Why all brands need to get social...

Great Main Stage PresosToday At iMedia

I was really very pleased with both of the main stage presos this go round for iMedia.

First up was Jeff Glueck, CMO for Travelocity. I loved his presentation because here is a guy that believes in the medium and tries new things constantly, but also has that old school approach to business - making money good, losing money bad. It was great to hear from the guy that brought us the travelling gnome.

The gnome campaign is one I have always liked but was always mystified about. How ON EARTH did this get approved? Well, after seeing Jeff on stage, I get it.

He gave one great answer today about this bucketizing we do online -- DR versus branding -- as if DR is all about sales and branding is all about self indulgence. He correctly and courageously pointed out that it's ALL about sales. He also had some fascinating data about the relative effectiveness of analog versus digital media in driving sales -- several analog forms are the most efficient available, underscoring the need for digital to continue to innovate to improve results.

Travel is one of the strongest online categories -- and the result is that CPCs have been driven rather high -- so high in fact that media like DR TV can more than compete. He also showed a chart that indicated that for his company, a view through is relevant, but only for about 2 hours, not the 30 days digital companies like to use.

Great, thought provoking stuff, and delivered in a clear and entertaining way. Bravo.

Next up was a sort of presidential debate between Nick Denton at Gawker and Geoff Ramsey at eMarketer, essentially focused on how bad things are in our business. Ramsey the optimist, Denton the pessimist. I loved the energy that Brad Berens created as moderator for this event, and got a great deal of good info out of these wonderful speakers. And Ramsey was right, a lot of it is how you look at it -- half empty or half full, but I share Denton's views more than Ramsey's about the next two years.

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Digital Marketing Factoid Of The Day: Online Spending Projections

From MediaWeek:

Online ad spending will climb by 8.9 percent next year, from $23.6 billion to $25.7 billion. Back in August, just prior to Wall Street’s meltdown, eMarketer predicted that spending would surge by 14 percent in 2009. But the economy is now taking its toll on all segments of media.

The good news is that spending growth should gradually improve over the next several years according to the firm--+10.9 percent in 2010 and +13.5 percent in 2013—but those growth figures are also lower than eMarketer recently forecast, as the ad recovery is now expected to take longer than originally believed.

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Vid Still Growing Like Mad

Despite the weaker than expected economy, online video appears to be poised for continued growth. Check out these massive projections from eMarketer:



See people? Not all the news should make you frown.

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eMarketer: Composition of Video Game Users - It may Surprise You

eMarketer has reported the following data on the composition of video game players:



I was aware that women played a lot of games, but I was NOT aware that they composed almost half of the VIDEO game business. Add to that the fact that fully 7% of gamers are now over 18 and you'll perhaps agree that this tiny chart packed a lot of wallop.

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Online Christmas Sales? Up 10% Projects eMarketer

eMarketer has a new report about the upcoming holiday season, and has projected a sales increase of 10% versus year ago.

10% growth, in THIS season, would be a pretty strong performance. this weekend at a nearby mall, I noticed that practically every store has good sales running already -- you don't do that in a year where offline sales are expected to be anything but in decline.



You can find out more about the holiday report, and the cost, here.

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The Changing Face of Car Advertising Media

So, for decades auto has been the number one sector of total US advertising. But no more, according to eMarketer. They say that that title now belongs to retail. But auto still is the colossus online, as each year shows dramatic growth in total online spend for this big budget industry:



Trends in auto are really the harbinger of what is going to come in loads of categories, at least in my opinion. When I worked at Carat they developed a model that helped an auto maker value different kinds of online interactions with auto ads differently, as a way of evaluating the relative effectiveness of different marketing tools. I am sure some of you have seen Sarah Fay deliver the case study for this innovative model that drove lots of other agencies in that same direction. Because auto is not generally an impulse buy (Maserati dealers might disagree) there are a variety of interactions that an auto advertiser can have with a consumer, and each has a slightly different value in terms of getting people in a car today. Whatever the value of these particular action, the underpinning to action and interaction allows digital to show an enormous effectiveness advantage over TV or Print.

We live in challenging economic times -- at least for most people, and I suspect that more and more purchases are going to be "considered" in the future. If that comes to pass, I would surmise that more advertisers will be shifting greater and greater emphasis to interactive marketing pieces delivered via IP (PC, console, mobile, etc.) That can only be good for billings in our space.

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Online Video Ad Spend Growth, 19.2% CAGR ; TV, 2.1%

The wonderful folks at eMarketer have released some interesting predictive data about video viewing habits. According to their new study, consumer control of where, when, and how they view video is causing glacial changes in TV viewing habits. Wait, not sure if I am using glacial correctly. Glacial as in enormous and unstoppable, not as in speed.


media
As their reports highlights page says:

Traditional TV broadcasters and advertisers have little time to wait to reinvent themselves and their organizations to take advantage of the interactive, on-demand and mobile video future.

Like Dennis the Menace used to say, "And how!"

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Mommy Hogs the Computer...

Earlier in this blog I waxed adoringly about eMarketer's daily newsletter. You NEED to subscribe. Here's another amazing set of free data that they have provided. If there were ever a more compelling set of reasons for CPG (among other categories)to be EXTREMELY active in digital...










Proof positive that the emarketer newsletter is a must read.

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