Posted by truecreek on May 19, 2009 under Opinions. Everyone has them. | 
By Howard Margulies
You are an advertiser, an account director, brand planner or an ad agency executive. And you have come to the conclusion that something is fundamentally wrong with your creative brief.
Your suspicion is confirmed by that gnawing sensation you feel in your gut when evaluating the advertising created in service of the deficient brief. The work feels indistinct or generic, crammed with information, yet devoid of a differentiating message; its tonality is either too quiet or patently overbearing in its desperate need for attention.
Blame must be assigned: It’s got to be the brief.
Changing an organization’s creative brief can be a politically charged, time-consuming ordeal; but that aside, choosing a new form is a fairly simple task. Put the words “creative brief” into Google, and with a little digging, you will encounter 117,000 links, many pitching their own idealized construct. Some forms are verbose, others elegantly concise. Choose one that feels right and run with it. Related: My doctor once observed that if a wide range of products exist to treat a medical condition, one might assume that none of them work notably better than another. What’s true for poison ivy is true for the creative brief. They will all sort of work, more or less.
Here are some guidelines for experimenting with a new, improved creative brief:
* Think simple. The more sophisticated the brief, the simpler it should be. The more glissandi and grace notes the piece has, the harder it is to play.
* More spaces to fill present a greater opportunity for bad poetry. Avoid theoretical definitions; keep the language at the 8th-grade level.
* Write in clear, declarative sentences.
* Test out the chosen version with products or services you know well. If you can get all the key ideas in, you’re good to go.
* Every fact or observation you add to the brief must be useful and actionable. If not, leave it out.
* Does the final brief say what you want it to mean?
* Write a couple of bad ads directly from your brief. What would the headline say? What would be the key visual? Is that the beating heart of your story?
The humbling reality is, regardless of the pedigree of the agency championing a particular style of creative brief, in practice it will fail to result in great advertising if the guidance it provides is merely factual, or unclear and unfocused. The format of your chosen creative brief may well be the least of your problems.
PROBLEM No. 1: Filling out the brief.
The very notion of “filling out” a creative brief should fill you with dread. Because if simply filling it out is the goal of the individual(s) tasked with its completion, it will not end well.
Too often, the creative brief is joylessly “filled out” as if it were the worksheet to an IRS 1040 Schedule C. Values are plugged into fields. Facts substituted for insights. Data dumped in a hierarchical, unfiltered lump. Keep in mind that at the end of this process, no matter how flawed or absent the thinking, it will look exactly like a creative brief.
When you write a creative brief, you’re not filling out a form. You’re crafting the story of your product and its reason to exist and thrive in the world. This is the first, and arguably the most important creative act of the entire process. And yet it’s often approached with all the delight of passing a kidney stone.
Believe it or not, your creatives want the freedom of a tightly written brief. They’re looking to you for inspiration. Man up. Make them care.
Peter Comber, creative director at Italy’s DWA, wants “clear objectives, and clear targets.” “Sell more,” he insists, is not an objective any more than “everyone” is a target audience.
Dallas Baker, creative director of Freed Advertising, wants a brief “to connect [him] with the target on a level [he] wouldn’t otherwise understand … to be taken into a brand and … the challenge that lies ahead.”
It all comes down to this: Are you telling the right story to the right audience? The right story is not merely true, but motivating to any given audience. Often inarguable, self-evident truths are ladled into a creative brief under the guise of insight. This will not go unnoticed.
Your creative teams may dress like slackers, but they have been genetically bred to sniff out a con job. Oh, they may not immediately realize that your core leverageable insight is not really very insightful or leverageable. But know this: After they work with the brief for a while, they will arrive at that conclusion.
The creatives will scour the brief for a declarative message (anything!) delivered with clarity, something they can sink their teeth into. Finding none, in utter desperation, they will reach into their advertising bag of tricks and their instinctive knowledge of consumer motivators to create a marginally interesting way of stating the painfully obvious.
But ultimately, the smoke will clear and the creative work will not stand up to scrutiny. They will come to you for clarification, and you will be frustrated by their inability to crack the code. Be gentle with them.
It’s not the format of the brief, but the story it tells.
PROBLEM No. 2: How will you know when you have written a good brief?
Brevity goes a long way to winning over some of your creative comrades. Creative legend Jackie End’s litmus test for a good brief is “when you can read it without missing lunch and dinner.”
