By way of their AdWords blog, Google just announced that they will be penalizing companies whose landing pages load slowly; it will become an additional factor into Quality Score. Essentially, if you receive a low Quality Score as a result of a slow landing page you’ll receive higher minimum bids (it’ll cost you more).

Here’s their reasoning for adding load time criteria:

“Two reasons: first, users have the best experience when they don’t have to wait a long time for landing pages to load. Interstitial pages, multiple redirects, excessively slow servers, and other things that can increase load times only keep users from getting what they want: information about your business. Second, users are more likely to abandon landing pages that load slowly, which can hurt your conversion rate.”

Naturally, I see a lot of value in this - as we are an agency focused on the user experience. It seems like such a natural thing to weight this along with other criteria, and it will certainly improve the AdWords experience for the end user.

However, this does mean that folks - and their agencies - using AdWords need to pay some attention to their load times. Now, Google is giving you a chance to improve before they toss penalties at you. They will be offering time evaluations and providing a huge 30-day window to make adjustments.

Ever since I could remember, I’ve watched the Super Bowl strictly for the commercials. Not being a huge NFL fan, the game doesn’t really all that much matter to me (however, I did pull for the NY Giants this year). But in the past few years I feel like the commercials have gone downhill, and from what I can gather, I’m not the only one. This year I took notes on the commercials and did a bit of analyzing.

Of the 60 commercials I kept tabs on (I excluded all FOX commercials and may have included locally shown commercials), it broke down to 41 brands who spent the dollars (approximately $2.7 million dollars for 30 seconds!) to air several sub-par commercials. It wasn’t until yesterday that I realized there wasn’t much integration with the online channels that many of these brands have created. Only 23 brands listed URLs in their commercials! You’d think with spending that much money on a commercial(s), they’d do everything possible to extend the brand experience online. Of the 23 URLs displayed along the way, 13 were direct links to the brand’s website, 3 were URLs that either mirrored or redirected to the same page used as the homepage, and 7 were microsites dedicated to the campaign.

What’s even more surprising to me is that many recognizable brands didn’t include their website URL on their commercials (Coca-Cola, Bud Light, Budweiser, Victoria’s Secret, and Gatorade). Yes, we’re familiar with your brands, but are we familiar with what you’re doing online? Maybe, but why chance it? With the way marketing is heading, it’s safe to say all of the brands have a website, but is the URL known? Make it easy for consumers to find you and put your address in front of them when they’re captive!

I have to admit, my favorite commercial was the Tide-to-Go talking stain, it was priceless (and so true). I have a hard time focusing on what someone is saying if there’s a stain on their shirt, so distracting! In case you missed it, you can view the commercial here. The microsite allows visitors to watch the ad again, participate in contests, as well as take part in filming a spoof and interacting with their channel on YouTube. To me, Tide-to-Go got it right this year: entertaining commercial, microsite dedicated to the commercial, and social/interactive/engaging aspects of the site. Way to go!

And in case you missed any of the other commercials, you can view them on MySpace – they have them hosted for your convenience. And if you’re interested, I’ve listed out the brands (and linked to their sites) that make up the numbers mentioned above.

Brands who listed website URLs:

Planters
Under Armour
Sales Genie
Bridgestone Tires
GoDaddy
FedEx
Cars.com
Toyota
Garmin
Career Builder
ONDCP
T-Mobile
E*Trade

Brands that used URLs that mirror/redirect to site:

Doritos
Taco Bell
Sunsilk

Brands who listed microsites:

Tide to Go
Audi R8
Sales Genie
Hyundai
Dell
Sobe Life Water
Pepsi Stuff

Slate blogger Mickey Kaus has been pushing an interesting theory on political consumerism, namely that the news cycle and technology have evolved and advanced so far - and in such coordination - that consumers are more adept at cycling news and information much more quickly than even a few years ago, “that voters are comfortable processing information at the vastly increased speed it can come at them”.

