What If Ads Were Content? Redux

Heath Row

PodCamp NYCApril 25-26, 2008

This talk has littleif anything to dowith podcasting.

It also has everythingto do with podcasting.

What we talked about last year

• A brief history of advertising

• A briefer history of online advertising

• Leading indicators of content-based ads

• Online examples to date

• Proposed ad actions

Leading Indicators

• Historic example of the advertorial (1970s, Mobil Oil)

• The television infomercial, introduced in 1984

• Sponsored micro-sites online

• The embrace of “user-generated content” for the 2007 Super Bowl

• People appreciate informative ads, especially when they’re in market

• People appreciate ad-supported media

(I used this slide last year)

Leading Examples

• Daily Jolt’s one-time ability to rate and comment on ads

• Federated Media blog content ads (Symantec)

• DoubleClick’s real-time streaming video ads (The Number 23 campaign for New Line Cinema)

• The Innovation Lab’s cube format (and its similarity to Frog Design’s super-modal ZUI)

(I used this slide last year)

Challenges

• Ongoing concerns about the blurring of advertising and editorial

• Are advertisers prepared to become content creators?

• Content has a shelf life; ads do not

• Content can be shared and tagged; ads cannot

(I used this slide last year)

Proposed ad actions

• Archiving

• Bookmarking

• “Send to a Friend”

• Tagging

• Commenting

• Discussing

(I used this slide last year)

What’s new?

377 days of an idea

• Widget-based advertising and marketing

• The rise and fall of Firebrand

• Social media missteps

• The advent of Web ad awards culture

• Where you can watch ads online

Widget-based advertising and marketing

• eBay offers ToGo auction widgets in late April 2007

• Tumri and Mpire launch in May 2007

• Google Gadget ads launched in May 2007

• Clearspring moves from widget syndication to advertising in November 2007

• DoubleClick partners with Gigya to add rich-media widget ads

• MediaForge offers rollover widgets to advertisers in April 2008

Whither widgets?

• Widget advertising is similar to standard content syndication (video, RSS) and doesn’t really change the content game

• Still an awesome opportunity (eMarketer projects $40 million in widget ad spending this year)

• The ability to share a widget ad is a key component, but they largely neglect other participatory opportunities

• Widgets might jump the shark soon, if they haven’t already, perhaps for this very reason

Firebrand burned brightly, briefly

• Basic idea: Cable TV program and Web site that featured commercials as content

• Launched in October 2007

• Shut up shop in March 2008

• The reason: They were unable to find sponsors and... advertisers

• My take: Too limited content online, too controlled

Social media missteps

• Facebook Beacon program

• Rumor of Twitter ads

Harris v. Blockbuster Inc.

• April 9, 2008

• Cathryn Elaine Harris sued Blockbuster because her video rentals were shared via Facebook’s Beacon program

• Beacon shares rentals unless participants opt out

• Claims it violates the 1987 Videotape Privacy Protection Act

• Harris did not sue Facebook; Blockbuster intends to defend its privacy safeguards

One promising example• MoveOn solicited user-generated 30-second videos

promoting the Obama campaign

• They received more than 1,000 entries

• Voting began April 21 to select the best submissions

• 15 finalists will be judged by a panel of film pros, artists, and Netroots activists

• One will air on national television

• Social ad creation and selection, but not necessarily a social ad

Advertising awards culture

• The Clio Awards began in 1959 to recognize excellence in print, radio, and TV ads

• Other awards: Addy, Cresta, Golden Lion

• Accepted embrace of the fetishization of ad creative

• Some award winners never air or see print; little consideration for performance metrics versus pure aesthetic measures

Online ad awards

• Web Marketing Association’s WebAwards launched in 1997

• Internet Advertising Competition run by the Web Marketing Association first started in 1999 (relaunched in 2003)

• The Webby Awards incorporate interactive advertising in 2008

• Still no discernible impact on the quality of online advertising

Ads as online content

• Adflip features classic print ads ($204/year)

• Superbowl ads have legs online

• Very Funny Ads promotes a TBS program

• AdForum features 80,000 ads by 20,000 agencies -- for $299/year

• Lurzer’s Archive boasts the “world’s biggest online archive for outstanding advertising” ($99/year)

• Visit4Info focuses on British ads (as well as movie trailers and other videos)

• RetroJunk offers classic TV commercials

Back to the future of TV?

• In May 2008, Jimmy Kimmel Live is expected to start incorporating live ads in each episode of the late-night TV show

• This practice dates back to the earliest days of television and fell out of practice in the ‘70s

• You know these ads are going to be funny

A token mention of podcasting

• Podtrac ran four advertising effectiveness studies with TNS between February 2006 and March 2008

• Results indicate that podcasts have a three-fold ad effectiveness increase over traditional online video and a seven-fold effectiveness increase over television

• Host-read audio and video ads were included in the studies

Discuss

(I used this slide last year)

Thank You

Heath Rowkalel@well.com

This presentation will be made available at http://www.slideshare.net/

h3athrow/