Steve Capp, chief creative officer of Unit 7, has observed that if your brief is too long, “someone didn’t spend enough time on it.”
Surely, when your creatives begin to nod, rather than nod off, you know you’re on the right track. But how do you know you have nailed it?
It’s been suggested that you’ll know you’re onto something big when you can pitch the story in under 30 seconds. Can you deliver an elevator speech for your product? Are you writing it to be read?
Dave Dresden, director of International Promotions at Warner Bros., suggests that “actually speaking the words out loud … lets one sense the potential for an ‘a-ha’ insight.” Distance yourself from the brief, if you can. If you were hearing the ideas for the first time, would you buy in?
In a privately published 1998 monograph, “What’s A Good Brief? The Leo Burnett Way,” a “good creative brief” was defined as “brief and single minded … logical and rooted in a compelling truth … [incorporating] a powerful human insight.” That opinion was echoed by several ad veterans I polled for this article.
Rich Solomon, creative director at C2Creative, senses that a brief is leading into fertile territory “when concepts start to come immediately after reading a single-minded benefit statement.”
DWA’s Comber thinks the clearest evidence of a solid brief is that when he’s “reading it the first time, he reaches for a pen and paper.”
Greg DiNoto, CEO of DiNoto Inc., knows when he’s in good hands “when a brief is dense, when it commits … and [he] can immediately and intuitively sense the truth in it.”
DiNoto has it exactly right. When writing a brief, you must fully commit to an idea:
* This is the time to fall on the sword. Commit!
* Refrain from peppering the brief with ideas; a little bit of this or that. Layering ideas in a painterly way is dishonest. Commit!
* Say one thing, and say it clearly.
* Don’t try to outshine the creatives, don’t let your cleverness show; keep the language simple and clear.
* Anything resembling a tagline should be deleted.
* Support, amplify, clarify, stay on message.
If you have doubts that you have chosen the right path, find another. The universe has an infinite supply of paths; choose one.
It is a faulty assumption to believe that a killer ad campaign was the product of an unusually imaginative creative brief. Quite the opposite is more likely to be true. It is also not inevitable that any given campaign would result from any given brief. This is a deterministic function of the zeitgeist, the talents and disposition of the creative teams, the openness and receptivity of the target audience, and the ability of an agency and client to celebrate the power of a great idea and run with it.
The Goodby, Silverstein & Partners award-winning “Got Milk?” campaign was based on a powerful, single-minded insight: People wait until they’re out of milk to realize that they need to buy more. The campaign’s scenarios were highly entertaining, but the core message was: “Milk enhances the enjoyment of many foods. Don’t wait until you’re out. Buy some today.” In Goodby’s hands, advertising history was made. At another shop, the spots might’ve sounded like infomercials for the ShamWow!
A truly motivating insight is a secret bit of knowledge that you have about your target audience that you can exploit to make them do your bidding. Don’t squander it.
Study the great advertising of the world. Dissect and reverse engineer it. But don’t fall into the trap of equating the creativity or memorability of a campaign with the writing style found in the brief that got them there.
* Keep your creative briefs free of clever turns of phrase, taglines, or ad-speak.
* Fill your brief with brilliant market analysis and motivational insights into your target audience.
* And most of all, write with clarity.
Posted by truecreek on May 11, 2009 under The Work |
As a member of The Creekbed, True Creek’s very talented freelance creative team, Gabe has designed some nice work.
Posted by truecreek on May 6, 2009 under Opinions. Everyone has them. |
Time and time again, we’ve heard the story: Increase your marketing and advertising spend. Now. Not only to keep your brand top of mind but to assure that when everything settles down and we’re back in business, you will be too. And in a big way.
Folks will remember you were there when the proverbial crap hit the fan. That you were strong enough to keep the fires burning so that when the time comes for them to need your company, you will be there. Better, stronger and leaner than ever.
Seize the opportunity now. Start thinking positive about things and get back in the game. Add weeks, don’t cut them. Print the entire quantity, not just a segment. Use better paper. Shoot in HD. Raise those production standards. Buy more media. Shoot, how about running some great print ads? The newspaper community needs your business.
Better yet. Hire a great Northern Virginia Ad Agency by the name of True Creek and we’ll help your company put it together.
A few months ago, Mike Matson wrote and article that merits another post.
