Google Ads: Marketers have more influence on brand name key words in the future

If your company runs a business in Europe using Google Ads, then the announcement of Google becomes of interest for you. From 14 September 2010 your company will be able to buy and include brand names in keywords in your Google Ads campaign which have been trademarked by other businesses. These changes are extension to the changes made in the UK and Ireleand in 2008. In the US, this has been possible since 2004.

Many companies use Google Ads in order to drive attention to their websites and increase visibility about their products and services. Up until now, it was a court issue for companies to stop third-party ads from being mentioned alongside the paid keyword results of a trademark name. The problem came up when the French luxury goods company LVMH Moët Hennessy Louis Vuitton complained that only they have the rights to be able to use and buy such trademark terms in search offerings. The objective behind this cause is obvious: Brands wanted to protect their brand name.

And in the era of the social web, this also becomes an important impact on brands and the influence on their consumers. “Google argues that selling brand names as ad keywords to multiple bidders helps consumers because it allows them to find product reviews, sellers of second-hand goods and other information. It stressed that the new policy would not extend to the actual display text in search findings.” The idea is that users will find more relevant context connected to the brand name. The bad news for brand owners is that a hifi dealer will now be able to use the products brand names in its keywords.

Spot On!
Seeing this movement from a Google perspective it is a clever approach to boost their Google Adwords business. Although Google stressed that the new policy would not extend to the actual display text in search findings. Nevertheless, questions arise if Google has to watch out for Facebook as a competitor in the fight on search revenues. If more and more people are spending more and more time asking for the opinion of their friends (see launch of Google Questions) instead of searching the answer via search machines, the world of advertisers and brand might follow.

So, did your company already move budgets from Google to Facebook?

News Update – Best of the Day

Looking at pictures is one of the most important first steps when people evaluate relationships, if it be in social networks or real life. OkCupid, a popular American dating site, now released some interesting findings to which kind of pictures people respond most.

“Women responded more often to pictures in which the man is looking off camera, not into it. Men were more likely to respond to pictures in which the woman is at home (and looking a little come-hither), rather than out with friends or on a trip. But for both sexes, pictures in which the subjects are smiling uniformly trounced the stone-faced ones.”

Companies often ask me if you need outbound to generate inbound engagement. Yes! IMHO… A nice campaign was live on Mashable (where else… ;-) )… A traditional banner campaign with an intelligent creative, pushing Twitter and Facebook acccount plus their website.

“La-Ola” is just a thing for the stadium? NO! Coca-Cola created some great example of a new 3D animated world through a new process of printing. Watch this…

Gen Y and Z: Digital safety becomes more important

Recent studies show that the young internet generations are concerned about their privacy and online safety. The Habbo study on Generation Z web users makes clear that schools and parents have the most influence in terms of educating young people about responsible and safe online behaviour. They learn about online safety at school (29%) or their family (20%) – friends only 10%.

The Gen Z feels that online safety would become increasingly important in the future (61%). They still fell fairly safe in most online environments (55%). Only 19% say they don’t feel safe in many digital areas.

Gen Y, the Millenials that put a lot of private details online, also pays more attention to their privacy than older generations. However, recent research by the Pew Internet Project states that most members of the American Gen Y were more likely to monitor privacy settings. They make identification more difficult as they often delete comments or remove their names from photos.

The Berkeley Center for Law and Technology found out that 88% of responding Gen Y-ers want a law that would require websites to delete captured information. And they go even further. In an ideal world, 62% of them wanted the right to know everything a website knows about them.

Spot On!
Seeing this development, it could be asked whether social networks and digital platforms should not be more careful in stepping into the social graphs of their users from a marketing and monetization perspective. When social media platforms can see via fan pages which brands I like and which not, it could potentially destroy the trust that social network users have in them.

So, the question is how to handle this sensitive topic? Any ideas?

Studie: Engagement Banner zahlen auf Marke ein

Im Grunde genommen klingt es einleuchtend und doch scheint es für Kreative eine schwere Geburt zu sein. Die Verbindung zwischen Kreation und Interaktion bei Werbemitteln ist der Schlüssel zum Erfolg von Online-Werbung, wie ein aktueller Benchmark Report zeigt.

Die aktuelle Studie “Benchmark Insights” von Eyeblaster hat dabei 13.000 Online-Ads und 13 Milliarden Rich Media Impressions aus dem Jahr 2009 analysiert. Das Ergebnis verdeutlicht, daß intelligente Online-Werbemittel, welche vom User Engagement erfordern, die Konversion und Brand Awareness erhöhen. Die Intensität und Zeitaufwand dieses Engagement bezeichnet Eyeblaster als (“Dwell”) und wurde im letzten Jahr bereits mit einer interessanten Studie verdeutlicht.

