TV’s Future Looks Like Web’s Present

Will web-like targeting save TV advertising?

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Mall Advertising Goes Digital

Are we ready for Minority Report-like advertising?

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Marketing Moves to the Blogosphere

Perhaps the action of starting a blog in and of itself is a path to moving a company toward more open communication.

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New Facebook Ads Help Connect Users with Advertisers

Is the answer interaction or data?

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A Home Network Where Your TV Talks to Your Fridge

The internet will truly be everywhere.

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Marketing to Millennials
BusinessWeek.com

Preferring the Web Over Watching TV
NyTimes.com

More Marketers Want to Get to Know You
AdAge.com

Getting Shoppers From Search to Store
AdAge.com

U.S. on Track to Top Mobile Web Market, Study Says
adweek.com

TV and Online Video: Friends or Foes?
eMarketer.com

Digital Marketing News

Online Ad Networks Grow Reach, Appeal
eMarketer.com

The Hispanic Media Puzzle
eMarketer.com

The Trouble With Twitter
ecommercetimes.com

Will IE8 disrupt online advertising?
BizReport.com

Digital Commerce News

Back-to-school shopping moves online
SeattlePI.nwsource.com

Microsoft to buy Web-comparison shopping sites
Boston.com

Digital News and Trends

Mobile Games Make the Next Move
eMarketer.com

Political Coverage That’s All a-Twitter
WashingtonPost.com

Web news aggregators rise despite papers woes
Reuters.com

Google announces Android Market for phone apps
Cnet.com

Retail and Products

Video Game Revenues Keep Rising
eMarketer.com

NPD: CE Growth Will Be Slow
Twice.com

Record labels rethink iTunes
The Wall Street Journal (subscription required)

Article excerpt:  Forrester says targeted ads and a portal-like menu of options are coming to your set. TV advertising is poised to change dramatically over the next decade, embracing the kind of targeting and user control already common on the Web, according to a new report by Forrester Research. Forrester lays out a decade-long evolution that will ultimately result in most programming delivered on-demand with targeted ad messages based on location and behavior, along with community functions. This “Personal TV,” as Forrester calls it, would also deliver a Web-like experience for consumers, with a portal-like menu of programming options and search functions. Forrester sees this shift giving TV an opportunity to remain the dominant ad medium it is today. While a personalized offering would seem geared toward further audience fragmentation, Forrester anticipates systems that would allow advertisers to reach mass audiences in a targeted manner. What’s more, cable companies, with subscribers’ billing histories, know more about users than Web companies. Ultimately, TV will work like the Web, enabling viewers to interact with ads up to the point of purchase.
The rest: AdWeek.com

Musing:  The concept of personal TV is something that we at AARF have been talking about ever since I started working here 9 years ago.  We have always believed that someday advertising on TV will look more like advertising on the web than vice versa, and maybe now we are starting to see this change we have been expecting.  To me, the question has never been about whether or not customers will get more targeted ads based on their specific locations and more in-depth TV surfing and household purchase data.  The real question is on the depth of the data that will be available.  Part of that is based on how many activities TV-based ads will be able to drive and measure.  The TV medium is not well suited to interaction, and I have doubts about how much people really want to “surf” on their TV beyond flipping channels.  Because of that, the depth of data may be much more limited than it is online.  Online, I can find people who have purchased from me, have visited my site, etc. and so I can infer a great deal about their relationship with me.  Not sure that we will be able to get that depth of data on TV.  It will require a much different model than what exists now – in particular a new way of sharing and targeting against data that simply does not exist in the TV world.

