Generating buzz—getting people talking about our products or even advertising on their own—is the goal of many ad campaigns today, even television commercials. (Case in point: the Super Bowl.)

Online, buzz seems to be the Holy Grail: going viral, getting evangelists, having people talking/Tweeting/friending/following you. But assigning a value to that can be hard. We’re driven to assign an ROI to social media, but we’re having a hard enough time even monitoring success.

General Sentiment, a sentiment analysis company, has come to the rescue. Using media prices, they’re looking to answer the question “How much would it have cost to attract the same media exposure through traditional advertising?” And they’re putting a $ sign in front of it.

Starting with the Top-100 Global Brands from the 2009 Interbrand Report, General Sentiment looked at the buzz those companies were getting on news media, social media and Twitter (why they’re separated from social media, I don’t know, but it’s cool to look at their results on their own). They calculated how much these companies would have had to spend on traditional advertising to attract the same level of attention. General Sentiment published the top 20 in their Q4 Media Value Report

Company	News Media	Social Media	Twitter	Total	Trend
1	Google	$244,593,000	$402,279,000	$22,756,000	$669,629,000	Down
2	Microsoft	$184,473,000	$452,006,000	$12,252,000	$648,732,000	Down
3	Sony	$80,574,000	$207,907,000	$5,825,000	$294,308,000	Down
4	Apple	$63,947,000	$223,657,000	$5,632,000	$293,237,000	Up
5	Yahoo	$50,324,000	$236,087,000	$5,354,000	$291,766,000	Down
6	Intel	$93,665,000	$189,880,000	$2,139,000	$285,685,000	Up
7	Ford	$145,369,000	$39,082,000	$1,453,000	$185,905,000	Up
8	IBM	$62,683,000	$85,957,000	$1,740,000	$150,381,000	Up
9	Citigroup	$105,614,000	$24,961,000	$749,000	$131,326,000	Up
10	HP	$46,249,000	$67,222,000	$2,423,000	$115,896,000	Up
11	eBay	$50,179,000	$56,889,000	$4,672,000	$115,740,000	Down
12	Oracle	$43,413,000	$70,838,000	$1,435,000	$115,686,000	Up
13	McDonalds	$80,579,000	$32,842,000	$1,840,000	$115,263,000	Down
14	Disney	$67,166,000	$35,811,000	$4,411,000	$107,390,000	Down
15	Nokia	$28,560,000	$71,843,000	$2,369,000	$102,772,000	Up
16	GE	$75,452,000	$24,536,000	$885,000	$100,864,000	Up
17	Dell	$34,491,000	$43,990,000	$1,553,000	$80,035,000	Down
18	American Express	$56,576,000	$19,803,000	$648,000	$77,028,000	Up
19	Cisco	$41,579,000	$25,273,000	$735,000	$67,588,000	Up
20	Blackberry	$22,706,000	$41,678,000	$2,038,000	$66,422,000	Up

The trends are (I believe) based on the change from the Q3 Media Value Report.

What do you think? Any brands you’re surprised to see in the list? How accurate do you think the values are?

[marketingpiligram]

They may not quite be grateful for advertising. But consumers realize it pays the bills for much of the content they enjoy -- and, for that matter, that it helps the economy to function. Those are among the significant findings of a newly released global survey by Nielsen, AdweekMedia's parent company.

Conducted in some 50 markets in March and April, the polling found 67 percent of respondents agreeing (including 14 percent agreeing "strongly") that "Advertising funds low-cost and free content on the Internet, TV, newspapers and other media." Likewise, 81 percent agreed (22 percent strongly) that "Advertising and sponsorship are important to fund sporting events, art exhibitions and cultural events." (Download the survey.)

More broadly, the survey found 71 percent of global respondents agreeing (13 percent strongly) that "Advertising contributes to growth of the economy." Sixty-eight percent agreed (16 percent strongly) that "Advertising stimulates competition, which leads to better products and lower prices."

Respondents also acknowledged that advertising is useful to them personally as they navigate the marketplace. For example, 67 percent agreed (14 percent strongly) that "By providing me with information, advertising allows me to make better consumer choices." Respondents even confessed to enjoying advertising, at least some of the time, with 66 percent agreeing (13 percent strongly) that "Advertising often gets my attention and is entertaining."

There was some regional variation in the incidence of agreement that advertising enables consumers to make better choices by providing them with information. Among respondents in Latin America, 82 percent subscribed to that statement, as did 72 percent of those in North America. In Europe, though, just 50 percent of respondents endorsed that view.

