Digitize News

Industry dialogue continues with EU on Online Behavioural Advertising

2012-01-27T16:20:18Z

The representatives of European digital advertising and proponents of self-regulation have put forward some suggestions to counter criticisms contained in an open letter dated December 8 2011 from the Article 29 Working Party.
The Article 29 Working Party is made up of all the EU Data Protection Commissioners and a representative of the EU Commission. It seeks to harmonise the application of data protection rules throughout the EU and is currently concerned with the e-Privacy Directive.
Firstly, IAB Europe and the EASA have agreed that an OBA Icon on websites will create consumer awareness, trust and confidence on a permanent basis. With regard to the text to be displayed alongside the icon, they say the industry is open to dialogue with all stakeholders, including the Working Party.
On the information website established by the industry (http://www.youronlinechoices.eu), several clarifications and improvements have been made to the website following recommendations from the Working Party. They agree that the trading seal will demonstrate a company’s compliance with the Framework, not with the law.

In addition, IAB Europe and EASA agree that pop ups should be avoided and strongly believe that the OBA self-regulatory programme brings a modern in-context choice and information mechanism to avoid disruption for users and negative economic effects on European businesses.

Stephan Noller, Chairman of the IAB Europe policy committee and CEO of nugg.ad said: “We are pleased with the progress of the dialogue between IAB Europe/EASA and the Article 29 Working Party. Based on the IAB initiative, we have collectively developed a constructive solution aimed at dealing with OBA within the EU”.

Industry dialogue continues with EU on Online Behavioural Advertising

2012-01-27T16:15:45Z

U.S. digital brand advertising could overtake response in 2012 - survey

2012-01-16T14:26:29Z

The survey of more than 450 U.S. brand marketers, media agencies and media sellers found that 64 per cent of respondents plan to increase their online brand advertising budgets in 2012, with 60 per cent saying they will allocate ad spend away from direct-response to brand advertising.
Unsurprisingly, some channels will grow faster than others. Some 69 per cent of marketers plan to increase spending in mobile brand advertising, while 63 per cent plan an increase in social media and 57 per cent in video advertising.
The outlook for online brand advertising could be further improved if brand marketers had access to better metrics. When asked what would encourage them to increase spending on online brand advertising, 68 per cent of those surveyed said ‘improved clarity around actual return on brand advertising investment.’
Elsewhere, nearly 80 per cent of both agency and brand respondents said ‘brand lift generated as a result of the advertising’ was the metric they would prefer to use to judge the effectiveness of brand advertising.

Firms Still Unsure about Social Media Strategies - Accenture

2011-11-25T15:36:23Z

The report – ‘Embracing Social Media in a B2B Context’ – found that almost two-thirds of North American B2B marketing executives view social media as an extremely important or a very important channel to interact with customers, partners and stakeholders. However, only 7 per cent of those surveyed felt that their organization was leveraging social media very heavily.
In addition, the Accenture survey showed that 9 per cent of B2B marketers were not using social media at all. Underpinning that point, a recent study by Webmarketing123 compared social network activity among B2C and B2B brands and found that 12 per cent of B2B marketers neglect social networks entirely, compared to only 2 per cent of B2C marketers.
B2B marketers told Accenture that technology, tools, metrics and collaboration could be useful to strengthen their social media programs. Nearly half of respondents said new tools and technology would make their social media efforts more effective, and 41 per cent said improved measurement would be helpful. Almost as many B2B marketers said that cross-organizational collaboration would help make their social media programs successful.
Kevin Quiring, North America CRM lead at Accenture, said: “B2C marketers have been doing social media at scale for 3 to 5 years and have had a significant head start. Now B2B marketers have to learn the tough lessons about engaging in the dialogue and having to deal with the damage control that comes along with that—and that frightens them.”

