In a seminar titled, “Search Beyond Direct Marketing” Joe Pilotta from BigResearch and an analyst from Piper Jaffrey cited some global market stats/projections and the implications for the current and future search marketing industry:
- Paid search will grow to a $30BB by 2010
- Online advertising will grow to $23BB by 2010
- Search is customer acquisition AND product purchase
- Search re-inforces other campaigns and messages delivered by brands in other media
Search is uniquely designed to deliver call to action
However, advertisers would be remiss if they extract from these stats an overly rosey forecast of what they can expect search marketing to produce. Joe Pilotta provided these stats with some sobering statistics about the 18-34 year old demographic that marketers mistakenly see as a gold mine waiting to be mined through search marketing:
Facts about the 18-34 demo:
Pilotta offered these stats and warned marketers to not believe the hype of search marketing and instead recommending that “search should not be used as a standalone, but be used synergistically with other media types” to reach the desired audience. He was also critical of the hype around “behavioral targeting.” Behavioral targeting “is irrelevant if as a marketer you do not know where the consumer has been before they got there.”
Dashing between appointments and seminars, cruising the show floor offered additional insights and takeaways about the current state of the market. After visits with current exhibitors/advertisers Azoogle, Revenue.Net, AveA Search, we took time to explore the deep bowels of the 3rd floor exhibit space (aka Siberia) where we unearthed one of the shows real surprises: Who’s Calling. Those of us who remember Carillon Point (our old location), recall WC as a former neighbor that delivered integrated 800-number programs to advertisers in the auto industry. Unbeknownst to us at the show, Who’s Calling was awarded “Best of Show” for their newly launched 800 service that dynamically (and in real time) provides online response advertisers with unique 800 numbers for every ad served thereby providing increased accuracy and attribution of lead source reporting (i.e. if a consumer sees and online ad, but responds via unique 800 #, both the advertiser and the ad network realize greater reporting accuracy and improved ROI). Perhaps it’s time we made a Strategic Accounts call on our old neighbor and determine how we might integrate their newly launched service with MD….
Old neighbor “Who’s Calling” receives “Best of Show” award.
Nov 8, 2005
Keeping in mind Zango’s efforts in the games business, we eagerly anticipated the comments and observations from the panelists delivering a presentation on “Games As Marketing Vehicles.” The panel was kicked off with some market sizing stats:
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AdverGaming is a mainstream sponsor driven medium
- Funding continues to pour into the space (DoubleFusion announced this week a $10MM round)
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IGN, interactive game agency sold for $650MM
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Demographics of gamers highly sought after by marketers
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Ubiquitous broadband fueling adoption and reach
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Ad Agencies are opening dedicated AdverGaming divisions
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Avg gamer spends >1 hour per day as compared to ~3 hours/day for the average television viewer
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Jupiter forecasts 360MM online gamers WW by 2009
The speakers including former VP Marketing for Xbox, Julia Miller, now CEO of iBloks, were quick to point out that the hardcore gamer community, while very dedicated are not to be construed as the only gamers online. Women are increasingly apt to spend discretionary time gaming and are twice as likely as men to download mobile games. Jennifer Mekon, VP of IGN Entertainment, a games promotions company, pointed out that games define the audience and therefore make for a particular effective advertising medium for targeting specific demographics. Eg: Need to reach female >35 yo, sponsor Mahjong game. Marketers however cannot dismiss the strong community attribute of gamers. Promotions must be consistent with the values of the demographic and transparent in their intent– i.e. if users already have the full version of a game, why would they would want to download a sponsor laden version? And be warned, as quickly as the community will praise a game product for it’s skill-challenging innovations, they will also just as quickly—and vocally-- disparage what are seen as transparent attempts at exploitation of their community. Recognizing this attribute of the community, Scott Tannen, VP of Games at Wrigley, and operator of game site candystand.com, recommended “that advertisers who want to enter the game space, should build the game first and then attempt to brand the game experience” once development is complete. Shallow attempts such as Tide detergent’s “shoot out the stains” game are seen as completely one dimensional and therefore completely irrelevant to both the casual and sophisticated gamer. “The game and the experience always take priority in the mind of the gamer.”