He cites this phenomenon, called Feiler Faster Thesis, on why everyone got NH wrong in Barack’s favor:

“…Voters who don’t really follow politics are much less informed than they used to be, which causes polls to shift rapidly when they do inform themselves … You’ve got a vast uninformed pool of voters that only begins to make up its mind until the very last minute–after the last poll is taken, maybe–and then reaches its decision by furiously ingesting information at a Feileresque pace.”

But what if we were to put this in general, non-wonkish marketing perspective: due to technology’s rapid dissemination of information and socialization of product and brand “truthyness”, the temporal market place for any brand or product is being truncated and only the most immediate message are penetrating.

One the one hand, long term investment in brand awareness creates only fleeting - not sustainable - consideration momentum that can be capitalized on (why Barack saw an Iowa bounce, but it disappeared overnight; why Hillary’s crying episode quickly overshadowed the Iowa results leading right up until voters made up their minds).

Retail sciences are exploring this trend widely, focusing on the “moment of truth”, when a consumer pulls a product from their shelves. But are agency strategists keeping up with the consideration cycle and funnel of today’s rapidly promiscuous consumer?

I’ve contended for some time now that the sales funnel looks less like an upside down triangle and much more like an extraordinarily thin hourglass, which continuously curves into itself. Maybe Kaus is right, and that it’s not so thin after all.

If you’re a sports or music enthusiast, you’ve no doubt done the “help 2” before: strolling outside an arena or stadium holding up a couple of fingers to attract scalpers – or secondary market entrepreneurs, onsite re-sellers, etc. - who may have the goods you need.

Inevitably, the tickets they’re offering will be above face value - partly a marginal surcharge to cover their legal risk, and partly because ticket prices are set artificially low. Now, prices are synthetically low for a few reasons – unknown demand, to keep the stadium packed for a better overall experience (and to massage the artist’s ego, sell more beer, et al.), and to ensure access for the regular guy, Joe Mullet Headed Face Painter.

Ironically, and against the recommendation of almost every economist alive, scalping is for the most part illegal or dis-encouraged.

But the web has changed all of that – secondary ticket markets are a fruitful utility linking seat to potential fanny and identifying what the market really can bare. In fact, the NFL is exploring a possible relationship with one of the more popular online ticket resale exchanges, and some conventional thinking is that this will completely democratize the ticket buying process, at once identifying a market’s strike price and eventually freezing out the most loyal but more shallow-pocketed Fan.

But, what if we had this type of market with commercial media – a real time auction linking marketer to consumer? Well, probably two things immediately: 1) costs would sky-rocket, and 2) then they would plummet. Probably overnight.

Initially, artificial demand would propel media buying concerns (who currently over estimate the demand anyway, thus the Upfront) to pay way too much for the premium – probably even remnant - inventory. “Disposable” content, like reality shows and sports – where you pretty much have to see them when they occur – will make the quickest gains, and the crappy shows we all complain about will get the scraps. The actual demand would quickly be exposed, and costs would sink.

But, what would it be exposing – a true market for eyeballs, or a true market for the pockets connected to those eyeballs? Or even better, a true market for the value of the engagement? Broadcast has had it both ways: selling both general volume and/or particular audience qualities simultaneously and often contradictorily (MTV has been positioning itself recently with an engagement play, to some chuckles, but trying none the less) .

Some major marketers for years have been asking for an open market to traditional ad space inventory, but no one can agree on the product value: the cost to create the content + “what”? Of course, “what”ever someone is willing to pay – but this only works if the market is relatively transparent (and another reason no one thinks the writer’s strike will end anytime soon).

Mostly through ad networks and search models (Google even played, without effect, with an open auction model for print space), web advertising is creeping into the democratization of other kinds of media, at least creating a model for how inventory can be arbitraged.

