Digitize News

Online Adverts acceptable compromise for free internet access - survey

2012-05-11T14:21:33Z

However, 55 per cent of the 2,000 respondents said they would rather see online advertising relevant to their interests and 59 per cent would rather see a lower number of relevant ads online than a higher number of less relevant ones.
Only one in 10 people would be willing to pay for websites and online services they currently use for free if those services removed advertising. Nearly half said they would like to be able to control the type of advertising they see online and 40 per cent want to know what personal information is being shared. A third would like to be given more information about who is advertising to them.
Nick Stringer, Director of regulatory affairs at the IAB UK, said: “This research shows the balance that the industry needs to strike: providing clear and transparent information and control to empower consumers and help them safeguard their privacy, whilst enabling relevant advertising to help fund the quality content and services that they demand.”
Carl White, CEO ValueClick Europe, said: “Businesses and brands must begin to engage consumers in an open and transparent dialogue about how and why they see advertising online. This study shows that people are more receptive and open-minded about online advertising than is often reported, but they are also wary and understandably confused about the mechanics of digital marketing and privacy.”

E!online now being represented in Ireland by Digitize

2012-05-09T15:24:45Z

Digitize New Media are delighted to announce their appointment as exclusive partners to E!online in Ireland. The home of ‘Keeping up with trhe Kardashians’, ‘The Girls of the Playboy Mansion’ & ‘Fashion Police’ is for the first time available to Irish
Advertisers.
E!online’s Women 15-34 profile 46% is almost twice that of Mailonline's 27% (Comscore)
E!online’s users are far more loyal! They visit the site on average 12 times per month, Vs. only 7 times per month for mailonline (Comscore).
Standard formats available from now, Rich media & integrations to follow soon.
For more information please email info@digitize.ie or call your Account Manager on (01)6622380

Marketers must shape online regulation – ISBA president Woods

2012-05-04T11:48:40Z

Speaking recently at the annual Institute of Practitioners in Advertising (IPA) Members’ Lunch in London, Woods said the government was prepared to seek partnership to effect change and the industry should respond positively to this.

Woods also addressed the issue of Online Behavioural Advertising and the challenges posed by the EU’s ePrivacy regulation.

He said: “We need to achieve a balance between valid concerns on privacy – which should interest us as consumers as well as advertisers – and enhancing the consumer experience and fostering e-commerce.”

“It will be a while before we get clarity in this area, but in the meantime advertisers and agencies alike should be aware of the regulations to ensure that they do not unwittingly get into difficulties.”

“The crux of the issue is transparency towards consumers. This means consumers being told what data is held on them, and by whom, and being given the chance to opt-out if they so wish. It’s encouraging that all bodies in our industry are in the same place in terms of what we are trying to achieve and are working together,” he maintained.

Online adspend grows 19.6 per cent to 132 million, writes Seamus Blacoe

2012-04-20T15:18:50Z

Advertising spend on other media recorded a 4 per cent fall in 2011, totalling 897 million euro. Digital ad spend now ranks third behind TV and newspapers but ahead of radio, outdoor, cinema and magazines.
Search marketing grew an estimated 16 per cent in 2011, accounting for a 42 per cent share of the online market. Hot on it’s heals was display advertising which took a 38 per cent share of the digital space.
Increased display spending across social media sites is one of the key drivers of the growth, with advertising on social media sites estimated at 5.8 million euro in 2011. Classified advertising online remained flat in 2011 and its share of the online advertising market slipped to 20 per cent.
Telecommunications is the top performing online display category with a 12 per cent market share, closely followed by FMCG and Entertainment and Media with 11 per cent each. The top spending category for classified advertising in 2011 was Property/Recruitment with 36 per cent, while auto garnered 30 per cent of the sector.
Looking to the future, some 70 per cent of the participants in the IAB PwC Online Adspend study anticipate “growth” or “strong growth” in the next 6 months. This is underpinned by increased broadband penetration, increased time spent online and the preponderance of smartphones in the Irish market. Media agencies predictions for 2012 vary from 13 per cent to 20 per cent growth in online adspend.
Eamonn Fallon, Chairman of IAB Ireland, said: “The strong performance of online advertising recorded in our 2011 Adspend Study is good news for the Irish advertising industry. IAB predicts that the growth of online adspend in 2012 is set to break the €150m barrier and see online account for 20% of total adspend”.