MarketSense study during the 1989-91 recession demonstrated that brands such as Jif Peanut Butter and Kraft Salad Dressing increased their advertising and experienced sales growth of 57% to 70%. During this same period, most of the beer industry made cuts to their ad budgets, but Coors Light and Bud Light increased their budgets and saw sales jump 15% to 16%. Among fast food companies, Pizza Hut sales rose 61% and Taco Bell’s 40% due to strong advertising support, reducing McDonald’s sales by as much as 28%.
MarketSense concluded the study by reporting. “The best strategy for coping with a recession is balanced exploitation of ad spending for long-term consumer motivation, plus promotion for short term sales boosts.”
Strategies to help your business thrive in this economy.
• Don’t cut your ad budget, increase it. Let your competition cut their budgets. When you increase your spending, you increase your share of voice. If your competitors cut back, your message grows even stronger.
• Have a strategic marketing plan that is well thought out, so you don’t waste money advertising the wrong message in the wrong place to the wrong audience.
• Keep your loyal customers by keeping in touch with them and letting them know what you have to offer.
• Maintain your brand awareness. Advertising works cumulatively so you have to remind people frequently about your brand or they’ll forget you.
• Achieve greater media efficiency by taking advantage of more negotiable rates and special promotions.
• Don’t degrade your advertising by trying to save a few dollars on creative or production costs. Your customers will notice and will perceive lower quality not just in your advertising, but in your products and services.
This is one time to stress quality—and value. “All great enterprises move forward in a recession, and the weaklings move backward. The dumbbells cut back on advertising. The smart people don’t.” -Ed McCabe, founding partner of Scali, McCabe, Stoves advertising agency, a legendary Madison Avenue agency of years past.
Posted by truecreek on under More Dam News |
Moms Say Marketers Ignore Their Needs
-By Jessica Hogue, Nielsen Online
Marketers have made great strides in recent years to better understand and connect with moms. But in trying to perfect the message, many have forgotten to listen to the very consumer they are trying to woo.
According to M2Moms, 60 percent of moms feel that marketers are ignoring their needs, and 73 percent feel that advertisers don’t really understand what it’s like to be a mom.
Last year’s Motrin Moms kerfuffle, in which women on Twitter and YouTube reacted to an ad offending baby-toting moms, raised the antennae of marketing managers everywhere and underscored the importance of not just reaching moms but understanding their value systems.
Initiatives like Wal-Mart’s “elevenmoms” (a partnership through which the retail giant and a collection of mom bloggers are building a well-timed money saving community) demonstrate how marketers are taking steps forward to engage moms — particularly mom bloggers — and to develop mechanisms to absorb their input. Not all marketers have to go to such lengths to understand today’s Power Moms, but much can be gained from expanding perceived notions about this important and highly-influential demographic.
While marketers today have a so many opportunities to connect with mom at various inflection points during her life (having a first or second baby, child entering school, return to work), the challenge is sensing her distinct needs and responding in a way that truly resonates. This forces marketers to redraw the vision of mom in our head.
As CEOs of their households, Power Moms wield more influence than ever before: moms control 85 percent of household spending, and are worth more than $2 trillion to U.S. brands, as reported by the Marketing to Moms Coalition. Most moms work. In fact, according to the U.S. Department of Labor, in 1965, about 45 percent of women with children (under 18) were employed; by 2000, over 78 percent were. Whether they work out of the home, telecommute, or run a business from the home, media technology and the Internet have become a true enabler.
Nielsen reports that moms between the ages of 25-54 who have at least one child under the age of 18 within the home represent roughly 19 percent of the total online population. And they are not passive observers online. Rather, Power Moms leverage their megaphones to influence online purchase decisions. Considering the expansion in ecommerce for foods, beauty and household products — which is projected to grow to $12 billion in 2011 — effectively reaching moms has real bottom-line implication.
Power Moms leverage digital applications to stay organized, connect with their families, friends and mom networks (think Facebook and micro-blog platforms like Twitter, as well as mushrooming networks like MomBloggersClub.com and TwitterMoms.com), and to get things done, like paying the bills, ordering groceries, downloading coupons and hunting for ideas for the next family vacation. And lest you envision moms tapping away at their computers, know that Power Moms are also mobile enthusiasts who are 35 percent more likely to use text messaging/SMS on the go.