Diese sogenannte “Dwell-Time” zahlt aber auch auf die Suchmaschinen-Eingabe des Markennamens nach Nutzung der Online-Werbung ein. Der Traffic auf den Marken-Websites stieg um 69%. Die positive Folgewirkung ist, daß die Kunden sich mit der Marke intensiver auf der Webseite auseinandersetzen. Sprich: Besuchsdauer und Zahl der PageViews steigen.

Um die Wirkung der “Dwell” auf die Marke zu belegen, hat Eyeblaster mit Microsoft Advertising und comScore kooperiert. Die Studienpartner werteten für die Erhebung 800 Rich Media Kampagnen aus, die Eyeblaster 2009 auf Microsoft Advertising Sites platziert hatte.

“Unsere Analyse zeigt, wie wichtig es ist, das Interesse und das Involvement der Zielgruppe direkt am Ort der Werbung zu gewinnen – und nicht erst auf der Website des Brands” Eyeblaster, Christoph Benning, Geschäftsführer Deutschland.

Spot On!
An dieser Studie sind für mich zwei Punkte wichtig, die es weiterhin zu erforschen gilt. Wie müssen Banner gestaltet werden, die ein solches Engagement des Kunden hervorrufen? Gibt es Key-Elemente, die sich hier herauskristallisieren – abgesehen von In-Banner Data Capture Optionen. Falls Eyeblaster hierüber etwas weiß, teilt es schnellstens mit der Werbeindustrie. Desweiteren empfiehlt Eyeblaster auf Basis der Ergebnisse, Online-Kampagnen, mit denen sich User intensiv beschäftigen können, an jenen Orten zu platziert werden, an denen sie sich generell lange aufhalten. Man frägt sich, auf welchen Webseiten lesen User Artikel intensiver: traditionelle Medien oder soziale Medien (speziell Blogs)? Und wie effizient ist Online-Werbung hier im Vergleich?

Wie seht Ihr das?

Only few websites trustworthy? Yes, says OTA study…

Adopting standards to cut down online fraud is obviously not one of the major topics retailers are checking their web site business for. The Online Trust Alliance confirms this stement. Their recent study results illustrate that only 8% of consumer web sites made it onto the organization’s “honor roll” of sites taking stringent measures to reduce online fraud enabled by forged emails, phishing sites and malware.

The survey looked at 1,200 web sites and 500 million emails purporting to be from either Fortune 500 companies, top Internet retailers or federal government web sites.

The group set up an honor roll of companies that it said are free of malware and free of links to sites containing malware. Sites that got listed also have extended validation SSL certificate which is used by web sites that scramble or encrypt sensitive data transmitted during online transactions.

The 500 top Internet retail sites had the highest percentage on the OTA honor roll at 14%. Federal government sites finished with the worst results. Only 3% made it to the honor roll.

Some further findings…
- 8% (113 companies) earned entry into the OTA 2010 Online Safety Honor Roll, for their adoption of EV SSL Certificates, one or more forms of email authentication and successful scan for malware.
- Over 26% of the Internet Retail 500 and top 100 financial services companies have adopted EV SSL certificates.
- Worldwide growth of EV SSL certificates has exceeded 90%, growing to 23,000 deployments.
- 14% of the Internet Retail 500 and 13% of the Top 100 FIs have adopted both email authentication and EV SSL certificates.

“While major corporations, banks, governmental agencies and industry working groups talk about best practices, the majority are failing to adopt, risking demands for added regulations.” Craig Spiezle, Executive Director and President, OTA.

On the honor roll were top technology companies like Apple Inc., Cisco Systems Inc., eBay Inc. and PayPal.

News Update – Best of the Day

It is a question that comes up quite often: How to connect HR and social media? Jon Ingham puts some light into the shadow and gives some cases on how to bring the two worlds together.

Facebook is not only surpassing Google as the most popular website (in the US). It is also getting 41% of social media traffic according to some new stats by Hitwise.

Vitamin Water were the first to let their customers name and create their own drink, with their prefered taste. Interesting to see their new commercial which highlights their Facebook fan page in the end. Nice touch, though the commercial content is nothing special to me. Watch it and tell us what you think…

News Update – Best of the Day

Those who see and embrace the modern social web world will understand the 7C’s by Umair Haque, Director of the Havas Media Lab.