Consumer trust in online advertising growing - Nielsen

2012-04-13T15:11:49Z

Nielsen’s Global Trust in Advertising Survey of more than 28,000 Internet respondents in 56 countries found while confidence in TV, newspaper and magazine ads declined sharply in recent years, trust in online ads continued a steady rise.
Ads viewed in search engine results are trusted by 40 percent of global respondents in Nielsen’s survey, up from 34 percent in 2007. Meanwhile, the study found that 36 per cent of consumers trust video ads, the same number that deem sponsored ads on social media sites trustworthy.
Randall Beard, global head of Advertiser Solutions at Nielsen, said: “The growth in trust for online search and display ads over the past four years should give marketers increased confidence in putting more of their ad dollars into this medium.”
Elsewhere, the Nielsen survey revealed that one-third of global respondents trust video or banner display ads on mobile devices such as tablets or smartphones, while 29 per cent said they trust mobile phone text ads.

US ‘do-not-track’ option expected before year end: FTC’s Leibowitz

2012-03-30T11:41:03Z

He said he expects concerned companies to develop a mechanism by the end of the year that allows people to say they don’t want their online browsing behaviour collected. He said this should help the online economy expand because it would build user trust in the Web.
Leibowitz noted: “Online advertisers, major web browsers and an international consortium have all made great strides on do-not- track. They recognize that do-not-track will help build consumer confidence in the Internet and that in turn will spur greater Internet commerce.”
“Collection of personal data has led to great benefits for consumers, and we all want those benefits to continue, but not at the expense of consumer privacy,” Leibowitz told the lawmakers. He clarified that the mechanism needs to allow users to limit collection of personal data, not just provide the means to refuse targeted advertising.
He praised the Digital Advertising Alliance, an association of online advertising groups (including Google, Microsoft and Mozilla), and the World Wide Web Consortium, an international group that is developing global standards for do-not-track technology.
“Three streams are coming together. They are all heading in the same direction: a persistent, effective, easy-to-use do-not-track option for consumers,” he said

Nielsen and GroupM to set up combined TV/Internet ratings service

2012-03-26T08:49:17Z

The service is an extension of Nielsen’s existing online campaign ratings, which were launched to provide TV-comparable reach, frequency and GRP measures for online advertising. Cross-platform ratings add in TV measurement data to provide total and overlapped reach and frequency measures for campaigns running both online and offline.
The aim of the new service, dubbed Nielsen Cross-Platform Campaign Ratings, is to overcome challenges posed by separate media planning, buying, and analysis processes for TV and the Internet. Also, it aims to answer a growing demand by advertisers for cross-platform measurement tools that help them streamline their marketing strategies.
The two companies will also work together to develop innovative new measurement tools that extend beyond TV and online to other platforms.
Steve Hasker, president of Media Products and Advertiser Solutions for Nielsen, said: “Cross-platform metrics are essential to both buyers and sellers of advertising. Every day, we’re hearing from advertisers, online publishers, TV networks and agencies that a better system of measurement is required. Through working closely with GroupM and others in the industry we believe we can help create best practices that will benefit the entire ecosystem.”

Size of Display advertisements do matter, writes Seamus Blacoe

2012-03-16T16:28:23Z

The “Size Matters” study, in conjunction with the Internet Advertising Bureau (IAB), was based on 770 campaigns over a two year period across UK, USA, Europe, South America and Australasia. It examined the performance of formats across five key brand metrics: Aided Brand Awareness, Online Ad Awareness, Message Association, Brand Favourability and Purchase Intent.
A total of 6 formats were analysed, three new: (Billboard, Wallpaper and Half Page) and three already established formats, (Skyscraper, MPU and Banner). The study consisted of responses from 765, 000 participants across 15 different countries. The results highlight the performance of the different ad formats against brand metrics by showing the average uplift achieved by exposure to each format.
It found that the Billboard outperformed other formats analysed. It offered three times better ad awareness levels and double the level of brand favourability uplift than the next best performing format (Wallpaper).
The Wallpaper format provided five times the level of message association and the highest level of brand awareness. Elsewhere, the already existing Skyscraper outperformed other formats at the end of the purchase funnel, achieving an uplift of 1.4 percentage points for purchase intent.
Tim Elkington, IAB’s director of research and strategy, said: “There’s a lot of excitement in the industry about new larger display formats and these important research findings show that this excitement is well placed. The new formats, in particular the Billboard and Wallpaper, deliver great results for advertisers against key brand metrics, especially at the start of the purchase funnel.”

