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.
Advertising beyond the Super Bowl; New Yahoo! ad formats hit the press; does social really sell?; Right Media’s future, and more
Advertising the Super Bowl, and beyond Mitch Spolan, our VP of North American field sales, has just posted a point-of-view commentary on MediaPost, on how digital advertisers are seeing gold in big-ticket events like the Super Bowl, which have traditionally been dominated by TV, radio and print. “Cultural events like the Super Bowl still matter,” says Mitch. “The good news for online marketers is that people are increasingly turning to the Internet for coverage of these events, and audience size and engagement is beginning to reach—and sometimes exceed—that of the original broadcast.” That goes whether you’re a search or display advertiser. To see how advertisers are making the shift online and get some tips for yourself, click over to MediaPost.
New ad formats stop the presses
That Mitch Spolan is redoubtable and seemingly ubiquitous. Last week he unveiled several new, flexible, creativity-driven ad formats. “Advertising is about telling stories,” says Mitch. “And these formats allow brand advertisers to do just that.” We’re not the only ones excited about these new formats. Check out the write-ups in AdWeek, MediaWeek and paidContent.
Social’s fine, but does it sell?
With all the hype around social media marketing and how it’s good for your brand and customer support, the question arises, “Fine, but does it sell?” AdWeek’s Brian Morrisey asks that question, and adds, “What’s a Facebook friend worth?” He answers with two telling case studies.
There’s a scene in the first season of “Mad Men” in which advertising anti-hero Don Draper asks his boss, “What do women want?” The answer he gets is flippant to the point of rather ugly sexism. But in the male-dominated world of early-1960s advertising, Draper was on to something. He knew instinctively that to reach America, you had to reach out to America’s new, emerging, liberated woman, a fact later borne out by daytime shows from “Phil Donahue” to “Oprah” and beyond.
Today, the audience to reach is teens, both male and female. Last time, we discussed some salient general facts about teens, their buying power ($125 billion and climbing) and the time they spend online. Today we’ll talk about who these teens are, what they want, and how advertisers like you can reach an audience of nearly 25 million Americans.
Well, it’s not quite like “Dear Abby,” but last year’s how-to posts from the Yahoo! Search Marketing blog and the Yahoo! Advertising blog are the next best thing. In the last year of the “aughts,” we tried to help show you the way to more effective Sponsored Search, and more effective Web advertising in general, with a bevy of posts that answered your most pressing questions—everything from how to develop strong keywords to how to keep those keywords and descriptions from facing rejection, to how to use social networks like Twitter and Facebook to get your messages out.
What can you do with a Yahoo! display ad? More than just display, for starters
Whether video, Web or mobile, Yahoo! display ads are rocking the house down, branding your products, sending the messages you want and getting the ROI you want, as this video shows. Enjoy, and happy new year!
Agency professional talks about finding the right mix in advertising
Kazi Ahmed, Account Director at Media Contacts, recently talked with Yahoo! about trends agencies are experiencing in the digital advertising space. Keep reading for his perspective on topics such as the shift from offline to online advertising, mobile advertising trends, and innovative targeting ideas. Media Contacts is an interactive arm of Havas Digital.
How do you and Media Contacts/MPG view the much debated relationship on overall campaign performance between search and display? From your perspective, how important is upper funnel activity to driving these online or offline conversions?
Our clients are sold on the idea that search generates results, no question. Where we struggle a bit is getting clients to understand that much of that performance is often being driven with the help of a display campaign. In other words, you need to fill the top of the funnel to ensure that a steady stream of conversions are driven via search at the bottom of the funnel.
Cut through the glut of typical holiday messages by promoting offbeat holidays in November and December
’Tis the holiday season again—and I don’t just mean the major ones like Veterans Day, Thanksgiving and Christmas. I like focusing on the more obscure holidays, like National Rad Tech Week, Sandwich Day and National Tie Month.
These are some of the special months, weeks and days that business organizations or Congress have designated to promote various causes. Depending on your business, you might be able to turn these offbeat holidays into a new ad campaign and ring up some extra cash.
Why “It’s You,” and not “It’s Us”? Yahoo! Chief Marketing Officer Elisa Steele talks about the hows and whys of our global marketing campaign in this interview—including the behind-the-scenes story of the kid with the ice cream cone.
This is the first in a series of videos, which we’re calling Yahoo! Yodelcasts. For more info, visit our corporate blog.
New ways to get the information you need, where you want it
Welcome to the Yahoo! Advertising Blog, where you’ll find information about all of Yahoo!’s advertising products, about the audiences who come to our pages every day, about the forces that shape the advertising world we live in. It’s a place that should give you more insight into marketing and hopefully just make your job easier.
What matters most Why come to Yahoo! for advertising news and advice? Well, to be obvious, it’s a pretty good bet that no one knows Yahoo! advertising products better than Yahoo!. But with 500 million people coming to our site every month and billions of ads served, we pick up a lot of insights about advertising that we can share with you.
We want the Yahoo! Advertising Blog to be a place that offers something for every advertiser who visits. So you’ll see news about products, tips on how to use them, market research, and perspectives from some of the most knowledgeable people in the business, including our own executives. It’s also a place where you can have a conversation with us about what’s going on in the industry.
Not everyone needs to know everything about advertising. If you’re a VP of marketing, you may not need to know how to build good online creatives. If you’re structuring a search campaign, you may not need a strategy for allocating your marketing budget across multiple media. So if you check out the buttons at the top of the page, you’ll see three that say, “Search,” “Display,” and “Insights,” which will take you to those kinds of posts.That way, you can come here and dig into the subjects that matter to you.
Info that comes to you You’re not always going to have time to check out a blog. That’s why we have a few other ways to find out what’s going on, on the sites you use the most.
If you use Twitter, you probably follow a bunch of advertising Tweeters that you use to keep up with the business. We humbly suggest you add YahooAdBuzz to your list, so that you can get (we hope) witty observations and fast access to blog posts, events, and marketing tidbits and trends from around the Web.
Why would you become a Facebook fan of an advertising business? We’ll concede that we’re no Twilight. But fans of our new Yahoo! Advertising Facebook page will getaccess to blog posts, videos, events, and useful links in your newsfeed, right next to the pics from your nephew’s graduation. You know how you sometimes tell your boss you’re working when you’re actually checking Facebook? Well, now you’re doing both.
Who: Arianna Huffington, Co-Founder and Editor in Chief, The Huffington Post
Mitch Spolan, our VP of North American field sales, has just posted a point-of-view commentary on MediaPost, on how digital advertisers are seeing gold in big-ticket events like the Super Bowl, which have traditionally been dominated by TV, radio and print. “Cultural events like the Super Bowl still matter,” says Mitch. “The good news for online marketers is that people are increasingly turning to the Internet for coverage of these events, and audience size and engagement is beginning to reach—and sometimes exceed—that of the original broadcast.” That goes whether you’re a search or display advertiser. To see how advertisers are making the shift online and get some tips for yourself, 
There’s a scene in the first season of “Mad Men” in which advertising anti-hero Don Draper asks his boss, “What do women want?” The answer he gets is flippant to the point of rather ugly sexism. But in the male-dominated world of early-1960s advertising, Draper was on to something. He knew instinctively that to reach America, you had to reach out to America’s new, emerging, liberated woman, a fact later borne out by daytime shows from “Phil Donahue” to “Oprah” and beyond.
Well, it’s not quite like “Dear Abby,” but last year’s how-to posts from the Yahoo! Search Marketing blog and the Yahoo! Advertising blog are the next best thing. In the last year of the “aughts,” we tried to help show you the way to more effective 
