How Axiom Does DRTV

by Mike Reiber

Many of our customers strive to develop consideration and preference for their products and services. For them, third party endorsements are critical to adoption of their new products and services not only by end user customers but by their retail trade partners. The question is how to achieve low-cost reach and frequency with the endorsements over a sustained period of time. Increasingly, we're turning to short-form direct response television (DRTV) advertising.

The DRTV rates we're able to negotiate are 35-45 the cost of regular media buys. In many cases, we're able to more than quadruple frequency and reach. The creative in our spots revolve around the third-party endorsements that end user customers seek out when they're researching a major durables purchase. We typically use social media and publicity-based marketing programs to spur these third party endorsements from real customers and/or experts who have fallen in love with our customers' products. Our creative formula always includes a third party endorsement for each key product attribute within the spot. The spot is structured to highlight the product as a solution and always ends with several compelling calls to action (CTA.) All this in 60 seconds or less!

Thinking about DRTV for those product categories without P&Ls to support broadcast media buys? Below are a few questions you should ask your vendors.

1.) How many DRTV ads do they complete each year? Relatively few agencies have a laser focus on DRTV. The skill set is remarkably different from a created brand spot.

2.) Do they have a proven method? Everyone has a method or approach. The question is whether or not they have business results to support their method.

3.) Do they have working relationships with seasoned DRTV creatives and media buying personnel? Most of the time the best professionals aren't on staff with agencies. Because of this, you can save big bucks if you negotiate well.

4.) What are my DRTV economics? These include conversion rate, cost per lead, fulfillment cost, call center cost and return on investment.

Changes in Internet Tracking Abilities

by Natalie Bell

Have you ever noticed that ads on the side of your web browser page seem to fit you personally? This is because browsers and sites track the pages you visit, what you click on, and what pages you "like." This may be news to some, but it's been occurring for quite some time now.

I first noticed it this summer when researching competition for Gracie's Fruit Innovations, a new client. All of a sudden the ads on the side of Facebook's pages were all fruit related. This continued until I worked on research for a countertop company. My ads switched to home remodeling. Later Saint Mary's University Pathways Program signed on as a new client and I was putting together a report to help structure their up-and-coming Facebook page. To do this I visited and analyzed other schools' pages over and over again. One day I noticed that the ads on the side of Facebook's page were entirely education-based. With each client project my ads changed to a new, completely unrelated topic. Try it yourself and you'll see! Search something on Facebook, Google, or other sites that you normally wouldn't research. Odds are you'll see your search topic pop up in more and more internet advertisements.

If you are going to try this experiment, you'd better do it sooner rather than later; the Digital Advertising Alliance (DAA) has made moves to ban tracking of web use for most purposes. Each specific browser (Google Chrome, Apple Safari, Firefox, Internet Explorer) is installing a Do-Not-Track button that allows users to easily opt-out of being tracked. This option has always been available, but has been difficult to find how to change this specific setting. New, easy setting features will automatically be included in upgrades and downloads of browsers by the end of 2012.

Limitations to the Do-Not-Block features, as with most things, are present. Browsers can use your web usage for market research, product creation, and when requested by law enforcement. What the feature really blocks is your information being used to create targeted ads and to be sold to companies for anything besides market research. For example, no longer can browsing information be sold to insurance, credit, or healthcare companies for any other purpose.

Do-Not-Track features will change how companies target audiences. Browsing information gives advertisers the ability to create extremely specific target markets. Depending on what a user is looking at, a different ad will appear on their page. This creates a higher chance that the user is interested and clicks on the advertisement. Now these organizations will have to create promotions that apply to a wider audience with a lower chance of clicking. This agreement gives the public peace of mind, but a challenge for marketers.

Smartphone Usage Grows Across Most Income Levels

by @davesniadak

I've always advocated that simply having a smartphone doesn't necessarily make you smarter. However, according to the latest numbers from Nielsen more people are at least investing in the idea.

January Smartphone Penetration numbers were released earlier this week, and there appears to be a direct connection between age and income when it comes to smartphone consumption. According to Nielsen's findings, which polled 20,000 mobile products users, overall smartphone penetration is up to 48% of mobile consumers. That's up from a comScore poll that had smartphone saturation at around 40% in September of 2011.

When we dive deeper into the demographic findings, the marketing world's idyllic bracket - the Ages 25-34 category - 2 out of every 3 mobile user has a smartphone. Compare that with income, and 25-34'ers that earn over $100,000 a year, 8 out of 10 users who acquired a new mobile device in the past three months had chosen smartphones. However, Nielsen's data also shows that 50% of consumers that fall in the 18-24 age bracket and make less than $15,000 per year have smart phones as well. One reason for the recent spike in usage could be Apple's record 37-million new iPhones that hit the market in Q4 of 2011.

So, why does this kind of information matter? It's vitally important for marketers to consider when exploring ways to reach out to consumers. The customers with money tend to have the tools that keep them connected, but yet, the younger millennial generation on the rise are spending their hard earned cash to stay connected as well. Mobile outreach needs to be a major part of any public relations, marketing, or publicity campaign.

ComScore Reveals Online Advertising Growth

by Nick Egner

It’s no surprise that the world of online video is growing. However, this also includes online video  marketing. What? People are actually watching commercials on their computers?

ComScore just released January’s 2012 U.S. online video rankings. It shows that 84% of the U.S. internet audience viewed online video. Guess what? Google sites ranked number one in unique viewers. Shocking. When the report reads “Google sites” they might as well say YouTube. Not only is YouTube number one, but they control 83% of total viewers for the month. That’s 151,989,000 people in the month of January alone! The next closest? The music video property VEVO who snagged 51,499,000 unique viewers. Something interesting about VEVO is that they also run the most popular partner channel within Youtube with a total of 50,563,000 unique viewers. People are clearly watching music videos. You hear that MTV? 

Americans viewed 5.6 billion video ads in January. Hulu is at the top of this list with 1.4 billion ad impressions with 652 million ads viewed. Video ads reached 47% of the total U.S. population! Video ads accounted for 12.2% of all videos viewed and .9% of all minutes spent viewing video. That might not seem like a staggering statistic, but when asked, consumers find on-line video ads to be 38% more memorable than ads on traditional television. Television is still king, but online video ad content is making growth. 

With over 1/2 of the entire U.S. population tuning into on-line video content, it's safe to assume that on-line video advertising will continue to be a lucrative area for marketers. 

How about you? Have you ever watched advertisements online? 

Video Post: New Twitter Advertising Policy

Tweet all about it! Businesses will now be able to create promoted tweets similar to Facebook. To kick off their new strategy, Twitter had partnered with American Express. For more on this join Natalie as she gives us the rundown in today's Daily Axioms.