Now that the buzz around the Yahoo and Microsoft deal has calmed down. I wanted to take a deeper look at what this really means for the search landscape. According to ComScore Google searchers remain loyal to the brand and Google is actually growing market share globally despite the release of Bing.  There has been some traction in the US market for Bing, but the US market is not only the most mature, it only represents 17% of the global search space. The MicroHoo deal instantly made Baidu the world’s third largest search engine. And with China having the worlds largest internet community is number and growth, Baidu could eventually become the worlds number two search engine. In addition to the growth of competitors globally, the landscape for “portal searches” has changed. More people are using their mobile phones and twitter to search, which offer faster and more relevant information making the 1 year courting of Yahoo! search seem pointless.

Not all the news is bad though. The MicroHoo deal could be the beginning of a powerful partnership and a competitor to Google’s real growth opportunity, display advertising. Yahoo and Microsoft combined have a powerful display network filled with a quality audience and global reach. Between the two companies there are 4 ad network systems, which doesn’t create confidence that a display partnership is close (in execution not on paper).

In the end, Microsoft had to do this deal. It was necessary and the right thing to do. This partnership is not only needed for Microsoft, but for the advertising community. I just get the feeling that Microsoft may end up feeling buyer’s remorse once the “new” feeling is gone.

Increasingly more companies are pushing for display and search integration to be more efficient with ad dollars. Although this concept has been romanticized by many agencies and publishers, it only represents the beginning of the real shift understanding advertising effectiveness. It has been well documented that multiple exposures to a brand influences consumer choices, yet media continues to be measured in silos. The success of banner ads, emails, search, TV and radio should be measured by market exposure versus click thru or open rate. And once you add in viral and word of mouth, the success of a program becomes increasing difficult to dissect using our current available metrics.

Should there be a new metric to measure advertising effectiveness? Or is the current structure of advertising agencies and media buying the barrier to truly having a holistic view how customers interact with brands? More ideas around how to execute on this concept coming soon.

“Vision without execution is hallucination” – Thomas Edison

Thanks for all the followers who have reached out to ask why I have stopped writing. It really means a lot. I am currently working on a few projects that have unfortunately taken away from my blogging time. I’ll be blogging again in the next month with a lot to say about mobile advertising, marketing dashboards, Facebook and why you should never invest in Twitter. Stay tuned.

March 13th, 1989 is the birth date of one of the most powerful inventions of our time. Sir Tim Berners-Lee created the foundation for the Internet layer that has become the World Wide Web. The last 20 years of the Internet has changed everything from how we shop, communicate, bank and make many decisions about our lives. From this invention some of the most powerful companies have been born, from Google and Yahoo! to Salesforce.com.

What will the next 20 years bring? Will the Internet continue to change every aspect of our life or has it reached its saturation point? Is this the year the Semantic Web becomes a reality? For more information about what the Semantic Web is, check out this interview with Sir Tim Berners-Lee http://tinyurl.com/semweb

As a fan of Facebook, I’ll admit I was slow to share my social network time with Twitter. Twitter felt more like Facebook status updates without the person’s profile….. Actually, that’s what it is. Its a series of one way communication. Last year, Facebook was interested in buying Twitter and it may end up being the best decision they made. Every technology company goes through the cycle of either building the new hot technology or buying their way into the market. In the online space audience always wins and Facebook has 175 million registered users and Twitter has 6 million. Now Facebook has released Facebook Stream and this could mean the end to Twitter. Maybe this is an opportunity for MySpace to buy Twitter and look cool again.

Full Article: http://tinyurl.com/creative-ads

Is there room for creative innovation in banner ads?

Will a new wave creative revolutionize banner ads? Probably not. Creative innovation is lost if the placement of the ad is incorrect. In order for creative to be impactful, it must also be targeted and part of the users experience. Since creative and media placements are done differently, this connection is always missed. Media buyers want impressions and clicks, creative wants engagement. Combining the two would create the best user experience, but when will agencies get this right? Is it lack of tools, lack of ownership or just lack of trying? The advertsing models we currently have will need to change to be leaders of the new revolution of advertising, but who is willing to take that chance?

Full Article: http://tinyurl.com/6rp2xv

Will online video content move user online versus the TV? And how can advertisers maximize this opportunity?

I recently had a discussion with a fellow digital strategist about this article and some interesting issues came out of our conversation. Dialog below, please add your own commentary if you like.

Digital Strategist: From this article, maybe in the future people will opt in to the ads they want to see online.