“Social media strategy fits inside a marketing (business, corporate) strategy, and is shaped by it. Social strategy fits outside business and corporate strategies, and shapes them. Social strategies are about rewriting the logic of the industrial era entirely, shifting gears in how we think, envisioning a broader, more powerful, more challenging use of social tools. They are about developing the capacity to understand an organization’s role in society, and how to play a more constructive one, wielding sociality as a source of advantage — by acting radically more meaningfully than rivals. Social strategies are about reinventing tomorrow.”

These words correspond as a long version format with the interview I have given to the Internet World some months ago (German only).

In order to improve your online sales tactics, here is a clear cut approach by TJ McCue how to improve your website sales efforts. He shows us some good and bad examples of online sales communication.

This funny insurance commercial from the Bangkok Insurance is excellent. It is showing the probability (0,00000001%) that your next unexpected accident or thunderstorm will not end without the need of an insurance company…

eblizz – the next social shopping extension

In the last four weeks, some of the users of The Strategy Web might have seen a small icon on the right hand side of my blog called ‘SocialSpace’. You might have wondered what it is. Or how to use it. Here comes the answer. Now, that the team around the eblizz founders, Jeanette Okwu and Martin Wawrusch, has completed the integration of the social software tool, I will introduce you to a technology that I would call the next social shopping extension for future business.

Social networks are on an all-time high. Corporate websites and shops loose out on traffic and referential linking as people start talking, connecting and linking via social networks like Facebook, Twitter or other social networks. SEO doesn’t work here as closed front doors don’t allow access for SEO tactics. And with the massive rise of social networks, especially Facebook, the question comes up how to bridge the lack of a connection between social networks and homepages or shops.

eblizz offers this solution. It brings social networks and brands together. In a way that social Networks become an integral part of brand websites – be it homepages, shops or blogs. For now, eblizz starts with Facebook – but Martin told me, other networks will follow.

With eblizz users can interact with their social networks without leaving branded sites. Content can be shared with friends on Facebook. Users can immediately comment from the website they are on. Or store products visually in ‘The Shoebox’ and keep it for later purpose or use. Content can be, or as eblizz calls it, has to be ‘liberated’

What is the benefit of eblizz?
Business perspective Think about it. Prosumers create masses of content on the social web. Consuming that content, prosumers realize that brands become more and more exchangable. This causes problems for companies. They need to increase efforts to make their brand get heard. So ideally, companies make use of recommendation marketing to use the buzz of their brand fans.

User perspective Consumers often find things like nice products in online-shops. Or great music. Or funny videos. Or great pictures. And they want to recommend this to friends they are connected with on social networks. Today, it is impossible to take your friends from homepage to homepage, and easily share that content via a social network with one click.

Imagine your Facebook friends follow you from website to website. And, when you want to recommend something to them, you don’t have to change browser windows. You don’t have to cut-and-paste content. You just drag and drop it to the relevant person. Watch the short explanation and tell me if this isn’t really cool…

Companies pay a fee to get their websites eblizzed – no matter if it is a shop, a homepage or a blog. Their sites will be defragmented like a cake. This makes it easy for prosumers to share and recommend relevant pieces of content of a website: videos, links, pictures, etc.

Once a site is eblizzed, users find a button called SocialSpace – the button I started talking about at the beginning. The user logs in with on the question-marked face with their social network account. The SocialSpace opens up in a small picture on the website they are on. The users see their profile, the friends and updates immediately. They can also search for friends. And, they can immediately interact with their social network friends.

Users can even ‘bookmark’ interesting content in their Shoe-Box. The Shoe-Box is a place for personal content belongings. Here the users keep very special things in their SocialSpace. Maybe to recomment or remember a product or present for a Christmas or birthday in the future.

eblizz offers a next generation website customer service. eblizz integrates social network interaction in companies websites. And eblizz will become the driver of social commerce efforts by enabling engagement and brand buzz.

“Prosumers” create masses of content on the internet, including blog posts, product reviews and ratings. Producing all that content, prosumers begin to blur the lines between brands, making them more interchangeable. Not good for individual brands. That’s why companies need to increase efforts to distinguish their brand from all the rest. One way is to capitalize on “recommendation marketing” — build the buzz created by their brand fans. eblizz can help.

And here is how it works…
Consumers often discover products that they love online. And great music, funny videos and awesome pictures. They want to recommend them to their social-network friends. Today, it is impossible to take social-network friends from homepage to homepage, and easily share that content via a social network with one click. This is a universal social web problem!