Article excerpt:   Companies such as Adspace Mall Network and OnSpot Digital Network are leading the trend toward digital conversion of their out-of-home mall inventory. There’s a lot of discussion in media circles about the impact of digital technology, and one sector enjoying a transformation is the once sleepy domain of mall advertising. Companies such as Adspace Mall Network and OnSpot Digital Network are leading the trend toward digital conversion of their out-of-home mall inventory. Adspace, the largest in-mall digital video advertising network in the country, has built a network of 1,389 screens in 105 shopping centers in the last several years. Plans are to be in more than 200 malls within two years. OnSpot Digital Network, a two-year-old venture of Simon Property Group and agency conglomerate Publicis Groupe, has 1,300 screens in 49 Simon malls.  Eye Corp., which has become one of the leading mall ad companies in the U.S. after only two years in the market, and long-established mall leaders Clear Channel and CBS Outdoor also see digital as a big part of the future. CBS Outdoor has digital in three of  400 malls it has contracts with. Eye Corp. plans to roll out 75 digital sign units in 10 Macerich Malls in time for the holiday season.
The Rest: MediaWeek.com

Musing:  The growth of outdoor digital is exciting and interesting.  If it can live past its novelty stage, it could become a powerful medium.  I wonder if the battle is to fought between the direct response advertisers who want digital outdoor to drive to a direct sale – via coupons, offers, etc. – or advertisers who are want digital outdoor to simply make a more impactful impression – via interaction and entertainment.  There’s probably room for both, but my guess is that people, at least in the short-term, will be much more comfortable, and more interested, in less intrusive and more interactive outdoor.  It will take some time and education to get people used to or ready for advertising that gets delivered in some automated way to their mobile devices, even if (or maybe especially if) they are opt-in.

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Article excerpt:   Jason Calacanis, who got into blogging early and big, has quit. He co-founded a network of blogs called Weblogs in 2003, before the medium cracked the mainstream, and then sold it to AOL in 2005, working there until 2007. Today he is chief executive of Mahalo, a search engine guided by editors rather than algorithms.  After five years of writing on tech industry topics as well as personal ones and building an audience of 10,000 to 20,000 daily visitors, Calacanis said he got tired of all the nasty commenters and opportunistic “link-baiters,” people who post just to promote their own blogs.  So he signed off, leaving the blogosphere to others. One group that has been firing up its keyboards is corporate types. Of the approximately 112.5 million blogs on the Web, almost 5,000 are corporate, according to blog indexer Technorati. Calacanis blogged to start conversations and be a part of a virtual community, but corporate bloggers are in it for other reasons: talking directly to customers or giving a personal touch to a big business.
The rest: washingtonpost.com

Musing:  Overall, corporate blogging is still relatively small, but it seems that some of the more advanced corporate blogs are really about open communication rather than just PR or marketing speak.  The explanation of Bill Marriot’s blog is interesting – he writes about the company and sometimes just movies he’s seen.  While there appears to be real revenue generated from visitors to his blog, I wonder if people really care?  Perhaps some like that fact that Bill Marriot appears to be just a regular guy.  But the power of corporate blogging is not found in giving a voice to the “face” of the company, but in giving a voice and forum to customers, and to opening up real communication with them.  It seems, though, that making the commitment to having a blog in and of itself leads companies to be more open in their communication – maybe because they just have to.

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Article excerpt:  In its mission to make the world more connected, Facebook is helping its users connect more with its advertisers. The social networking site has begun testing a handful of new ad formats allowing users to interact with their Facebook friends within the ads themselves. The offerings are indicative of the ongoing challenge social sites are facing when it comes to monetizing the hordes of users and pages they generate. The firm is also unveiling new types of reporting to help advertisers recognize the value of being in front of its audience, beyond simple impressions and clicks.  Adidas, General Mills-owned Betty Crocker, and the new DreamWorks Pictures comedy, “Tropic Thunder” are among the first advertisers to try Facebook’s new “engagement” ads. Users who saw ads for the goofball war flick, for instance, were able to view the trailer and post comments without leaving the page they were on.
The rest: clickz.com

Musing:   I am of the mindset that interaction will be the big next phase of advertising, and be more meaningful than data based on user actions – so I agree with Facebook over MySpace.  Data based on past activities, particularly on something as broad as internet activity, is just too varied to offer highly meaningful data.  Once users start commenting, passing along ads, and voting on them, you get real data about what they want and what they think, and they will respond more positively to advertising.  Curious to hear your thoughts.