This last point in particular really struck home as we identify and evaluate potential content partners in the game space who may wish to harness the revenue potential of distributing Zango, but may not create sufficient value in the mind of the consumer.
Panelists for “Marketing Through Online & Video Games” seminar.
Nov 8, 2005
At this point in the day we experienced a rush of current advertisers who visited the booth to make sure they got a few minutes with us before the show closed. With over 200 exhibits to see and a full book of appointments, several attendees said they would be requesting that AdTech expand the NY show to include a third day of exhibits so they could make sure they had sufficient time to meet existing partners as well as discover new companies. Since some of us were staying behind until Wed, we were able to accommodate additional meeting requests from those advertisers who elected to extend their stay beyond Tuesday’s “official” show closing.
Under the heading “save the best for last” the closing keynote, and most highly anticipated, was delivered by Guy Kawasaki, founding partner of Garage Ventures and former VP Marketing of Apple Computers. Reflecting on how marketers primary role is that of “evangelist” Guy provided his “10 Rules of Evangelism” as inspired by Constantine Brancusi’s quote; “Create like a god, rule like a king and work like a slave.”
Guy Kawasaki delivers his “10 Rules of Evangelism.”
Nov 8, 2005
“Create Like a god.”
1) Kill the cash cows. Have the courage and foresight to go against conventional wisdom. Eg: Apple’s software division was completely isolated from the MacII hardware group so as to reinvent the software with no reliance on the hardware which at the time was 100% of Apple’s revenues.
2) Make Meaning. Make the world a better place. End bad things, make things good or make things better. Eg: Nike converted, cotton, rubber and plastic into meaning (women’s shoe campaign).
3) Jump to the Next Curve. Do things 10x better not 10% better. Eg: HP didn’t attempt to create a better daisy wheel printer; they created laser printers.
“Rule Like a king.”
4) Follow the 10/20/30 rule. Receiving 100s of presentations every week, Guy knows what makes for an effective evangelist’s pitch: Never have more than 10 slides in your presentation. Deliver your entire presentation in 20 minutes. Use a type size that is at least 30 points.
5) Make a Mantra. Explain why you exist not a MBA-style mission statement. Eg: Wendy’s: Healthy Fast Food. FedEx: Peace of Mind. Nike: Authentic Athletic Performance. Target: Democratic Design
6) Niche Thyself. Make sure your idea ranks high on the matrix of “Ability to provide unique product or service” as it relates to “Value to the customer”. Dell offered little that was unique, but was high value to the customers and competes on price. “Stupid” companies offer something unique that has little value to customers. Majority of “Dotcoms” delivered little that was unique and little value. But “Bullseye” companies (Fandango, FilmLoop) deliver something that is at once unique and has high value.
“Work like a slave.”
7) Sow entire fields. Don’t sweat when customers buy your product and you don’t know why. Embrace it and learn.
8) Provide a slippery slope. Don’t make it easy to be copied or replicated.
9) Don’t ask anyone to do something that you would not be willing to do.
10) Ignore Bozos: Thomas Watson, IBM “There are 4 customers who will buy computers.” (1945) Digital Equipment Company CEO “No one will ever buy a computer for their home.” (1977). “That job is too far from my home and I will not commute one hour to get there.” The reason Guy Kawasaki offered in 1996 for not accepting the CEO position at Yahoo!
After his inspiring presentation, Guy graciously stayed behind to sign copies of his new book.
Nov 8, 2005
Guy’s passion, intellect and generous use of humor were on display during the 40 minutes he was on the stage. In closing, Guy provided all attendees with complementary copies of his new book The Art of the Start. Everyone left the auditorium with a palpable sense of excitement and re-newed energy. Guy’s insight and passion for evangelism provided the perfect exclamation point to an exhilarating set of experiences that were AdTech NY 2005.