RTE plans to increase digital revenues to 15 per cent of total by 2015

2011-11-25T15:34:54Z

Speaking to a conference on online business models organised by Irish employers group Ibec, he said while RTE earned 100 million euro from TV and 27 million euro from radio advertising in 2010, its revenues from all digital services was just 3.5 million euro.
However, Curran said the projected growth in the Irish online advertising market and RTE’s share of it would be insufficient to balance the expected long-term decline in traditional advertising.
Curran told the conference: “This is simply not sufficient to either make up for the long-term displacement of TV and radio advertising revenues or to support the development of the kind of digital services essential if RTÉ is to remain relevant in the increasingly digital lives of Irish people.”
He commented: “At present, we are examining the different possible content types and mixes for different audiences, pricing strategies and technology and partnership options for these new types of services. Some may be free and ad-funded, some may be subscription-based, some may be event-based, some may be sponsored and some may combine different commercial elements.”
RTE recently set up a new division – RTÉ Digital – for its digital strategy and the broadcaster will offer multidisciplinary training for its staff to create content on numerous platforms.
It is also considering new digital content models, such as digital merchandising, companion applications for two-screen experiences and premium-based video-on-demand services for international audiences.

Irish online adspend up 20.5 per cent in H1 2011 – IAB/PwC

2011-11-11T17:18:29Z

In contrast, spending on all other media in the first half of 2011 fell 1.5 per cent, for a valuation of 443.4 million euro. This means that digital now ranks at number three in total media spend, behind print and TV, but ahead of radio, outdoor and cinema.
Display recorded growth levels of 41 per cent in H1 of 2011, boosted by online video and the popularity of social media sites. It now totals 20.7 million euro or 34 per cent of the online segment.
However, paid-search advertising remains the largest online ad player, with a 45 per cent share of the market. It grew 17 per cent year-on-year to 27.2 million euro. Classified advertising continues to be important part of online adspend market, recording a 21 per cent share, worth 12.7 million euro.
Telecommunications, FMCG and Entertainment/Media were the joint-top Display spenders in H1 2011, with 12 per cent of the market respectively. The top spending category for online classified advertising was Property/Recruitment (36 per cent of market), followed by Auto with 28 per cent.
For the first time in the Irish study a figure on display adspend on mobile has been provided, with 1.6 million euro the estimate for H1 2011.
Looking ahead, 77 per cent of the participants in the IAB/PwC study expect “growth” or “strong growth” in the second half of 2011. This is underpinned by increased fixed and mobile penetration in the Irish market, and a sharp rise in smartphone ownership in Ireland.
Bartley O’Connor, Advisory Consulting, PwC, said: “We are now at a tipping point where all businesses need to consider their digital strategy and how they will capture the opportunities associated with the migration to digital platforms.”

Credit card transactions could be used to target online ads - WSJ

2011-10-28T14:23:06Z

At present, online ads are usually based on a consumer’s online historical browsing behaviour and not information linked to their activities in the brick-and-mortar world. However, as credit card companies do not collect consumers’ names or addresses when processing credit-card transactions, it would be difficult to link their credit card activity to their online profiles.
MasterCard told the WSJ that relevant plans have been shelved for the time being because they would have revealed too much information about individual consumers. Instead, they are exploring ways to anonymously group peoples’ purchase history and sell the data to marketing firms.
Meanwhile, the WSJ said that Visa is planning a similar service, aggregating customers’ purchase history into various segments, including location, to make online ads more effective in different geographical areas.
In April 2011, Visa filed a patent application to use a wide array of personal details including social networking, insurance claims and DNA databanks to create profiles for ad targeting.
The preliminary plans by the credit card companies have unsurprisingly raised privacy concerns, but Visa and Mastercard both point out that users can opt out of any data collection.

UK consumers set to spend 19 bln stg on m-commerce by 2021 - Barclays

2011-10-24T15:21:04Z

Barclays Corporate say the growth of UK m-commerce will, in part, be driven by increases in smart phone penetration and technological improvements such as 4G and Near Field Communications.
At present the most popular m-commerce purchase category in the UK is food and groceries, clocking up expected sales of nearly 300 million sterling in 2011. By 2021 this is expected to reach 5 billion sterling.
Electricals are currently the second most popular mobile purchase category in the UK with anticipated sales of 290 million sterling in 2011. This is predicted to hit 2.1 billion sterling by 2021. However, Barclays Corporate expect sales of personal care items, like beauty and childcare products, to rocket from just 63 million sterling in 2011 to 3.1 billion sterling by 2021.
Over the next five years UK m-commerce is expected to grow by 55 per cent, the fastest of any retail channel. This compares to expected growth of 8 per cent for online sales and 1.6 per cent for in-store sales. Mail order is expected to shrink by 1.2 per cent. Total UK retail sales are expected to be worth some 390 billion sterling in 2021, with m-commerce accounting for 4.9 per cent of that.
Richard Lowe, Head of Retail and Wholesale at Barclays Corporate, said: “The real value to be found in m-commerce is through its role as a multi-channel integrator and the indirect sales boost it generates by connecting physical stores with online”.