Just something to keep in mind: Small marketers (the Joe Mullet Headed Face Painters) may be left out in the cold, even with a clearer cost structure and lower entry point; content will generally improve at the high end, sink lower at the bottom end; more “disposable” content will flood the market (until the production companies realize how much they’re giving up in lost syndication cash) and a third market will - and has already started to - open up: even more valuable inventories created by individuals themselves and their self-managed content networks.

Look, I’m as big a fan of the head fake shimmy to scallywag, foot shuffle back to head fake shimmy as the next guy, and love ironic jewelry that says something even more ironically specific when the jewelry is eaten, but I will not be upgrading to Direct TV’s HD offering - thank you very much, Beyonce.

In one of the most preposterous TV commercials of all time (I originally thought it was a parody of some kind), our luminary is starring in a music video that is going swimmingly, just beautifully, until she’s reminded that she’s actually hawking Direct TV, and desperately needs to upgrade me to a $29.99 HD package. But she doesn’t stop the video part, just injects the commercial part, or is it the other way around. I’m so confused.

But, then the mouthful of her gold “upgrade” medallion cleared it all up for me. However, the thing is, I’d much rather have the “upgrade” necklace than the Direct TV upgrade.  All I can find, though, is a necklace with Beyonce herself on it, not the actual “Upgrade” necklace that would match my “With a 2-yr service agreement” bracelet, and “After mail-in rebate” anklet.

All kidding aside, this piece of advertising, and the hideously frequent volume of its showing, is really why the average consumer gets turned off by our trade, and why smart strategy is increasingly moving toward actual and resonant consumer insights driving brand gains. What could possibly be the core insight here? That Beyonce is an expert on High Definition television? Or that she really believes that $29.99 is the optimum price point for 75 of the hottest HD channels…

No, what we have here is the classic “music to sell stuff to” theorem, wherein a marketing exec, typically on the client side (but not always), heard the song or saw Beyonce’s video, and said, “You know, it has the word ‘upgrade’ in it, and people know who Beyonce is, and we can cover the cost of her talent fee by simply cutting up the music video with some VO about the offer…, as long as we run 1,200 GRPs a week during the holidays, man this stuff is going to sell itself”.

So in honor of one of the most ungainly, clumsy and annoying commercials ever to air under the “music to sell stuff to” theory, what other gems have gone untapped? Please submit your idea for a song that ‘totally’ needs to be paired with a product; example:

+

=

profits …

Anyone remember that 2002 Tom Cruise movie The Minority Report? One scene has Tom Cruise frantically running about the city. He eventually walks through some public area where there’s a slew of 3D hologram ads; and they all know his name and turn toward him, trying to sell whatever product they represent. This high-tech advertising is made possible because “in the future” humans have a tracking mechanism implanted in them. These implants can be detected and it seems that certain high-level information is publicly accessible to any system that can detect the implant. This publicly accessible information makes it possible for the ads to respond and adjust on-the-fly to someone just walking by.

Does this sound familiar? It should. It’s what every online advertising mechanism currently tries to do - customizing ads and content with what they know about the user viewing the content. The primary exception is that this ability has mostly been contained to the domain of the website, requiring a profile on that website. This ability to customize advertising to user profiles has been evolving for some time, from customizing ads based on searches (probably the most intelligent customization not requiring profiles) to ads, based on preferences and behaviors in online social networks.

So here comes what feels like another step towards that sci-fi future where no matter where you go or what you are doing, everyone seems to know who you are and how to sell to you.

Google has announced that today they will launch a new set of social networking APIs named OpenSocial. OpenSocial will provide a basic set of functions that will allow developers to access profile information and basic features from any social network that decides to accept the open invitation to play along. A band of existing networks have already backed the platform, including Plaxo, Ning, LinkedIn, Orkut and Friendster.

