Visual is Critical to Effective Storytelling

• Posted: September 14, 2015

Jack Loechner, writing for the Research Brief From the Center For Media Research, discusses a new study from the Chief Marketing Officer (CMO) Council.  This study entitled “From Content to Creativity: The Role of Visual Media in Impactful Brand Storytelling,” analyzes the belief by marketers that visual assets, including photography, illustrations, infographics, and videos, are core to customer engagement.  The marketers believe that the importance and use of visual assets will increase in the coming year.

However, this study, which was conducted in partnership with Libris, a PhotoShelter business unit, reveals that visual assets are not being fully leveraged across the organization. Causes for this disconnect include:

• Only 27% of senior marketing executives have a process in place to aggregate, organize, and manage the visual assets being used across marketing and non-marketing teams.
• 42% of these marketers feel that competing priorities prevent a focus on centralizing these assets.
• The existence of internal silos.
• A need for a larger budget allocated to visual assets.

Having a centralized visual asset management system provides many benefits, including:

• Maximized ROI from customer experiences.
• Alignment of teams around common brand visuals and assets.
• Streamlining of creative processes.
• Faster time to market for content.
• Reduced waste created by duplication.
• Mitigation of the risks associated with unapproved assets outside the brand value or message standards.

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For more on this topic, check out the Media Tab in Morning Coffee.

 

 

 

The Number of TV Households Remains the Same According to Nielsen

• Posted: September 14, 2015

 

According to an article in Media Life Magazine, Nielsen reports that the number of TV households will remain the same this season as it was last season. In order to be included in the measurement, households must have “at least one operable TV/monitor with the ability to deliver video via traditional means of antennae, cable set-top-box or satellite receiver and/or with a broadband connection.”  This number stands at 116.4 million households.  

There was a 0.3% increase in the total number of people in those households rising to 296.8 million. Hispanic, Black and Asian households increased.  Nielsen attributes this shift to population growth.

Nielsen also reported that the percentage of homes that receive traditional TV signals from broadcast, cable, satellite or telco companies, or have a broadband internet connection decreased from 96.1% to 95.2%.

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Consumer Interest In Wearables “Fading Fast”

• Posted: September 14, 2015

According to a new report from Argus Insights, the demand for wearable technology in general, and fitness technology specifically, has dropped significantly since reaching its peak in January 2015.  In this Media Post article, Aaron Baar points out that the wearable technology market includes smartwatches, glasses, fitness bands, and other sensor-enabled devices.  

John Feland, CEO and founder of Argus Insights, believes that consumers use their fitness devices for a few months, then lose interest in these products. Consumer delight (based on the volume and content of consumer reviews analyzed by Argus Insights) has dropped.  Feland states that “sales are still growing year-to-year, but interest is sliding.”

In contrast, delight for Apple Watch and other smart watches is increasing.  However, the consumer base for smart watches is still largely limited to early adopters. The expense is still a consideration for many consumers.  A killer app that makes the device essential may extend the market to mass consumers, according to Feland.

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Tech Giants Align to Develop Higher Quality Digital Video

• Posted: September 14, 2015

The new Alliance for Open Media plans to create new video compression technology by 2016 or 2017.  This technology will boost the quality of online videos, allow videos to download faster, and to look better. According to Stephen Shankland, writing for CNET, compression improvements will also make better use of the networks that deliver video to smartphones, computers, streaming-media devices, video game consoles, and TVs.

The members of the Alliance for Open Media include Cisco, Microsoft, Google, Intel, Mozilla, Amazon and Netflix. The alliance’s goal, according to Matt Frost, head of partnerships for Google’s Chrome Media team, is to “make sure the pace of innovation in video compression keeps pace with all video experiences that are being built.”

One of the motives behind this alliance is to avoid patent-licensing conflicts. The new alliance adopted an open-source, royalty-free approach to the technology.

The Alliance for Open Media is going up against the Moving Picture Experts Group (MPEG).  The members of MPEG include telecommunications, consumer electronics, and cable TV firms.  MPEG’s latest standard, HEVC/H.265, which greatly improves video quality, is a single standard that can handle almost all video.  However, patent licensing fees represent a barrier to its widespread adoption.

Shankland concludes that “even with some powerful tech players conspicuously missing, the alliance at least on paper looks more significant than any other challenger yet to H.264 and HEVC/H.265.”

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Connected TV Spend to Rise, While Priority Remains Low

• Posted: September 14, 2015

The Association of National Advertisers (ANA), in partnership with BrightLine, an ad platform, reports that more than 70% of 215 client-side senior marketers believe that connected TV represents an opportunity for the advertising industry.  Despite this belief, none of these marketers spend more than 10% of their budget on connected TV.

YuYu Chen, summarizing this report for ClickZ, reports that 48% of respondents whose companies are currently engaged in connected TV or OTT devices plan to allocate more of their TV ad budget to it next year.  In addition, another 13% of respondents not currently engaged in connected TV or OTT, plan to allocate some of their budget to it next year.

Top benefits of connected TV/OTT include:

• Audience targeting
• High engagement
• Amplification of video content

According to this report, barriers to greater spending on connected TV or OTT by marketers include:

• Lack of reliable measurement metrics
• Small-scale audiences
• Cost/pricing
• Creative concerns
• Budgets
• Not familiar enough (especially reported by respondents not currently engaged with connected TV/OTT)

Rob Aksman, founder and CEO of BrightLine, is optimistic about the future of connected TV.  “There’s nothing stopping connected TV from going mainstream today: there’s scale, there’s targeting and there’s data.  With connected TV, advertisers can not only reach TV viewers, but also offer a better brand experience with clickable and measurable videos.”