Martin:  Yes, sorta, that is the same cycle that happened in email marketing (opt in marketing) so I’m not surprised at that. The execution of this is what will be difficult. Yes, TV being digital makes this easier to implement, but there is a cost with customizing the user experience to the household. The real question is will that cost be passed on to the advertiser or the viewer.

Digital Strategist: But what if watching TV was completely on demand and along with choosing your program you chose the ads you want to watch (there wouldn’t be infinite ad options, but at least a few to choose from), the only cost then would probably be server space and I think the advertiser should pay that because consumers are more likely to watch their ads in this format so they should pay a premium (to use your term) for access.

Martin: Well, yes and no. watching TV on demand already exist with DVR and TiVo. And in the future viewers should theoretically be able to pick the type of ads they want to see, but not the specific ad. That process goes back to the publisher because they ideally auction that ads space off to the highest buyer. The only thing the user should select is type of ads (i.e. luxury goods, lifestyle, etc) and when they want to see them. Everything else is out of their hands and should be out of their hands. Not sure where the server space thing is coming from, but advertisers aren’t going to pay for that. It has to be baked into the cost from the publisher.

Digital Strategist: Why? On Hulu, the viewers picked the specific ad they wanted to see. If all TV is on demand, users would theoretically be simply from a variety of pre-loaded content and watching it when they wanted to (even if that means watching it ‘live’ which I think will only matter for sports and maybe awards/variety shows in the future)….why couldn’t there also be pre-loaded commercials that users could select and watch to gain access to the shows they want?  Why should that a specific selection be out of their hands?

Martin: Because advertisers are paying for it, not the viewer. In theory what you are saying makes sense for the viewer controlling their experience, but how do the publishers make money from it? You could be limiting their reach. Ideally, as a publisher, you would want a great user experience that the advertisers are willing to pay a premium for. As awful as the Toyota zero down commercials were (http://tinyurl.com/toyota-ad), the network and the agency made a lot of money placing that ad. If viewers can decide to not see that ad, the publisher will need to find a willing advertiser with the same deep pockets?

Digital Strategist: Yeah but doesn’t that force quality from the advertisers? People will want to watch good ads and they won’t watch bad ones…and yes, I’d be limiting their reach but theoretically they’d be reaching a more engaged audience.

Martin: Forcing better quality ads is a blurry subject. Who decides what a quality ad is? As a publisher how is that making me money? If a more engaged audience means more money then, yes they would do it, but TV still isn’t a pure 1 to 1 experience. It’s a 1 to 1 household experience. If you tell advertisers you are going to give tem less reach but more of a targeting, then you have to prove why that is more effective. And because TV is not a pure 1 to 1 communication channel, you really don’t have that as a base. It’s just an assumption that could cost you a lot of money and credibility. The reality is a publisher’s power is in its audience reach. People paid a lot of money to advertise during ‘Friends’ because they had a lot of viewers, why would I pay the same or similar cost to reach less people with a branding campaign?

Digital Strategist: The user decides what quality is—just like they do in every other creative media (music, art, film etc.)

Martin: Viewers buy music and art, they don’t buy ads. Not the same thing. Quality of ads is currently tied to sales of the product which could and couldn’t not be impacted by the TV ad. They could have bought a product because of a radio ad, billboard or a friend told them. All that goes back to real customer engagement mapping.

Digital Strategist: You’re right that people paid a lot of money for ‘Friends’ because the audience was large but the days of audiences that large have come and gone. Ratings don’t lie. No show has experienced sustained viewership since ‘Friends’—not even ‘Lost’ and ‘Heroes’ in the early years. While you could make the argument that it’s because new shows aren’t as good, I think it’s more likely that its happening because people are not tuning in for ‘appointment viewing’ the way they did in the 90s.  Or rather, they are changing their appointment times thanks to TiVo, DVR –while Nielsen and others have begun to account for DVR viewing no one has quite figured out how to measure what’s happening on all those other formats. On top of that, the viewers that advertisers care about are not ‘most of America’ they are young people who are moving to these other formats en masse. I don’t think friends would be as a big a hit today as it was in the 90s because people have so many choices in terms of format for viewing and content to view

Martin: Format doesn’t change viewership and different distribution channels are just that, it doesn’t dilute the overall audience. My guess is most America is still watching TV on the couch. People are still watching TV they just don’t like the shows. And don’t forget about American Idol, people like that program. Maybe it’s a change in the type of shows. If you combine all reality shows for a network and compared to ”premium” programs, the cost benefit is obviously there, but so are the people. And advertisers do want to reach people that aren’t 21, who the hell is buying life insurance, Viagra and Sedan cars at 21 (outside of me).