Google is taking the infamous Google approach to providing such tools:

Part 1) Magnanimously provide a solution that has the intent of making developer’s jobs easier (who currently find themselves having to add another social networking API to their tool belt on a regular basis)

Part 2) Create a more standardized social community so that ads can be delivered across more platforms to more people with more accuracy than ever before so that everyone can make more money (with Google at the center of that exchange)

I have to admit, it will be interesting to see this unravels as the product matures and the powers at be take sides.

Reference Links:

• A draft of the Google news release can be found at here at VentureBeat.
• TechCrunch does a good job of giving a high level summary of what the OpenSocial offering will include out of the gate.
• CNET has a nice article talking about how hairy this approach can get for Google.

The music world has always been a tough gig, but it just got tougher! In recent news, it has become clear that Vivendi is utterly pissed upset with Apple. Vivendi seems to be fighting Apple’s iPod + iTunes services with two approaches in order to reduce apple’s music download dominant share.

It started this summer when NBC Universal yanked their Fall shows from iTunes because Apple rightfully refused to charge $5 per TV episode (NBC Universal is 20% owned by Vivendi). In the end, NBC Universal moved their Fall season shows to Unbox Service from Amazon, which allows Tivo subscribers to download shows onto their Tivo digital video recorder (in my opinion a bad move!). Fast-forward to today, Universal Music Group (UMG) which is 100% subsidiary of Vivendi has decided to challenge Apple in creating their own music service.

While details of the emerging music service are in flux (currently covered by BusinessWeek), it appears that UMG is testing out two models:

Challenge the iPod Player

Provide an all-you-can-eat subscription service that’s FREE with the purchase of select devices. The thought is that hardware manufacturers will subsidize the subscription fee. Of course, the idea is to the subscription with Zune, the ailing media player from Microsoft.

Challenge the iTunes Store

Distribute music that’s playable on any devices via outlets such as Walmart, Google and Best Buy. The idea is to challenge Apple, which only offers a limited number of DRM free songs through the iTunes store.

Additional Challenges for UMG

While the fight between Universal Music Group and Apple is just starting, UMG is also facing challenges on a second front — their signed artists. In recent news, both Radiohead and Madonna have independently decided to leave their music labels making insiders wonder whether distributors are even necessary in this age of the internet.

Clearly, this is not a good time to get into the music world as things are only getting uglier.

In a week where I was about to pounce on Nielsen’s thin-skinned, backbone-less reversal of a rule intended to alleviate appointment only television ratings (basically, they were measuring multiple viewings of a single show as a count, but NBC, Heroes and Nissan tricked the subsystem and made them look foolish),  I am making a reversal myself and lauding them. A little.

“Hey! Nielsen” is, wouldn’t you know, a social network. But the fabric and this model is interesting and completely in line with their brand and how technological shifts in the marketplace are influencing it. First some basics:

Nielsen is widely known for their measurement systems, particularly the TV audience analysis that drives the entire media economy. A dusty old model itself, there are basically a few thousand sample households nationwide that use a clunky, television set-top box to record how many family members are in a room watching a particular broadcast. This data is used to set ratings that guide commercial costs, which steers which shows (and types of shows) get to live, die, or be put on “Hiatus”.

That covered, they also have an interesting product called Buzz-Metrics, which measures chatter densities and positive/negative spin for any number of products or topics, trolling the blogs and chatter spheres throughout the web to figure out what people are talking about and how. Dove has a new “Real Beauty” campaign? Buzz Metrics helps them figure out if people are talking about it, how, where/when etalk rises and falls, as well as how the campaign affected the chatter levels of their competitors.

Hey! Nielsen is kind of a blending of those two systems – a social network where contributors talk about, rank, dis, opinionate or just basically fight over Movies, TV Shows,  websites , and personalities (Jensen Ackles, it seems, is going to be the next that guy who was Dawson on Dawson’s creek, you know, with the forehead). It then layers on data from Billboard, Hollywood Reporter, and Blogpulse – other Nielsen products - to create a score.  You can also track the score over time. Pretty neat.

