Ad News and Views from Around the Web

Yahoo’s March Madness hoop dreams; recession brand lessons; data’s not everything; eyeing your agency, and more

Calling all bracketologists
March brings with it green beer, spring flowers and, of course, three weeks of hoops hysteria in the form of the NCAA college basketball tournament. This year’s Yahoo! Sports March Madness line-up is stronger than ever, beginning with our seasoned veteran, Tourney Pick ‘Em. The contest pits Yahoo! users against each other and the “experts,” with cash prizes of up to a million dollars on the line. Something new and cool for this year’s tournament is “Predictalot,” an experimental app from the brainiacs at Yahoo! Labs: Predictalot enables fans to make all types of prestidigitations, then assigns odds and lets users buy and sell them like stocks. Yahoo! has also created a dedicated mobile site just for your tournament picks, as well as a new web show, “Bracket Madness Live.” Picking begins this Sunday after the match-ups are announced, and the usual bracket-busting begins Thursday, March 18.

JWT’s top ten lessons recession brand lessons
Those JWT guys sure are into their “top tens.” The global agency spent a year surveying brand and consumer response to the recession, and came up with ten key brand lessons for surviving a downturn. And then they put them all in a book, which you can download for bupkis—well, in exchange for the usual name/rank/serial number data, anyway.

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Boyle’s Stop-Start Ten Commandments

Ten ways the ad industry needs to transform, according to JWT’s Sean Boyle

Editor’s Note: JWT’s Global Planning Director, Sean Boyle, was the bad-boy beau of the ball at the American Association of Advertising Agencies (4A’s) “Transforming Advertising” conference in San Francisco last week. With wit and an Irish gift-o’-the gab, Boyle presented his “The Stop-Start Ten Commandments”—five things agencies need to stop doing and five things they need to start doing. It made the room so pregnant with nervous laughter—because only the truth is funny—that we asked him to write an excerpt for us. Listen up, creatives and agencies.

1. Start Telling the Truth
To each other.  To our clients.  About our brands.

2. Stop the Bloody Politics
Because we’re an industry run by bankers, it is the conniving crowd pleasers rather than the cream that tend to rise to the top. A general rule: in most agencies, those with vision who “get-it” are bullied and undermined at every turn by those with no vision, who don’t.

3. Start Having Fun Again
We used to be the envy of the salary-man. Why have we let it become so serious and dull?  The greatest work ever done in our industry, has always come from places where people like each other and enjoy—really enjoy—playing (and partying) together as a team.

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Right on Target

Case Study: Affiliate marketer profits by fully leveraging the targeting tools of Sponsored Search

Though aimed at Yahoo! Sponsored Search advertisers, display advertisers can learn something from this case study as well—and, let’s face it, the wall between the two is thinning so fast that, pretty soon, you won’t be able to tell the difference. If you’re a big display advertiser, it simply doesn’t make sense not to have a search campaign.

In this case study, mid-market search marketer, Don Tuttle, shows how he uses Yahoo! Sponsored Search’s pay-per-click tools and demographic targeting to achieve a positive ROI.

For more, click over to the Yahoo! Search Marketing blog.

4A’s Conference Round-Up

The Yahoo! Advertising blog’s got you covered

This week, your indefatigable Yahoo! Advertising correspondents went on a field trip to the 4A’s “Transformation 2010” conference in San Francisco. (Those 4A’s stand for the American Association of Advertising Agencies.) While there, we did old the meet and greet, tweeted, and posted to Facebook our take-aways from some the smartest minds in the advertising world. We even did a little live blogging and took some video, too. (Lookin’ good, Carol!)

Below is a round-up of some the most interesting sessions, in case you couldn’t be there in person.

How Social Media Has Transformed the Communications Landscape
Who: Arianna Huffington, Co-Founder and Editor in Chief, The Huffington Post
What: Huffington spoke with considerable humor about how the Internet in general and social media in particular have changed the way people interact with media content. “We”—meaning users as well as media outlets—“are consuming news, sharing news, developing news. We are all part of that story,” she noted. Online readership is up 34 million in the past few years, while newspaper viewership is down 7 million. The key for understanding and engaging the online medium for publishers and advertisers is  “transparency and authenticity.” At the 4A’s conference, she mentioned what she calls the “four E’s:” engagement, energy, empathy, enthusiasm, enrichment. These are the real drivers of audience behavior online.
So What?: The shift in attention to online presents a huge opportunity for advertisers and marketers because the most engaged consumers are the most loyal consumers. Notable quote: “If Carol Bartz is outspoken, what does it make me, a demure shrinking violet?” Probably not, Ms. Huffington.

More on this session via AdAge.

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Ad News and Views from Around the Web

Segmenting segmentation; bad tech predictions; activity streams are the new black; consumers using online search for offline research, and more

What segmentation is right for you?
“There are three main types of segmentation,” says ClickZ’s Neil Mason. “Demographic segmentation, behavioral segmentation, and attitudinal segmentation. But which one is best? It really depends on what problem you’re trying to solve.”

The Internet’s doomed—and other bad tech predictions
Writing in Slate, Farhad Manjoo takes on the 1995 prediction that the Internet was doomed to fail, and discusses how you can avoid making bad predictions about technology in the future.

“Activity streams?”
It’s an idea for a new, free, more open Internet model, and it may just be the next big thing. And Yahoo! is right there, innovating. ReadWriteWeb’s Marshall Kirkpatrick explains what activitystreams are and what they may mean for the future.