64 per cent of UK online video users exposed to video ads, writes Seamus Blacoe

2012-03-09T17:30:05Z

Using their benchmark Video Metrix service, comScore found that 34.2 million UK internet users (80 per cent of total) saw a total of 8.4 billion videos or 58.8 billion minutes in January.
Unsurprisingly Google Sites ranked as the leading video destination in the month with nearly 30 million unique viewers who watched nearly 3.7 billion videos. Equally as unexpectedly YouTube videos accounted for 99.5 per cent of all videos watched on the search giant’s video estates.
Online music video destination VEVO ranked second on the list with 11.7 million unique viewers watching 177 million videos, while Facebook came in third place attracting 8.3 million unique viewers who viewed 45.0 million videos.
A demographic analysis revealed that males were far more engaged with content videos, accounting for 74.7 percent of all time spent watching them compared to just 25.3 per cent for females. When it came to video ads, the gender split was more even with males accounting for 56.4 percent of all time exposed to ad videos compared to 43.6 percent for females.
People in age group 15-24 years represented the largest age segment for content videos with 6.3 million viewers, while 4.6 million 15-24 year olds were exposed to video ads. This age bracket also spent the greatest amount of time engaging with content and ad videos.
With younger age demographics become more difficult to reach via traditional media channels, online video represents an important channel for reaching and engaging this particular audience.

43 per cent of Irish consumers shopped online in 2011

2012-03-06T10:12:30Z

There are some regional variations, with internet shopping most likely in Dublin (50 per cent) and the west (48 per cent) and least likely in the border counties (31 per cent) and the south-east (35 per cent).
While this figure puts Ireland on a par with average EU ecommerce use, it still lags the UK where up to 71 per cent of consumers shopped online in 2011.
Unsurprisingly, internet use is greatest among younger people with 77 per cent of 16-29 year-olds on the internet daily, compared with 64 per cent of the 30-44 year-olds and just 21 per cent of the 60-70 year-olds.
Meanwhile, 57 per cent of adults have signed up to online deals sites and a third of Irish consumers have purchased using such sites. While 87 per cent of consumers who bought through a discount site said they would do so again, 28 per cent said they were unhappy with the purchase.
Elsewhere, Facebook continues to lead the social media space with 47 per cent of Irish adults having an account, way ahead of second placed Twitter with 11 per cent. Some 8 per cent of respondents had a Linkedin account, while 7 per cent had a Google+ one.

Half of Irish consumers like to write about brands on social media and other sites, slightly above the global average of 47 per cent. Special offers and promotions were the greatest motivation among this cohort (74 per cent), followed by seeking advice (47 per cent).

The ‘State of the Net’ bulletin is compiled by AMAS in association with the Irish Internet Association from publically available statistics.

Benefit of online UK car ads exceed click-through metrics - IAB study

2012-02-24T09:30:41Z

The IAB research (in conjunction with Nielsen, NM Incite and 4 leading auto companies) utilised a panel of 50,000 consumers to access the roles all forms of digital media play in the customer conversion journey within the automotive sector.

The results found that between 4 and 11 per cent of those studied were converting online following visits to the brand websites, while between 52 and 64 per cent of visitors to the brand websites were exposed to online activity such as display and search.

Most importantly they discovered that click-through metrics are not necessarily the best way to assess online display advertising because exposure to display results in a positive latent brand effect. Integrated online activity can be the best way of maximizing conversions, with up to half of those exposed to the display advertising also using search.

The study highlights that the online customer journey is not a simple linear path but an amalgamation of the various digital touch points consumers are exposed to. Unsurprisingly, with between 4 and 11 per cent of consumers that visited the various brand websites eventually carrying out a conversion, a fully optimised and user friendly website is essential.

Sorcha Garduce, IABUK senior insights manager said: “This study continues to highlight that brands shouldn’t rely on click-through metrics as a measurement of campaign success. All 3 studies have revealed that online display advertising performs better than is widely perceived and results in a positive latent effect.”

US news sites fail to attract traditional advertisers online - study

2012-02-19T13:42:56Z

It found that the digital advertising the top US news websites do get, many appeared to be standard ads that are available across many websites. Also, in-house ads (ads selling or promoting a news organizations own products) fill more space across these news websites than any other advertising category.
Just as the long-term viability of discount or coupon companies has come into question, Pew Research Centre found that their prevalence on news websites in limited as well. Furthermore, they discovered that US news organizations tend to rely most heavily on static banner ads than rich media ads like video and pop-ups.
Just three of the 22 (CNN, YahooNews, New York Times) news websites studied employed high levels of targeting, delivering different ads to the researchers based on that person’s recent online activity. A handful of other sites had some limited targeting, mostly in the form of smaller ads on internal news pages.
As revenue from digital advertising in the US is expected to grow by 40 per cent by 2015 and to overtake all other platforms by 2016, the authors conclude that the financial future of journalism is in doubt unless the news industry can get its share of this pie. This can be done by using consumer data to target ads, persuading major legacy advertisers to also advertise online and moving into new revenue areas.

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.