The survey also detected regional variation in the degree to which consumers trust various forms of advertising. TV advertising is a conspicuous example. On average, 62 percent of global respondents said they trust TV advertising at least "somewhat." But the figure ranged from 74 percent in Latin America down to 49 percent in Europe, with North America splitting the difference, at 61 percent.

[click to enlarge]

The regional pattern was similar when the survey measured trust in online advertising. Among respondents in Latin America, 53 percent said they trust that sort of advertising at least somewhat, as did 42 percent in North America and 36 percent in Europe. As for newspaper advertising, 75 percent in Latin America said they trust it at least somewhat, vs. 66 percent in North America and 50 percent in Europe.

The survey's global findings belied the notion that consumers trust advertising in traditional media more than ads in new media -- or vice versa. Brands' Web sites outscored other ad media in the numbers of respondents saying they trust them "completely" (13 percent) or "somewhat" (57 percent). On the other hand, text ads on mobile phones were at the very bottom of the trust rankings, with just 2 percent saying they trust these completely and 22 percent saying they trust them somewhat.

And there was a lackluster rating for "ads served in search-engine results," with 4 percent trusting these completely and 37 percent somewhat. Ratings for old media were closely bunched, with TV getting a typical rating for these of 8 percent "trust completely" and 53 percent "trust somewhat."

You'd expect the economic turmoil of the past year to have eroded consumer trust in markets and marketing. As such, there's a counterintuitive aspect to the findings that trust in advertising of all sorts of media was higher in the new survey than it was in a similar 2007 sounding. For instance, the proportion of respondents saying they trust brand Web sites at least somewhat rose from 60 percent in 2007 to 70 percent this time around. There was a particularly large gain for "ads before movies" -- from 38 percent then to 52 percent now -- which suggests that objections to such ads are fading as people become more accustomed to them.





[adweek]

Google is charting new territory in the virtual world of advertising. The company wants to plaster the digital billboards that pop up in Google Maps street view with real-time promos for products. Rather than generate a street view with some dated movie poster, you could soon be looking at a shill for a current box office release that is clickable for a trailer and play times, Popular Science reports.

This wouldn't have worked on regular Google Maps, because: a.) People use them to check out places that they don't actually end up visiting -- it's pointless to pimp a fast food joint to someone who's behind his keyboard. And, b.) The directional printouts that people bring along on road trips are sometimes tough to follow. Most people are probably concentrating so hard on not getting lost or getting in a wreck that they will miss some little icon on their printed maps denoting nearby outlet mall.

Enter textual direction: Local bidders compete for GPS-specific ads on a Garmin or TomTom that would actually re-route the driver to the point of sale.

Picture it. You are driving down the road when that soothing lady voice suddenly becomes a turn-by-turn pitch woman: "Merge onto I-85. Continue two miles toward the McDonald's with delicious extra value meals at Exit 18. If you would like to satisfy your hunger, take ramp on left."

...Recalculating.

"Continue one mile toward Starbucks drive-thru at Exit 19. If you are tired, please use this pop-up coupon for one-dollar off a venti drip coffee."

...Recalculating.

"Estimated time of arrival home is 15 minutes. Blockbuster at Exit 20 currently has new releases of Avatar available. Would you like to make it a Blockbuster night?"

[fastcompany]
 

Google’s acquisition of AdMob last November pulled the mobile advertising industry into the spotlight. Until then it had mostly been seen as the poor relation of Internet advertising in terms of revenue, if not of hype. Yet mobile offers advertisers many attractive possibilities. No other device is as personal, interactive and constantly within reach as a cell phone. And cell phones let advertisers target whole new parameters, such as location and context. So will 2010 be the breakout year for the mobile advertising business?


The Mobile Advertising Ecosystem

Mobile ads can be delivered in the form of messages like SMS and MMS, banner and full-page ads on Mobile Internet sites, mobile search ads, in-application advertising and mobile video. Mobile ad impressions are generally bought at cost per thousand (CPM) or cost per click (CPC). The main measures of success are the number of users reached, click through rate (CTR) and the number of actions — for example, number of downloads — prompted by the ad. SMS and MMS are still considered the most effective advertising channel, with correspondingly higher pricing. Most users will read at least part of an SMS received.