But even online, not all moms are created equal. According to M2Moms, African American mothers are more likely to read articles online (68 percent) and listen to music (45 percent), whereas Caucasian mothers are likely to frequent social networks (45 percent) and message boards (43 percent). Web 2.0 is also relevant for Latinas: blogs were the top choice among Hispanic Moms (55 percent) followed by social networks (42 percent).
Understanding the Power Mom’s online behavior affords a more holistic awareness about her passions and interests and also enables precision in online targeting for optimizing media plans. For example, established moms aged 40-50 who have three or more children in the home are heavy online shoppers, over-indexing on sites like Shopzilla, Target and Walmart compared with the average online consumer. On these sites, Power Moms are likely to be receptive to advertising deals and promotions. They also stay connected on email and are beginning to dabble in social networks, primarily Facebook.
Posted by truecreek on May 4, 2009 under More Dam News |
By Theresa Howard, USA TODAY
Car advertisers that maintain their ad spending can rev up market share in down times, gaining an edge to exploit in a recovery.
Sure, the auto industry is in the doldrums. Car sales through April this year are down 37%, to about 3 million vehicles from 4.8 million through April last year, according to Autodata’s latest sales report out Friday.
But while some brands all but stopped spending on marketing, others kept or increased their budgets, particularly for new or improved models. Among those for whom that paid off:
• Kia Motors increased U.S. ad spending 43% in 2008 vs. 2007, according to ad tracker TNS Media Intelligence. Its U.S. market share is up from 1.9% at the end of 2007 to 3.1% through April of this year, according to Autodata.
• Mercedes-Benz raised ad spending 39.8% in 2008 vs. 2007. Its U.S. market share is up from 1.6% at the end of 2007 to 1.8% through April this year.
• Volkswagen raised ad spending 45.7% in 2008 vs. 2007. Its U.S. market share is up from 1.4% at the end of 2007 to 1.9% through April of this year.
VW’s U.S. marketing chief, Tim Ellis, says that despite the tough sales year, 2009 ad expenditures will be held even with 2008.
“When we invest in marketing, things happen,” says Ellis. “We think it’s important to stick to our roots and stick to our value message. We’re getting a higher percentage of the dwindling marketplace. And when this crazy situation comes straight side up again, we’ll be positioned to increase our share even further.”
Posted by truecreek on May 2, 2009 under More Dam News |
This is just huge. Even the USPS is having a sale. This is from their hot press release.
Today we filed a notice with the Postal Regulatory Commission for a Summer Sale. The Sale will provide a 30 percent reduction in postage for qualifying Standard Mail customers mailing letters and flats. The Summer Sale will run from July 1 through September 30, 2009 . The Summer Sale offer is subject to review by the Commission for up to 45 days following May 1.
UPDATE:
The United States Postal Service has issued further specifics on its proposed “summer sale.”
The sale will run from July 1 through September 30 and will be open to mailers who mailed more than one million Standard letters and/or flats from October 1, 2007, through March 31, 2008.
The USPS said eligible mailers will receive a rebate of 30% on any mail volume in the summer sale period, which is over the past threshold.
The rebates will be adjusted if the mailer’s October 2009 volume is less than their October 2008 mail volume adjusted their mailing trend.
Mailers will pay full postage during the summer, and their rebates will be determined by the USPS after October 31. Rebates will be credited to the mailer’s permit account before December 31.
The USPS will be sending eligible mailers letters that will provide the threshold as determined by USPS data systems.
Once they receive their eligibility letter, mailers may enroll in the program on the Web on or before July 1.
The summer sale proposal must still be approved by the USPS board of governors and the Postal Regulatory Commission.
Posted by truecreek on May 1, 2009 under Opinions. Everyone has them. |
For those of you who are following the saga of sale or no sale for the automakers: this is NOT what I was suggesting at all. This kind of local stuff just gives me the heebie jeebies.
I just sense so much desperation in the art direction. Agreed?
Posted by truecreek on under More Dam News |
From eMarketer:
If media attention is any indication, Twitter has exploded into an all-out phenomenon. Celebrities, politicians, entrepreneurs, business leaders and everyday users are flocking to the service en masse, generating a frenzy of activity and attention.
Everybody is talking about Twitter, but what do the numbers say?
There were roughly 6 million Twitter users in the US in 2008, or 3.8% of Internet users.