Traditional online ad audience measurements fall short: Nielsen

2011-10-07T08:58:36Z

The white paper, ‘Reaching the Right Audiences Online: Early Findings from Nielsen Online Campaign Ratings,’ found that online campaigns are being consistently delivered to consumers outside the advertiser’s intended audience.
Nielsen focused on a beauty product campaign across 14 websites that received 213 million impressions, of which only 40 million saw the ad and 10.5 million were in the target group the product aimed to reach. In other words, a marketing company could have paid for 200 million impressions and only reached 10.5 million people in its target group.
In ‘Beyond Clicks and Impressions: Examining the Relationship between Online Advertising and Brand Building’ Nielsen found that there was little relationship between clicks and offline sales but that online campaigns can impact brand awareness and ad campaign awareness.
Researchers found that online ads successfully influenced brand engagement and opinion most strongly for ad recall and message association, but that degree of positive brand impact primarily depends on the strength of the actual ad.
However, marketers will take the findings with a pinch of salt as Nielsen is currently pushing hard to make its new Online Campaign Ratings Service the default option for online advertising ratings.

Irish advertising recovery to be underpinned by digital: PwC forecast

2011-09-30T15:55:44Z

In 2010, the Irish advertising market was valued at 1.23 bln euros, a decline of 7 per cent from 2009. This is expected to remain flat in 2011, before returning to growth in 2012. Overall, the advertising market in Ireland is expected to grow at a compound average growth rate of 2.3 per cent over the next 5 years.
Digital platforms will experience the most growth over the next five years, with internet advertising spending and internet access, forecast by PwC to grow at compound average rates of 11.4 and 10.4 per cent respectively.
The more traditional advertising platforms are expected to experience lower levels of growth over the 5 year period, with newspaper advertising only returning to minor growth in 2013 and staying largely flat over the 5 year period to 2015.
The overall Irish E&M market was valued at 4.2 bln euros in 2010, down slightly on 2009’s 4.3 bln euros. However, PwC forecast that there will be compound growth rate 3.5 per cent every year from 2012 to 2015, signifying a market value of over 5 bln euros at that stage.
Susan Kilty, Partner in PwC E&M Practice, said: “The coming five years will see digital technologies progressively increase their influence across the industry, and that rapid change in technologies and consumer behaviours will continue across all E&M segments.”

Use of Online Ad Networks Rising Across US, Europe - survey

2011-09-30T15:50:21Z

The survey, which questioned over 400 advertisers and agencies globally, reveals that over a fifth (23per cent) of the advertisers and agencies surveyed say they use a DSP. This averages out at 32 per cent of their media plans. This is highest in the US, where 39 per cent of respondents surveyed say they buy display advertising through DSPs. A DSP is an interface that allows online marketers to manage bids for their banner ads and their targeted audience.
The amount of DSP ad spend that goes to RTB averages 34 per cent among global respondents, rising to 41 per cent in the U.S. and 34 per cent in Europe. Real-time bidding lets advertisers target audiences by individual impressions, and publishers receive higher yields for impressions.
However, the survey also reveals that 37 per cent of responding companies say their trading desks spend less than 20 per cent on RTB and that 17 per cent of advertisers and agencies do not allocate any display advertising budget to their trading desks.
“The rise in RTB spend represents another milestone in this trend toward more programmatic buying, as the overall buying strategies of agencies and trading desk gravitate in that direction,” said Ms. Kara Weber, SVP of Marketing at the Rubicon Project.
The survey, supported by the IAB UK, IAB France, IAB Europe and AOP, follows a similar piece of research carried out in 2009 and is based on a survey of over 1,000 online advertising professionals carried out in August and September 2011.