So, imagine your Facebook friends follow you from website to website. And, when you want to recommend something to them, you don’t have to change browser windows. You don’t have to cut-and-paste content. You just drag and drop it to the relevant person.

eblizz was created to make things easier for anyone who wants to recommend content, product and services to any or all of their social-network friends. Websites and blogs sign up to get “eblizzed”. The fee seems very reasonable. Once a site is eblizzed, a button appears on the site’s homepage called “SocialSpace.” When a user logs in with their social network account information, Facebook for example, the SocialSpace opens up into a small picture that displays the user’s Facebook profile, Facebook friends (and their pictures!) and updates that are happening on facebook right from the website the user is on. The user can then drag and drop anything from the website right onto the Facebook page of any or all of their Facebook friends.

The user can also ‘bookmark’ interesting content from the website by dragging into their “ShoeBox.” This content stays in the Shoe Box for the user’s later use, can be edited and also shared.

Spot On!
So for me, the reason for a website to get “eblizzed” is simple. eblizz integrates social network interaction for all the users who visit a website, making it easy for them to recommend and share the website’s content. That’s how eblizz helps companies distinguish their brands. What is your take on it? Maybe you want to test it with my eblizz SocialSpace button? Drag and drop me your best videos on advertisement, funny pictures, shopping tips or cool texts. Looking forward to it!

And sure, let me know what you think about eblizz…

The end of the future of advertising agencies?

An apocalytic vision of the advertising future? A prevision of advertising mistakes? Or just a gag of a digital event-organizer that wants to wake up the advertising industry? Or does the event need more attendees? Maybe it is just a simple commercial clip? Or is it even meant to be spread the viral way (well done then, it seems to work, right…)? A video clip that allows so many questions, is worth being mentioned.

This video commercial could also be just a short film to demonstrate the creativity of the co-production companies FITC, Saatchi & Saatchi Canada, Lunch, and Tool. For their next flash event in Toronto the FITC has started a remarkable commercial ad that will make the advertising agency world think… hopefully.

The spot introduces an advertising agency that does not exist but might have been the last agency on earth “mps+c worldwide”. And the story is told just after the last employees have left the agency. A nice idea, right?

Allow some remarks…
If I had had the idea, I had tried to set up a community website for this fictional agency (the creators did not… at least for now) and created a charity story or some alike fiction around it for all people working in the ad agency industry.

It could have been a nice approach. Especially for advertising people to get ideas out of the cultural advertising change trap. Agencies could have collaborated and networked. Agencies could have… But, do agencies really want that? Collaboration, communication, creativity in an open world?

I had tried to integrate social comments function to enable, engage and enter the conversation directly on the website. If you understand how the customers are moving along the web, then why not living the idea with the viral… (is the reason a lack of resources and community management for such a sustainable idea?)

The increasing trend on the web is described quite well and companies should be thinking about this customer change in web use: “Internet Viewing, Facebook Updating and Obsessive Blogging”.

The production companies of this video clip could done much, much more with such a nice idea. Oh yes… But the message sounds great. Should we say that agencies should really, really, really wake up? Oh yes… And I am asking myself what comes after the last advertising agency has gone? Oh yes… Produce another film? Why? Success is never final! (Winston Churchil)

The change we see is a cultural one with high social impact on the world we live in. And companies should start seeing the web from a business-strategic point of view and understand, find and align their web-strategy with it. Companies should stop producing TV ads or banners without any call-to-action. And starting Twitter streams like “clowns” is definitely not the right way to approach the future of customer communication…

The Last Advertising Agency On Earth from FITC on Vimeo.

News Update – Best of the Day

Mobile apps are becoming more and more popular. A new study by Chetan Sharma Consulting projects $17.5 billion in mobile app sales in 2012. But this sounds extremly positive thinks PC World…

Customers always expect the best service possible – no matter if online or offline. But especially online, retailers can loose customers just by small technological fails to more tech-savvy competitors, states a global survey by IBM. Customers want to check out a retailer online before heading to the bricks-and-mortar store. Key take-aways what customers want to do…
- 84% use websites to access and print coupons
- 75% use mobile phones to find out where the nearest store is located
- 72% see what goods are in stock before going into the store.

Creating a fantastic viral advertisement story is a real challenge. Heineken Italy convinced real boys and men on October 21st when Real Madrid played Champions League match against AC Milan to miss the match for a concert. Watch what happened then…

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