It’s projected that the number of Twitter users will jump to 18.1 million in 2010, representing 10.8% of Internet users.
By all measures, Twitter is growing, and quickly.
What’s driving this phenomenal growth?
“Twitter lets people know what’s going on about things they care about instantly, as it happens,” Evan Williams, Twitter’s CEO, told The New York Times. “In the best cases, Twitter makes people smarter and faster and more efficient.”
A survey of Twitter users from MarketingProfs backs Mr. Williams’ views. On a scale from 1 to 5 (with 1 for strongly disagree and 5 and for strongly agree), the phrase “I find it exciting to learn new things from people” averaged a score of 4.65 and “I value getting information in a timely manner” averaged 4.58.
“Above all, people on Twitter are truly motivated by learning new things and getting information real-time, as it’s developing,” said Ann Handley of MarketingProfs.
Posted by truecreek on April 29, 2009 under Opinions. Everyone has them. |
A very good friend of mine and a member of The Creekbed, is a great designer by the name of Kyle Williams. This is a cool little piece of work he produced for the Tampa Bay Brewing Company.
Beer is your friend. Never forget that.
Posted by truecreek on April 28, 2009 under The Work |
We’ve just completed a very smart campaign for Comcast. A strong winback message, IMHO. Honest. Just the way it should be. And you have to appreciate the humility of the subhead. Here are two of four oversized postcards, which will be followed by a letterpak.
Posted by truecreek on April 27, 2009 under The Work |
Posted by truecreek on under The Work |
Posted by truecreek on under Opinions. Everyone has them. |
By Emma Hall
Welcome to social-media message overload.
The constant barrage of invites to sign up for this group or download that app are starting to wear on social-network users, presenting big challenges for the brands and marketers who are looking to use these sites to aggregate fans and cultivate relationships with customers.
Nearly a third of social networkers say they are fed up with the constant requests to join groups and try new applications, according to research by the Internet Advertising Bureau in the U.K. That means marketers will need to work harder and keep innovating if they want to harness the consumer power of social networks and persuade people to join their sponsored sites or pages.
When asked “What do you dislike about social networks?” by far the highest response, at 31%, was that there are too many invites to install applications, followed by 16% who said “when advertising isn’t relevant to me.” Slightly more than 5% complained about messages from brands and another 5% actually lamented the addictiveness of social networks. About 12% said they had no complaints. The research showed that 7% of respondents sign up to find out about brands.
“From a marketer’s perspective, social networks look brilliant on paper,” said Alistair Beattie, head of strategic planning at AKQA, London. “It’s a switched-on crowd with a huge amount of time who hold brands close to them. The difficulty is that they regard this as their space. We have all become our own source of entertainment. But there is a resistance to being advertised at in our own spaces.”
Amy Kean, IAB senior marketing manager, said, “Despite [social networking's] popularity, this study shows that respect for the user is just as important in social media. Users will not respond to spam or irrelevant advertising.” And controlling those intrusions will have to become a higher priority for social networks, said Union Square Venture’s Fred Wilson at Ad Age’s recent digital conference.
“One of [social networks'] biggest costs is ‘environmental mediation,’ or keeping the bad people at bay,” Mr. Wilson said.
AKQA had success with a Marmite group on Facebook. The savory spread’s advertising message is “Love it or hate it,” so the group works well as a discussion topic for social networkers. Fans post recipes, discuss weird and wonderful ways to enjoy the sticky black spread, tell tales of conversion to the taste and share frustrations about not being able to purchase it outside the U.K.
Too often, Mr. Beattie said, advertising on social networks is “still a traditional interruptive approach where brands are piggybacking on content that people value.”
The IAB research found that exclusive content, which appeals to 28% of social networkers, and a genuine interest in the message, which attracts 37%, are the keys to a positive response from consumers on social networks. And because only 5% say that they actively dislike messages from brands, there are big opportunities for marketers who can hit the right notes.
“To be popular, brands need to have a personality and be someone that people want to be friends with,” Mr. Beattie said. “The guiding principle is to offer things that are not available elsewhere, things that give social kudos or bragging rights. Brands are part of the fabric of people’s lives and ultimately most are happy to be identified as friends of a brand.”
The IAB study of nearly 2,000 internet users also showed that social networks are taking on extra relevance in the current economic climate. Forty-one percent of members say they now place even more value on ratings and reviews from family and friends on a social network. Mobile social-networking is also on the increase. Updating social-network sites via mobile handsets is increasing, with 25% of all respondents logging on to check or update their pages.