Even if you’re brick and mortar, you still gotta be online
This comes by way of Greg Sterling over at Screenwerk. According to a recent poll, 94 percent of consumers did some research online prior to making a purchase. While e-commerce only makes up four percent of U.S. retail sales, people overwhelmingly (61 percent) use Internet search to research a purchase.

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Knowledge Is Power

Publishers and advertisers ask: who owns online data?

Advertisers can learn more about their audience when their message is online than anywhere else, information gathered can be used to target relevant ads to the most relevant audience.

But gathering the data also raises questions, such as the one addressed earlier this week at the Interactive Advertising Bureau (IAB) annual conference Ecosystem 2.0 when four industry leaders asked, “Who owns the data?”

The panel, which included representatives from publishers, advertisers, and agencies, noted that publishers worry that sharing information with advertising platforms will weaken the bond they have with their audience. Yet they also realize that targeted advertising creates a better environment for their content.

After plenty of spirited discourse, a consensus emerged that the industry should work together to proactively address issues of trust, especially among advertisers and publishers but also with consumers.

Part of the problem, the panel determined, is with the mindset that data can be “owned” by anyone. Instead, everyone involved should work to protect and respect data so that it can be used in agreed-upon, mutually beneficial ways.

Ramsey McGrory

Yahoo!’s Ramsey McGrory, Vice President of U.S. Partnerships, said the industry had plenty of reason for optimism. “This is a great marketplace,” he pointed out. “The power of advertising is good. Let’s not lose sight of the benefits of bringing marketers into the conversation.”

Bob Liodice, Association of National Advertisers President and CEO moderated the session that also included: Jeff Hirsch, President and Chief Executive Officer, AudienceScience; Walker Jacobs, Senior Vice President, Turner Sports and Entertainment Digital Ad Sales, Turner Broadcasting System; and John Montgomery, Chief Operating Officer, North America, GroupM Interaction.

Read more about how Yahoo! is shaping the future revenue model for digital media on Mediapost and Ad Exchanger.

Ad News and Views from Around the Web

Yahoo! and Twitter team up; advertising is good; ad groups 101; Yahoo’s head of search on the Microsoft alliance, and more

Yahoo! gets all Twitterpated
Last night we announced a new partnership with Twitter that integrates Twitter’s real-time social experiences with Yahoo’s global network of more than 600 million users. Together with the recently announced Facebook integration, this relationship is a key part of advancing our social strategy, transforming Yahoo! into a highly customizable social experience that lets people unify their activity from their many social experiences across the Web. Good for users. Great for advertisers. For more details, head on over to Yodel Anecdotal.

Affiliates beware: Cali sales tax looming
Many search and display advertiser run affiliate networks, whereby they become the middle-men between consumers and suppliers. It’s a good business and one that provides an essential service. But the State of California is considering imposing a sales tax on affiliate sites that have suppliers in the state. While aimed at the big boys like Amazon.com and Overstock.com, the law could affect any affiliate site with relationships in the Golden State. The San Francisco Chronicle’s Carolyn Said explains.  

Online ads help shoppers save
Advertising is often taken to the pillory for being self-serving. That’s just not fair. Good advertising serves an essential need in society. Without it, how would you know that there’s a better—or cheaper—mousetrap out there? eMarketer explains how online advertising is helping consumers save cash in tough times.

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Case Study: Buying Time

How Sitewire used the Yahoo! Search Marketing Desktop Tool to cut its workload

Sitewire, a digital media agency whose clients include the Darden Restaurant Group, which runs Olive Garden, Red Lobster, and other popular restaurant chains, wanted to ease its search marketing workload. The company expressed its concern to Yahoo! and became one of the first Sponsored Search clients to try the beta version of the new Yahoo! Search Marketing Desktop, an application that allows users to easily and cost effectively create and manage Yahoo! Search Marketing campaigns.

Learn how the company saved time and effort over at the Yahoo! Search Marketing blog.

Demystifying Mobile, Part III

Mobile marketing measurement is important, but don’t panic

In the third of our three-part series, Paul Cushman, Director of Mobile Sales Strategy at Yahoo!, outlines the importance of measurement in any mobile strategy and offers a simple formula for doing it right. For Part I, click here. For Part II, click here.

I’m shocked by the number of clients who start a mobile campaign with no idea how they are going to measure success. I’m not talking necessarily about goals, as this is a new channel to many brands and setting benchmarks is a legitimate and relevant approach at the start.

But make sure you are measuring and that you talk to your mobile advertising vendors about this. There are good in-house and third-party solutions out there that can improve the data a campaign generates.

Why is this important? Say the client comes in and says “I want an iPhone app!” (Let’s ignore the fact that this is akin to walking into the agency and saying “I want to do radio ads” without first asking whether or not you should even be doing radio).

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What Do I Do With All This Data?

Yahoo’s Scott Burke answers your questions

It’s a pretty common question among online advertisers: How do I use all the marketing metrics I’m inundated with? In an article posted yesterday on Ad Age, Scott Burke, our VP of engineering, user data and analytics, tackles that question with some pretty detailed answers, and talks about what’s important now—whether it’s clicks, time spent, the delta between search and display analytics, and much more. Click over to Ad Age for all the details.

—The Team

(Image by Pink Sherbet Photography via Flickr CC 2.0)