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Ad Blocking Challenges the Online Advertising Industry

• Posted: September 7, 2015

Laurie Sullivan’s article for Media Post addresses the billions of dollars that search engines and Web publishing are losing as a result of ad blocking.  The author refers to an estimated loss of $6.6 billion by Google last year due to ad blocking.

By installing browser tools that identify and remove advertisements, site visitors avoid the ads and prevent advertising networks from tracking them across the web.  Consumers are unhappy with unwanted personalization, tracking, abuse of their privacy, and slow page loads according to Doc Searls, President of The Searls Group.

Ed Papazian, President of Media Dynamics, is concerned that the growth in ad dollars, especially from branding TV advertisers, will slow dramatically.  He points out that 30% of the most desirable consumers use ad blockers, and thus cannot be reached by a branding advertiser. Papazian  suggests that the industry needs to instill strict rules about how much ad clutter to allow per page, how ads are displayed, what constitutes visibility, realistically, and stop enabling ad avoidance.

Johnny Ryan, head of ecosystem at PageFair, a firm that measures blocked ads, explains that ad blockers can seamlessly block YouTube ads and ads on network members’ Web sites across Google’s display and video ads by using AdSense or DoubleClick. Google’s ads in search are also blocked by AdBlock Plus users who have not opted to view “white listed ads,” which Google pays to circumvent software from companies like Adblock

Ryan suggest that drivers of ad blocking include factors such as seeing inappropriate advertising, suffering from installations of ransom ware, and an unease about where one’s data ends up. A possible additional factor is malvertising.

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CMOs to Invest More in Brand Experience with Content Marketing

• Posted: September 7, 2015

CMOs will invest more in content marketing, as they shift their priorities toward customer retention, loyalty, and advocacy.  YuYu Chen, writing for ClickZ, discusses new research from The CMO Club and IBM.

According to the report, “Marketing is a (Buyer) Journey, Not a Destination,” 57% of CMOs expect their budgets to increase over the next two to three years, with a 52% traditional and a 48% digital spending split.  CMOs participating in this research indicated that content generation would be their largest expenditure, accounting for 13% of their increasing budgets.  

CMOs are focusing on customer retention, loyalty, and advocacy at every point in the buying journey.  Building long-lasting customer relationships is important to marketers, and content marketing can provide consumers with a consistent and personalized experience during the entire purchasing journey.  In addition, content marketing can serve as an educator for the brand and result in a deeper degree of engagement with consumers.

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Despite Measurement Concerns, CMOs Continue to Increase Social Marketing Budgets

• Posted: September 7, 2015

CMOs continue to have concerns about the reliability of social measurement.  Only 15% of marketers surveyed believe they currently have the proper tools to prove the effectiveness of social media according to a survey of 255 chief marketing officers by Duke University’s Fuqua School of Business.

Despite these concerns, marketers expect to allot 23.8% of their budgets for social media over the next five years. According to Christine Moorman, a professor at Duke University’s Fuqua School of Business, and the Director of The CMO Survey, “Closing the measurement gap is an area that companies must address if they are going to move social media into the canon of marketing strategies.”

Among the factors contributing to these concerns: most advertisers are still in the learning phase, and nearly a quarter of social media activities are being performed by outside agencies.

Additional findings from this study:

-Social media spending is currently 10.7% of marketing budgets.

-Marketers rank their integration of social media in the overall marketing plan at 4.2 on a 1-to-7 scale.

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Online Retailers Are Experimenting With Brick-and-Mortar Stores

• Posted: September 7, 2015

Some ecommerce retailers are investing in the establishment of brick-and-mortar stores. They are executing this strategy in order to differentiate themselves, to establish better brand-customer relationships, and to provide face-to-face interactions according to Susan Warren in her article for MarketingSherpa.

This article discusses an interview with Debbie Hauss, Editor-in-Chief, Retail Touchpoints, on the establishment of physical stores by online retailers. While undertaking this strategy can be expensive and require much time and planning, establishing an omni-channel plan enables the ecommerce retailer the opportunity to achieve a competitive advantage.

Hauss suggests the following steps to online retailers interested in establishing brick-and-mortar stores:

-Experiment with new locations via mobile stores.

-Open pop-up and showroom stores.

-Utilize customer data to create an effective brick-and-mortar location.

This strategy enables ecommerce retailers to provide optimal shopper experiences across multiple shopping channels.

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Mobile Revenue Not Keeping Pace With Mobile Traffic

• Posted: September 7, 2015

The mobile ad revenue of publishers is not keeping pace with the time spent on publishers’ mobile offerings, creating a “mobile gap,” according to this article from The Wall Street Journal.

Jack Marshall points out in this article that selling advertising on mobile devices is challenging.  It is difficult to show mobile users enough ads, traditional ad formats like “banners” do not perform well, and publishers cannot easily undertake sophisticated tracking and targeting of ads. These challenges impact publishers’ mobile websites and their apps.

Additional reasons that mobile ad revenue is growing more slowly than mobile traffic:

-mobile  devices have smaller screens so that mobile users don’t see as many ads as desktop users.

-advanced tracking and targeting mechanisms don’t work as well on smartphones and tablets as on desktops.  As a result, it is often more difficult for publishers to prove the benefit of mobile ads to marketers.

Solutions being developed by publishers include:

-experimenting with new mobile ad formats and tactics.

-stepping up investments in sponsored content, also known as “native” advertising.

-partnering with Facebook, which has the consumer data across devices and channels, that enhances targeting.

Marshall concludes that mobile ad revenues will increase as publishers work out the technical challenges in mobile advertising and prove to marketers that mobile advertising benefits their businesses.

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