Mobile ad networks distribute mobile ads to publishers like mobile websites, application developers and mobile operators. The cheapest way to advertise is via a blind ad network where advertisers can’t pick specific publishers but can often target by country and content channel. Admob and InMobi fit into this category. Premium ad networks like AOL or Nokia focus on a limited number of prestige publishers like mobile operators and specific big-traffic sites, and the advertiser pays extra to target those sites specifically. Some larger publishers and mobile operators run their own ad platform, like the one supplied by Amsterdam-based startup MADS. There are also many small players who supply niche services. Mobclix, for example, is an ad exchange startup targeting smart phones via multiple ad networks. Finally, there are the publishers themselves such as eBuddy, maker of one of the most popular mobile IM applications.




Where Is the Money?

The US mobile ad market was estimated to be around $416 million in 2009. While the majority of US mobile ad spending still goes to messaging like SMS, spending on applications and search is on the rise. MADS Sales Director Jasper de Vreught says, “We do see a development where the average spend per campaign is significantly increasing. CPC will become more important, whereas in the premium model, CPM is now still the predominant charging model.“

Mobclix supplied me with some data (not shown here) on the highest yielding application categories in October 2009. This data was from 4000+ applications with a 70% reach across iPhones and iPod touches.

The most popular finance applications (the top 100 serving ads) made 4.5 times the average advertising revenue of the top ad-serving applications overall, while social networking applications make 3.9 times the average and education applications 3.7 the average. So if you are a developer trying to make revenue from advertising, social networking looks like a great choice, since it has high ad revenue and fewer competing applications (2,098 as opposed to 17,147 in entertainment) than other categories. Gaming, on the other hand, looks like it is becoming saturated.

The most popular entertainment applications only make 0.8 times the average top applications. Despite very high CTR, utilities were also only making 0.8 times the average in October 2009 because of a lack of high-end advertisers. However, by December 2009 this had increased to 1.7 times the average due to an increase in advertisers focusing on specific types of users and apps.

IM application eBuddy recently started serving mobile ads. According to eBuddy founder Jan-Joost Rueb, “Mobile is rapidly growing even though we started only a few months ago. Mobile advertising revenue is higher than revenue from [eBuddy's non-ad-supported] pro versions right now. ”


Targeting and Technology

One of the most attractive characteristics of mobile for advertisers is the opportunity for more accurate ad targeting. Typical parameters include carrier, device type and mobile channel, with the possibility to add location, behavioral, and demographic information (the latter often requires user opt in). Frequency of use, reach and usage context are the important factors when inserting ads into applications. However, MADS founder Ashu Mathura contends that current targeting software still only does about 25% of what is needed.

MADs did a H&M campaign in which ads were served to two groups of users: all users, and those who had already clicked on a H&M ad. Unsurprising, the campaign has a much higher response in the second user group. Based on this insight, it might make sense to create a sequence of ads as part of a campaign, where a second ad in the sequence is only served to users who have clicked through the first. I could certainly see myself being interested in ads that remind me when the H&M sale starts and offers a voucher if I make it to the second or third ad. MADS also sees potential in the idea of users opting in for certain types of ads in return for rewards like discounts.

Interesting developments on the technology side include interactive video advertising (introduced last year by Admob) and making greater use of smartphone features such as the accelerometer and camera, such as for augmented reality ads.

Mobile Advertising in 2010

Most players see Google’s Admob acquisition as an endorsement of the mobile ad market in general. InMobi, which is the only ad network to reach profitability other than Admob, thinks that the industry is at the 1.0 stage. According to Anne Frisbee (Head of North America at InMobi), the acquisition has actually occurred “quite early in the evolution of the industry”.

Jasper de Vreught from MADS says that in the future “there will be a clearer division between two business models: the “long tail model” like AdWords and AdMob, and the “premium model” like Doubleclick and MADS, which are aiming to build a network of premium publishers and attract premium advertisers. MADS’ Mathura also says that while there is a lot of focus on downloaded apps right now, most of this functionality is likely to move into the cloud, and there’ll be a corresponding impact on how advertising is done.

According to eBuddy, the media agencies have still not really embraced mobile and tend to stick to the old and proven formula. Rueb says “It’s important for eBuddy to get the premium advertisers on board. There are too many VAS (value-added services) advertisers like ring tones right now.” Other players say similar things. Advertisers still like to see things like TV spots, which they understand, even though this is often not rational in terms of return on investment. Maybe 2010 will be the year when advertisers start seeing mobile less as an experiment and more as a serious part of their campaigns.


[venturebeat]