Article excerpt:   Across the consumer electronics industry, leading players are revamping their audio and video equipment for a future centered around the Internet, a world in which televisions, stereos and computers — even dishwashers and refrigerators — can communicate with each other over a wireless home network. Expanded lines of networked entertainment equipment will take center stage this week at the Internationale Funkausstellung in Berlin, the largest consumer electronics convention in Europe, with 1,200 exhibitors and 200,000 visitors. Sony plans to introduce plug-in adapters to enable some of its Bravia television sets to connect to the Internet wirelessly. The Dutch consumer electronics maker Philips will demonstrate a line of stereo systems that can wirelessly tap into music stored on personal computers or laptops in other rooms, streaming music through the house.  Pioneer, Samsung and Sharp will present flat-panel TVs that hook up to the Internet, some with wires, some without. Hewlett-Packard’s MediaSmart L.C.D. TV will wirelessly stream high-definition video.
The rest: NYTimes.com

Musing:  I love the idea that all of our devices will have wireless internet connections.  It will allow information to be passed back and forth between consumers and companies, and make repairs, updates, etc. so much easier and more convenient.  It may even cut down on waste (fewer devices tossed) and still provide a revenue stream to companies (more services).  I wonder how soon those connections will be meaningful, and how soon people will get used to using them.  Just having wireless in the device does not mean people will use them – and I suspect a lot of that will happen.  People will have to trained to use their devices differently, and the usefulness of the interactivity on the devices needs to be high, or people will just ignore it.

Is Google a Media Company?

The title is right, but the analysis is partially a miss.  Google is a media company even without creating its own content sites.

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Marketers Love Conversation, Unless the Consumer Starts It

Ain’t it the truth?  Everyone claims to want dialogue, but it is rare that resources are actually put against it.

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College Students Work Without a Wire

The future is here, and it favors mobility over all else.

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Woman to Woman, Online

Authenticity appeals to readers, but are advertisers ready to play?

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Young Consumers Research Purchases Online

They’re young, and they shop, but are they fair game to target?

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The latest from the SlateOlympics Twitter feed.
slate.com

Digital Marketing News

Monetizing MySpace Traffic
emarketer.com

It’s Not the Ad; It’s Getting the Bill
nytimes.com

Ad Nets Accounted For 30 Percent Of Publishers’ ‘07 Sales; Premium Price Erosion?
paidcontent.org

Google’s Yahoo! Deal Rankles
adweek.com

Bernstein: Online Ad Revenue To Grow�
mediapost.com

Online Video Ad Spending Growth
emarketer.com

Digital News and Trends

The Big Picture on Small-Screen Advertising
emarketer.com

Free Wi-Fi: Should Retailers Offer It to Customers?
networkworld.com

Retail and Products

Apple reports huge sales in iPhone software
The Wall Street Journal (subscription required)

Circuit City teams with magazines to offer more online buying advice
The Wall Street Journal/Dow Jones Newswires

Parents, retailers plan cutbacks this back-to-school season
dallasnews.com

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Article excerpt:  Type “buttermilk pancakes” into Google, and among the top three or four search results you will find a link to a detailed recipe complete with a photo of a scrumptious stack from a site called Knol, which is owned by Google. Google envisions Knol as a place where experts can share their knowledge on a variety of topics. It hopes to create a sort of online encyclopedia built from the contributions of scores of individuals. But while Wikipedia is collectively edited and ad-free, Knol contributors sign their articles and retain editing control over the content. They can choose to place ads, sold by Google, on their pages.  While Knol is only three weeks old and still relatively obscure, it has already rekindled fears among some media companies that Google is increasingly becoming a competitor. They foresee Google’s becoming a powerful rival that not only owns a growing number of content properties, including YouTube, the top online video site, and Blogger, a leading blogging service, but also holds the keys to directing users around the Web.
The rest: NYTimes.com

Musing:  What makes Google a media company is not the fact that it creates it own content sites.  It was already a media company before it did that.  Google is a media company because they control so much of the content that we see every day directly and indirectly.  The truth is that Google is a media company pretending to be a technology company, and this is what makes them so hard to compete against.  Technology companies are afraid of them, but can’t figure out how to compete with them.  That’s because technology companies make products that they try to sell to individuals.  Media companies make or distribute content that they give to customers in exchange for selling and serving ads to them.  The whole approach and point—of-view is different.  You can’t compete with Google unless you believe you are creating and distributing content, which is what media companies do.