing initiatives have consumers searching online to learn more about the company. Some want to find information about a specific model while others want to find a dealership, get estimates, customize a vehicle, or simply compare vehicles. Hyundai wanted a better way of serving the wide variety of needs.
That was the challenge that Hyundai brought to search and social media agency Reprise Media. “We automatically put Yahoo! on the media plan because of its reach and audience,” says Emil Panzarino, Reprise Media’s media director for the Hyundai business. “When Yahoo! launched Rich Ads in Search, we knew that it could address a consumer’s needs regardless of where he or she was in the purchase funnel.”
The Solution
“We chose to do Rich Ads because the primary goal is to drive consumer interaction,” says Sean McDonald, account director at Reprise Media. “Rich Ads offers a video component to search results, which immediately grabs consumer attention. It also has deep links that provide more opportunities for the consumer to interact directly with the brand.”
On the 20th anniversary of the Americans with Disabilities Act, everyone deserves access—even to digital ads
Twenty years ago, busy intersections had steep, dangerous curbs onto the pavement. Today they boast gentle ramps that help those with impaired mobility move smoothly into the crosswalk. This is thanks in no small part to the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA), signed into law on July 26, 1990. And just as the ADA has helped make the physical world more accessible, Yahoo! is helping make the cyber world more accessible.
Enabling the physical, digital and advertising worlds
Some 650 million people around the globe live with disabilities. Enabling everyone to move smoothly online lets users, regardless of their abilities, get the information they need, when they want it. In fact, according to the National Organization on Disability, 48% of Americans with disabilities say that the Internet has significantly improved the quality of their lives.
And with the potentially vast scale of this audience, no one can afford to say, “You can’t do that.” The purchasing power of people with disabilities tops $1 trillion, including $220 million in discretionary income, according to the U.S. Department of Labor.
To demonstrate Yahoo!’s commitment to inclusion, we’re running a pair of display house ads on Yahoo! Travel: one on how to find the best sushi in your area and another for the new Hollywood summer movie, “Grown Ups.”
To learn more about the art and science of accessibility in online advertising, download our .pdf, “Making Ads Accessible.”
Did you know that nearly as many Internet users respond to online display advertising by performing a search on a search engine (27 percent) as those who simply click on the ad itself (31 percent)? That’s just one of the data points included in the new white paper from Yahoo!, “Better Together: Search and Display.”
Advertisers tend to separate their digital advertising into two flavors: they generally think of search advertising for performance marketing and turn to display for branding. It’s easy to see why most advertisers take this approach, since each channel plays a unique role in any given campaign.
But in practice, search advertising coupled with display advertising yields better results than when used independently.
This statistical reality is one of the reasons Rich Ads in Search are so effective, too. Yahoo!’s innovative ad format allows advertisers to include video, custom search boxes, logos or images alongside a traditional text search ad, bringing together the virtues of both search and display.
When a new display ad goes live on the Internet, it may seem like the end of a process that started with strategy, creative and buying. But in many ways when an ad goes live it’s just the beginning: analytic data comes and that starts the cycle all over again, as information is used to refine and optimize the marketing strategy, creative content, and buying plan.
What’s the data telling you?
For Adam Chandler, vice president of sales for PointRoll, a Web marketing firm specializing in rich media, all the steps of an online marketing campaign are interdependent. “There needs to be a continuous-feedback loop,” he says. “Online advertising allows you to get real-time information and then optimize your current spend based on what the data is telling you. Once you go live, it’s really just the beginning, because you’re now getting feedback from consumers on what they think of your brand.”
Challenge: Disney needed to create a captivating advertising experience closely tied to its magical new summer movie The Sorcerer’s Apprentice. They also wanted to leverage social media to drive buzz for the release and extend reach online.
Solution: Yahoo! used a Floating Ad takeover to create the illusion that The Sorcerer bewitched the Yahoo! Movies page. Disney’s innovative campaign also incorporates a unique social media element: a moderated Twitter feed that reposts tweets about The Sorcerer’s Apprentice. In an effort to capitalize on the power of peer-to-peer recommendation, a call-to-action was added for Yahoo! users to retweet from the ad. (more…)
Vacation destination Mont-Tremblant uses Yahoo! Smart Ads to increase bookings and learn more about its customers
When you serve a wide variety of people with an even wider variety of services, how do you know which products and messages will work in a marketing campaign? Mont-Tremblant, in the Laurentian region of Quebec, used Yahoo! Smart Ads to dynamically generate customized display ads that connected with its customers. These “smarter” campaigns also revealed some surprising information about its vacationers.
The Challenge
Voted best ski resort in Canada’s Northeast by Ski Magazine 14 years running, the Tremblant resort is an elegant leisure-time complex and village in Quebec with picturesque mountains. The region is thus primarily known for world-class skiing. However, Mont-Tremblant also boasts a few 4 1/2-star golf courses, relaxing spas, 5-star hotels, intimate B&Bs, events, fine dining, a casino and a host of other activities.
Mont-Tremblant’s tourism board wanted to increase bookings for its partner properties in its primary U.S. target market which account for some 40 percent of its business during the winter. For the online marketing campaign, the tourism board wanted to specifically target the greater Boston area and the surrounding New England states. Marketing was a difficult task as Mont-Tremblant offered such a wide variety of activities and deals with different consumers wanting different vacation packages.
When you serve a wide variety of people with an even wider variety of services, how do you know which products and messages will work in a marketing campaign? 
