Coke opt for social media over bespoke campaign sites:
In a shift away from conventional campaign sites Coca-Cola are using more social networking sites such as YouTube and Facebook for their advertising in 2010.
According to an article published at New Media Age, they have decided to move away from the bespoke sites designed for specific campaigns to online social communities stating that it is here that the future of marketing lies with these community platforms where there target audiences can be found.
“We would like to place our activities and brands where people are, rather than dragging them to our platform,” Pinakatt
Behavioural targeting unpopular according to a recent survey.
Behavioural marketers may have an dilemma to solve after a recent study found that 66% of online users in America do not wish to be tracked online. This number increased to 86% when user were told exactly how behavioural targeting worked saying they did not want to be targeted by specific tailored ads. This is controversial as last month Microsoft, AOL, Google, Sky and newly re-launched Yahoo all came together to convince brands that behavioural targeting was the way forward.
“Step Up to the Mic”
Myspace have introduced “Step Up to the Mic” asking people to submit an image and text consisting of user’s thoughts, ideas, and announcements and will be posted on digital billboards across major cities around the globe in a three week campaign with Titan Outdoor. It will also be used by celebrities and musicians who wish to promote up and coming work and releases.
New YouTube ads format on Google.
Advertisers can now opt to advertise via YouTube on Google’s new ad format, amalgamating Adwords with You Tube allows these videos ads to be targeted by keywords and on a CPC metric. There is also the option to have a promoted video as template so when people search for particular videos on You Tube, other relevant brand videos will be displayed alongside the search results.
Nearly Three Quarters Of The UK Are Gamers
73% of UK population plays computer games with an average gamer spending 5 hours a week on gaming, ranking 3rd behind TV and Internet in terms of how consumers spend time absorbing media.
For advertisers wishing to attract a female audience, over 90% of female gamers aged between 35-49 also shop online and spend more time online than they do watching the TV.
Most popular platforms for gamers in order of popularity are a games console which was the most favored followed by PC games, online games and mobile phones.
Yahoo $100m Makeover
Yahoo is splashing out on a $100m makeover of its sites incorporating links to Facebook, allowing its users to access multiple sites and information in one go to help personalize its homepages and support its new ‘Y!OU’ tagline.
Yahoo’s first facelift in over seven years will also include a TV campaign, print ads in The Guardian, The Metro, GQ and Glamour and an outdoor campaign on London’s Underground.
Users of Social Networks will engage with Twitter Ads
A recent study from Interpret has found that users of social networks will engage with adverts on Twitter when it closes its $100 million investment deal and introduces advertising to its services.
The study showed that nearly a quarter of Twitter users would rate and review products and services online, a figure much higher than the response rate from other social media sites, suggesting that Twitter users have a higher engagement with brands and are not easily distracted by other functions common with other social media sites such as photos or games.
Online Advertising Beats TV But Overall Ad Spend is Lower
For the first time, online advertising spend has leaped over TV however, the total overall UK spend has fallen by £1.5bn in the first quarter of 2009 compared to the same period last year, while TV revenues fell by 16% the first quarter of the year.
A report by the IAB and PricewaterhouseCoopers showed that online advertising took £1.75bn and was the only sector to grow in the first half of 2009. Online has now nearly a 26% share of the market compare to TV with just 21%.
iPhones launch new generation of gambling cheats
The discovery of the iPhone card counting tool has led to an increase in online gambling. The iPhone has been banned from most land based casinos, but there is little that the online operators can do.
In the USA, iPhone usage as a card counting device has been branded a felony, but when the card counting device is used when playing online poker, there is nothing that can detect it.
Online casinos have reported an increase in the number of deposits. Some have reported that this is due to the iPhone application, but other reports have suggested that the recession has seen people who were used to spending money in land based casinos, turning to online ones instead as it cuts down on costs such as drinks and travel. You can also smoke at home on your computer where as punters have to keep stepping outside in land based casinos.
Ad spend falls in 2008 but some channels prove resilient
According to a report by Media Week, Cinema advertising once again proved popular, outperforming various other channels year on year from January. Overall media spend was down from 2007, however the amount spent on regional press fell only by 2% and online advertising was similar to that of 2007.
Online continues to be a popular channel with advertisers, allowing them to easily manage, record and evaluate campaigns.
Mike Parker, strategic sales director, Channel 4 said in a statement:
“TV performed better last year. January was a particularly bad month this year. Going forward, TV will probably out perform the market in the first quarter; it will be down less than print and radio media. TV will outperform everyone but online.”
Networks such as ITV and Channel four have slashed the prices of advertising to try and get marketers to spend on this expensive media channel.
Several companies cut back advertising budgets due to the tough economic climate, but in spite of this, channels such as Radio, which saw a 12% increase, and Cinema continued to prove popular with marketers.