The good news is that Nielsen’s stated goal is to eventually use these scores to help drive and influence their primary products, namely TV ratings and panel data, but not until they have enough user mass and a foolproof methodology. How will they get there? By enticing enthusiasts with exclusive screenings and invite only events.

It’s an interesting start, but back to Nielsen’s feeble cowering before the media community … it would be great if they had a category for scoring ads themselves.

Forget having to have a multi-million dollar budget to make it onto the big screens. For a mere $20,000 and 3 years, you can land yourself in movie premier at the Sundance festival. Did I also mention that you can do this in the comfort of your own room? That is exactly what former Web Designer Michael Belmont did.

The outcome is a 1hr26min hypnotic and berzerk film called “We Are the Strange”, which utilizes a technique that Belmont dubs Str8nime, which is a combination of strange + 8-bit + anime. Wired.com recently wrote an article about him and even listed the steps to making a DIY Str8nime movie on your own. Check out the trailer for We Are the Strange.

I read an interesting article over the weekend that answered the question: why is sports journalism so much better than the general media? (which I agree with) The author had 3 reasons:

1. You keep score, which makes reporting clear outcomes the goal.
2. Your reader base has a near expert understanding of the topics (ever meet a fantasy geek? If not, come see me).
3. There’s a monopoly in the trade (sure, there are tons of blogs, local papers, etc., but really, it’s ESPN, SI, and then Fox and CBS for NFL and NCAA basketball respectively).

I have a fourth – sports lends itself beautifully to literary metaphor, so writers can use exquisitely crafted language and not be penalized for lack of objectivity or pithiness.

So I was weighing this against why the ad trades are so poor (how many years in a row can this be the “YEAR OF MOBILE!!!”), given very similar circumstances? We do keep score (wins/losses, campaign outcomes, ratings, etc), the readers are all in the industry - for the most part - and there is an absolute monopoly on the reportage: Adage and Adweek (and their sister pubs) are the major filters for what we understand to be going on in the ad/marketing fields. We’ll here’s a stab – let me know what you think:

1. They don’t really keep score – they’ll only tell you who won and lost specific pitches, not who is really losing business, staff and rep. CP+B does some wonderfully executed creative, but how many accounts can they lose, win, lose, win, lose, win, win, lose, before we start asking about results (agencies don’t just walk away from beer and auto accounts, mind you). The pubs also play it pretty straight by NOT predicting how effective ad campaigns or agencies will be - what was the over/under on how many weeks Bud.tv would be live? You can’t grade ads if we can’t grade you, Barbara.

2. Here’s the important one: the readers of Adweek and AdAge are nowhere near as expert in advertising and marketing as a typical sports fan is about the sports world. Really. Walk through any agency – large, small, digital, traditional, other - and ask a typical AE or production coordinator who Jack Connors is, and you’ll get a blank stare. Ask even the most seasoned Art Director what AOL’s announcement that the future is in ad networks means to their world (answer: an awful lot). Net/net: we’re all in the weeds of our own businesses, clients, and agencies, and don’t really have the time to invest in anything outside the four corners of our immediate concern. The CPG cos. read about other CPG cos. and move on. The telcos read about the telcos and move on. Moveon reads about moveon and moves on. I read it all, but I’m a nerd.

3. Lastly, there’s too much of a monopoly, and it’s too geographically considered – The Wal-Mart/DraftFCB/Roehm love tryst was the biggest story in the industry… for about a month. The pubs of note don’t have the deep bench of reporters nor the long term interest of their readers to really dig deeply into a really compelling “human interest story”. Plus, who knows where Roehm will land? Who wants to be shut out of news concerning the largest retailer in the world? They’re too big, and too dependant, to mess with the hands that feed them - news and ad revenue.

Just some thoughts. I’d love to know who you think the Beli-cheat equivalent is in the ad world. Which agency is the Delmon Young of the ad industry?
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