Posted by truecreek on April 25, 2009 under The Work |
Some nice card design from Pete Buttecali. And a nice tagline from Mike Matson. Of course.
Posted by truecreek on April 23, 2009 under The Work |
Posted by truecreek on April 22, 2009 under More Dam News |
By Wayne Friedman
Not all TV teen viewers are into new TV technology — at least not the ones that delay gratification.
According to a new study by Pangea Media, an online quiz technology company, and Ypulse, a digital youth media company, 65% of tween and teen users prefer to watch TV shows live. This contrasts with 25% who say they will view it using a DVR, and 10% who watch online.
Traditional TV genre programs also play better than new-style TV formats. Tweens/teens prefer scripted series 64% of the time versus reality TV, at 36%. They like programming on cable TV, at 77% of the time to network TV’s 23%.
But some prevailing trends seem to follow tweens/teens. Asked to forgo either TV or the Internet for a week, 77% of respondents overwhelmingly said it would be television. While 60% say they have seen an original Internet video series, 85% say they have never visited a TV show’s social-networking area. Most of tweens/teens online video viewing goes to YouTube, with a 50% score. Some 40% of the time, they go to a channel’s Web site, and 20% of the time, they head to iTunes.
Multitasking is still big among this group. They watch TV and are online 78% of the time, while TV and texting is at a 66% rate.
Television still influences their buying decisions. Sixty-six percent say they downloaded music because they heard it on a show; with 30% saying they purchased clothes because they were seen on a TV character.
Posted by truecreek on April 20, 2009 under The Work |
Posted by truecreek on under More Dam News |
By Richard H. Levey
If a proposed test rollback of mail rates this summer goes through, listen for the sound of corks popping in Plano, TX. That’s because J.C Penney Co., which makes its headquarters there, was the biggest mailer during summer 2008, and stands to reap the largest benefit.
On Friday, word began circulating through the direct mail industry that The U.S. Postal Service was mulling temporary postage discounts for high-volume mailers that schedule drops between June 15 and Sept. 15. While the details of the program are still being worked out, discounts are expected to be between 20% and 30%.
This assumes that the highest-volume mailers haven’t negotiated separate, individual discounts with the U.S.P.S., or that those that have won’t be allowed to participate in the program. There has been no comment, official or unofficial, on either speculation at deadline.
But assume that the largest mailers pay the going rate. Penney mailed at least 119 million letters and catalogs in at least 23 separate campaigns, as far as could be ascertained from several editions of the U.S.P.S’s Postal Bulletin.
A positive decision by the Postal Service could give an effort-free extra bit of income to the $572 million the company earned during its most recent fiscal year, which ended Jan. 31.
Information within the Postal Bulletins can be a little dicey: Among the June 15-Sept. 15 mailings scheduled for 2008, a few mailings, such as a 2.65 million-piece drop identified only as “Summer Sale and Clearance Postcard”, was not included in Direct Newsline’s calculations And since the Bulletin only lists individual campaigns in excess of 1 million pieces, it’s very likely high-volume mailers with smaller-yet-regular drops were overlooked as well.
While the Postal Service’s fourth quarter doesn’t exactly correspond to the period being scrutinized (the quarter starts and ends 15 days later), for comparison’s sake the Service carried just over 23.7 billion Standard Mail pieces during the quarter, which generated $4.94 billion in revenue.
Should the program be implemented, discount levels will be based on mailers’ meeting individually calculated levels based on the volume of mail they sent out between June 15 and Sept. 15, 2008. Because of the manpower needed to calculate each level and discount, the sales may apply to only the 4,000 largest Standard Mail users, according to a Direct Marketing Association (DMA) statement speculating on the discount program.
If it does go through as currently on the table, mailers that have reduced their volume during the first two quarters of the Postal Service’s fiscal 2009 year may have the levels needed to quality for discounts reduced as well, according to the DMA. The Postal Service’s fiscal year began on Oct. 1, 2008.
Posted by truecreek on April 8, 2009 under More Dam News |
By DEBORAH YAO
WASHINGTON (AP) – You’re watching Jon Stewart’s “The Daily Show,” when suddenly you see a commercial for the Mustang convertible you’ve been eyeing – with a special promotion from Ford, which knows you just ended your car lease. A button pops up on the screen. You click it with the remote and are asked whether you want more information about the car. You respond “yes.” Days later, an information packet arrives at your home, the address on file with your cable company.