Yahoo, Microsoft and AOL plan ad link-up

2011-09-16T16:04:24Z

If the move goes ahead, it would be the most consequential effort to challenge the unrelenting dominance of industry titan Google. In May of this year, Google overtook Yahoo to become the leader in U.S. display advertising, a place it has long held in the search end of the business.
The trio are planning to sell each other’s ‘class two display’ advertising inventory, advertising space they have not managed to sell themselves and would normally hand over to media agencies to fill. These remnant ads generally feature products like weight-loss treatments.
The move is also seen by the industry as a bid to improve their rates for display advertising, which have been falling as rising Web traffic has inflated inventory.
Yahoo has an ad exchange called Right Media, and AOL has Advertising.com, which makes much of its revenue from selling remnant ads and Microsoft sells remnant ads through the AppNexus’s exchange.
However, the most immediate barriers to a link-up are technological and legalistic. The technologies they currently use to sell and place ads on their sites are not immediately compatible. In addition, any alliance would have to pass strict anti-trust legislation on the U.S. law books.

Twitter introduces ‘promoted tweets’ to boost ad revenue, writes Seamus Blacoe

2011-07-29T15:38:00Z

Twitter announced the development in an official blog: ““We all come to Twitter to connect with the latest information on the topics and people we care about. So when we decide to follow a favourite brand, business or charitable organization, we expect to be among the first to get a special announcement, access to exclusive content or a great offer.”

The new service is initially being tested by a select group of Twitter’s business partners, including Dell, Starbucks, Virgin America, Best Western, HBO and Red Bull. In addition, a number of non-profit organisations, like the Make-a-Wish Foundation and the American Red Cross are involved.

The popular online messaging service has more than 200 million registered users and is expected to announce an Initial Public Offering (IPO) soon. Market research firm eMarketer forecasts Twitter’s worldwide ad revenue to rise to 150 million dollars in 2011, from 45 million dollars in 2010.

The market reaction to the gradual roll-out of the ‘promoted tweets’ will be crucial following the recent withdrawal of the ‘quick bar’ on the Twitter iPhone application following adverse user feedback to the intrusive nature of the product. Twitter has not been as successful as rival Facebook at generating ad revenue on its site.

Email marketing still an important marketing tool in Ireland, writes Seamus Blacoe

2011-07-22T15:45:42Z

The Email Marketing Insight Report 2011, based on an online survey of 400 Irish marketing professionals, found that 49 per cent of respondents considered email marketing a very important and 35 per cent an important part of their marketing strategy.
Maintaining customer relationships is the main objective for marketers implementing email campaigns, with 66 per cent saying they use email marketing for this. Some 46.2 per cent of those surveyed said they use email marketing for building brand awareness, while 33 per cent said generating new sales leads was the main objective and 27.9 per cent said they mostly use it for driving online sales.
The survey found that a nearly a third of respondents only use basic email applications – such as Microsoft Outlook – for email marketing. Interestingly, companies working in the B2B space are more reliant on basic email systems like Outlook than those in B2C.
Personalisation and segmentation are seen as essential to achieving results in email marketing campaigns, but only a small number of those companies who were surveyed (8 per cent) use advanced personalisation. More surprisingly, some 32 per cent of respondents do not currently personalise their emails at all.
One of the main advantages of digital marketing campaigns is the ease with which marketers can track critical metrics and accurately measure the ROI on digital marketing spend. However, this report suggests that not all marketers make use of the statistics (click-through rates, bounce rates and open rates) that email marketing applications generate.

Changes needed to reap benefits of social commerce: UK research

2011-07-15T15:24:56Z

Some 89 per cent of the respondents surveyed said they had never made a purchase on a Facebook site, with security concerns the main impediment. Most people said that even if a special offer was featured on a brand’s social network site, they would prefer to redeem it on the official website.
The survey found that marketers need to think social when putting their goods for sale on social networks. Just transplanting a version of retail website on to a social network just won’t cut it. New methods of sharing their wares and of hooking social network users into the social commerce scene must be entertained.
It appears that exclusivity is one way to drive consumers to buy via social networks, with one quarter of respondents saying they would buy a product through Facebook if it was not available anywhere else. Likewise, some 11 per cent said they would buy via a social network if the product was exclusive to fans of the brand.
Almost one fifth of those surveyed said that they would buy from a social network if it was easier than the traditional ecommerce experience. Trust in brands is essential with 22 per cent of respondents saying they would buy from Facebook if they could do so from a brand they know and trust.
Neil Kleiner, head of social media at Havas Media Social commented: “Through tapping into the power of recommendation, giving fans special offers and getting friends to buy together, social commerce will carve its own niche, offering something that the traditional purchasing process cannot.”