Digital Strategist: Of course format changes viewership If you don’t have to rush home to watch a show because you know you can watch it on your own time, ratings will definitely be affected.  TV has historically been based on ‘appointment viewing’ of hit programs but now viewers can create their own appointments…there’s no real benefit to watching tv live anymore (again, except maybe sports). Perhaps its not dilution in the sense that hundreds of millions of people still consume ‘tv’ but its fragmentation in that where a larger majority used to watch friends, they now watch LOTS of others things which may or may not include friends

Martin: Format does not change viewership. 1 million people equal 1 million people. It’s the lack of combining the metrics across different channels that advertisers are lacking.

Digital Strategist: I also agree that tv is not purely 1:1 but that also calls for an evolution in the way that viewing is measured and ads are sold— there should be a way to account for group vs. individual viewing and have ads/content priced accordingly—not punishing the consumer because measurement models are wrong.

Martin: How do you do that without actually recording people sitting in front of the TV?

Digital Strategist: I don’t know—that’s for larger brains to figure out but it’s silly that ad prices are based on a system that is at its core, extremely flawed. In a perfect world, networks would be able to demonstrate to advertisers why moving to an engagement format vs. a broad audience format is better but no one knows…everyone is going to have to take a leap of faith (we can’t forget that there was a point in time when the current TV ad model was untested as well) and be willing to stick it out while things shake out.

Martin: In theory yes, but the networks don’t make more money from changing to that model. The demand would actually have to come from advertisers.

Digital Strategist: No, the demand will come from viewers. Ultimately if people stop watching tv in the way they have for the last 20 years, networks and advertisers have no choice but to change. Its just like music, the labels are making less money now but there’s nothing they can do about the fact that people don’t want to buy physical CDs anymore.

Martin: You keep going back to music, so I think you are missing my point here. The distribution of music changed, not the advertising. People aren’t buying advertising, they are buying products. Advertising promotes products. If products are not being sold then advertisers will look at where they are advertising and if it is being impactful.

Digital Strategist: Ok, my brain hurts

Martin: Me too, till next time J

Finally a big score for Microsoft in search, but maybe not. It has become clear over the last year that Facebook has created a new portal for internet users, but how will users search? Over the last few  months, they added many changes to create more stickiness to their site from news feeds, to suggested friends and even the ads are better. But does this mean that people will use Facebook as their starting point for eveything like Yahoo, MSN or Google? Probably not. Unfortunately search advertising on a social network just hasn’t worked. Google has powered search for MySpace for long time, but I’m not confident the partnership has proven to be worth the $900M plus they coughed up for it.

Every year we get a new perspective on Online marketing from tons of experts telling us what is now important and what is coming next. So here is my shot at making bold predictions and assumptions of the important things we’ll see in 2008. I think…

1. I think U.S. mobile search will never grow as fast or be as effective as international mobile search

2. I think auction based TV spots will start to make huge traction this year

3. I think advertisers will start taking email marketing seriously again

4. I think ad agencies will start buying ad serving companies (I mean they will buy more of them)

5. I think social networks will incorporate RSS feeds to create more stickiness

6. I think Microsoft and Google will continue to spend money for dominance of all Online user activity

7. I think more companies will try to bring campaign managment in house

8. I think local search will lose steam. It’s all about universal search.

9. I think Facebook will catch MySpace in number of users

10. I think China won’t seem like such a great opportunity for online marketing

I recently attended a conference ( Authentic Communication 2008 ) in New York with the intentions of understanding how businesses are managing social media campaigns. There were a ton of POVs from PR groups and media managers and I walked away realizing that it’s still too early to create a standard metric for managing social media effectiveness. What we can do is really understand the social network user and build on that idea. 

I’ve provided a few guidelines that could help you set the right expectations for your campaigns. Below are my 5 rules to understanding your social media customers.

1. Facebook and MySpace are for social gatherings. I am looking to connect with people not products. Appeal to my desires and behaviors not my demographic profile.

2. Creativity wins. If you want me to talk about your product, entertain me with your ad. 

3. Don’t make me think. I like applications, but don’t hide your intentions, show me your ad.

4. Create a group around your product. If my friends like it I may like it. My friends give you instant credibility.

5.  Respect my privacy. Don’t ask me for information, read my wall http://www.facebook.com/lexicon

Good luck with your next Social Media campaign!