This is the future of cable TV advertising: personal and targeted.
Cable TV operators are taking a page from online advertising behemoths like Google Inc. (GOOG) to bring these so-called “addressable” ads onto the television. “It hasn’t really been done on TV before,” said Mike Eason, chief data officer of Canoe Ventures, a group formed by the nation’s six largest cable operators to launch targeted and interactive ads on a national platform starting this summer.
They’re betting they can even one-up online ads because they also offer a full-screen experience – a car commercial plays much better on your TV than on your PC. As such, they hope to charge advertisers more.
The stakes are high: Cable companies get only a small portion of the $182 billion North American advertising market. Eason said the cable operators, which sell local ads on networks like Comedy Central, get roughly 10 percent of the commercial time on those channels. With targeting, they are hoping to expand that. But they have to tread carefully. Privacy advocates worry the practice opens the door to unwanted tracking of viewing habits so ads can target consumers’ likes or dislikes. They also fear it could lead to discrimination, such as poorer households getting ads for the worst auto-financing deals because they are deemed credit risks.
“You’ve got to tell people you’re doing it and you’ve got to give people a way to say no,” said Pam Dixon, executive director of World Privacy Forum in Carlsbad, Calif. “Otherwise, it’s just not fair.”
By the end of the year, Canoe will start rolling out ads that let consumers request information, such as the hypothetical one for the Mustang, industry executives said. Cable operators involved are Comcast Corp. (CMCSA), Cox Communications Inc., Time Warner Cable Inc. (TWC), Charter Communications Inc. (CHTR), Cablevision Systems Corp. (CVC) and Bright House Networks.
Initially, over the next two months, they’ll tailor ads by demographic profile of a community, such as age and income. So households in a youth-oriented neighborhood might get pitches for concerts, while those in higher-income areas might get exotic travel ads. Previously, cable could only target an entire metropolitan area or town. Ultimately, cable will target down to the ZIP code and individual household, although when that will happen isn’t clear.
That means eventually, while you and your neighbor could be watching “Iron Chef” on Food Network at the same time, you might see a commercial for golf clubs, because you had tuned to The Golf Channel earlier, while your neighbor would see an ad for Disney vacations, because she has young children who like to watch Nickelodeon.
Experian, a data collection and credit scoring company, will cull profile data and match them with information advertisers have on their consumers. The advertiser won’t know who will get the ads. Advertisers can also provide a customer list to Experian, which then can make a match. So an ad can be targeted toward someone who just ended a lease with Ford.
Niche ads aren’t new to television. Advertisers have long pitched beer and cars on sports programs and cosmetics on the female-heavy Hallmark Channel.
But cable hasn’t been able to get more specific until now. With better targeting, advertisers might pay more to run the same ad, but they’ll be reaching the audience most likely to buy, increasing the effectiveness. Advertisers will also be better able to measure how wisely their marketing dollars get spent, by keeping track of who responds. These are areas TV hasn’t done as well as online.
Canoe says it has already developed the technology and will start deploying it in May. The cable companies’ movement toward standardizing their systems on a common platform will aid in the deployment of these ads. What remains to be worked out are financial issues such as how cable operators and cable networks will share revenue.
There are signs that targeting works. Cablevision has just completed an ad trial involving 100,000 homes in Brooklyn, N.Y., in which it sold additional services to its own customers. For instance, someone who only subscribes to cable TV might get ads for adding phone and Internet services. Cablevision said it saw a double-digit percentage increase in sales in areas with targeted ads.
The company will roll out targeted ads to 500,000 homes in the New York area this summer. But privacy advocates such as Dixon worry that customers might not have a way to disable cable’s tracking of their viewing habits, and won’t likely have the option of another cable operator to buy from.
“If you’re sitting at home watching a cable TV box, you’re stuck,” Dixon said. “You’re looking at a version of television that no one else is getting. That’s a big deal.”
But Eason said despite its flaws, this is where TV advertising is heading – measurable ads. “This is the future for measurement on television,” he said.
Posted by truecreek on April 7, 2009 under The Work |
A pretty nice example of how a set of great headlines make for a compelling and effective direct campaign.
