In the (red) - Global Campaign Raises $18 Million

March 7, 2007 at 12:35 pm · Filed under Personal Opinion

*Update: There’s a response by an insider on the NY Daily News*
*Link to an opinion published over a year ago when (red) launched by Jagdish Bhagwati, a professor at Columbia who is also on the advisory team to Kofi Annan’s Africa council.*

AdAge published “Costly Red Campaign Reaps Meager $18 Million” two days ago and dozens of comments have already flowed in on AdAge - the majority of which are negative towards the (red) campaign. *(red) responds to AdAge article*

Here’s what the article basically pointed out:

• The (red) campaign has raised $18mm worldwide since launching about a year ago
• Some experts estimate that almost $100mm has been spent promoting red through Gap, Motorola, and other (red) partners
• (red) is a brand - not a non-profit - which was created by a for-profit company with the expectation that partners licensing the (red) trademark would have to give certain % of profits to the Global Fund.
• Private donations to the Global Fund are a small portion of their total funding sources (Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation gave $650mm alone).
• Mark Rosenman, a non-profit activist and public-service professor, summarizes the concerns: “There is a broadening concern that business is taking on the patina of philanthropy and crowding out philanthropic activity and even substituting for it,” he said. “It benefits the for-profit partners much more than the charitable causes.”

Major Themes from the Comments (mostly from professional Marketers):

• Products were “outrageously” overpriced. Many comments noted that a poorly made t-shirt was marked up signficantly benefiting the retailer more than the charity.
• Money could’ve been given directly to the charity instead of being spent on marketing.
• There is skepticism about the true intentions of the companies involved with the (red) campaign.

Personal Opinion

The (red) campaign is an extremely dividing issue but I think it’s important I share my thoughts even if I’m going to get flack. I personally think that the (red) campaign is the wrong way to approach the problems in Africa as pointed out in the Financial Times commentary above. Live 8 and countless efforts to tackle issues in Africa have proven to be futile in many ways due to corruption and focus on care instead of cure and prevention. Anti-viral drugs will help those currently affected but will do little to help those who may be infected in the future. Money would be more effectively spent on prevention and cure.

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“How to Kill a Brand” - Opportunity in Disguise for Sony

March 4, 2007 at 5:58 pm · Filed under Interactive Advertising News

A user released a music video called “How to Kill a Brand” on YouTube this past week slamming Sony’s Playstation 3 for all of its shortcomings. The video included overlays of soundbites from Sony’s Phil Harrison, President of the division that handles the Playstation, over a remake of the popular song “How to Save a Life” by the Fray. As of today, the anti-PS3 video already been viewed over 472,000 times on YouTube with over 2,500 comments.

Video and Analysis after the Jump
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KFC Video Response by Greg Dedrick Removed?

March 3, 2007 at 10:28 am · Filed under Interactive Advertising News, Blogging and Viral Marketing

Just a few days ago, bloggers were talking about how KFC was following in the footsteps of JetBlue in releasing a video response from its president in response to the rat infestation in their NYC restaurant.

It appears that the video is no longer available and it was never really publicized to begin with, living buried within the KFC site. However, you can see that it did once exist since it comes up as the top search result on Google for “KFC President video”.

If anyone has the video saved somewhere, I would love to see it.

Kudos to Influx Insights and Jeremiah Owyang for covering this well in advance.

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Campaign Review - Fisheye Premium 3-Liter Wine Cask

February 28, 2007 at 5:47 pm · Filed under Campaign Review

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Quick Update: I’m seeing a lot of Google visitors who are searching for “fish eye wine cask” visiting here which proves my point about their need to get this product’s content on their site. In any case, you were probably looking to buy the wine or read some reviews so I have added a set of quick links right above here to take you to your intended destination. Please do feel free to read this review if you’re interested in online marketing or how you ended up here instead of on the fisheye site. Thanks!

Overview:

Fisheye Winery of Ripon, California launched a new integrated marketing campaign for a 3-Liter Wine Cask (essentially boxed wine) during the E! Academy Awards red carpet show. According to the press release from their agency B.A.R.C. Communications, the key goal of the campaign is to “reinforce the growing popularity of both Fisheye Wines and Premium Cask packaging”.

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Truth and Metrics

February 28, 2007 at 12:30 pm · Filed under Around the Blogosphere, Web Analytics & ROI

Scott Maxwell has posted a list of 10 ways to lie with metrics on his blog which Juice Analytics summarized:

1. Only present metrics that are positive. That’s why you collect all those metrics.
2. Only present metrics that are easy to manage.
3. Use many metrics.
4. Be extremely precise with your numbers.
5. Present quickly, drown ‘em with data.
6. Say “you don’t break down metrics” if they aren’t flattering to you.
7. Put lipstick on that pig–apply lots of gloss to your charts. Hello, Crystal XCelsius!
8. Show off your bona fides by sharing some metrics “off the cuff”.
9. Prep your team by feeding them lines.
10.Your job isn’t to educate your audience about your metrics. If people don’t know what you’re talking about, it’s because they’re stupid.

I work with data every day and I’m probably guilty of some of these points myself. However, I don’t necessarily think that all of them are “lies” — some are really a matter of client/personal preference. The biggest challenge is to get people to think about measurement and ROI — in fact, most recent surveys reveal that most managers and executives have no idea what their return on advertising is even though the tools are available to help do that.

I personally do tend to use many metrics (#2) to provide insight into performance and behavior from multiple angles. You don’t just look at sales, you look at average order value, margins, sales categories, sales conversion rates, shopping cart abandonment, etc. in order to get a complete picture of what’s happening. Multiple metrics are needed to go beyond the “what” and get to the “whys” and “hows”.

Fortunately, our agency culture is about accountability and we are very open about how we measure with our clients. We also make sure we take the time to educate and understand what are the measurements that they care about in order to tailor our reports accordingly. At the same time, we do pride ourselves in being precise (#4) and prepared (#9) but not to cover up any deficiencies but because our clients expect us to know the data intimately and to be ready to present it clearly.

My personal advice to those who are victims to #1, #5, and #7 are as follows:

1. Don’t be afraid to share negative metrics. There’s a story there that needs to be told. In my experience, clients are much more interested in the learnings and insights than they are about the actual number. Never give a negative metric without having a plan to turn that around.
2. Use data to support your ideas and insights. Don’t throw up charts into a presentation without preparing the audience for it. Never assume that everyone can read a chart the same way you can — even when it’s extremely obvious to you
3. Please, no more driver’s dashboard themes and pressure gauges on reports from anyone. I stick to clean Excel charts when possible utilizing easy-to-read color themes. Yes, it’s sort of dressing the charts up, but it’s primariliy for visual clarity and to bring Excel’s fashion sensibility up-to-speed. (This doesn’t apply to Excel 2007 which has a modernized palette). We also use a data visualization tool called Tableau which helps us build more interesting data visual aids and allows us to add additional data dimensions through variable line widths and color gradiations based on data set values.

Rebuttals, Agreements, Discussions in the Comments Section Please.

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2.27 - Blogosphere Buzz

February 27, 2007 at 4:18 pm · Filed under Interactive Advertising News, Around the Blogosphere

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3rd Party Ad Serving - Smart for Advertisers, Smart for Google

February 25, 2007 at 9:49 pm · Filed under Web Analytics & ROI

AdAge Digital published an article “How Google Has Helped Build Brand Advertising Online” this past Thursday and I wanted to address some of the 3rd party ad serving issues called out by Tim Armstrong, Google’s VP of Advertising Sales.

Here’s the part about 3rd party ad serving:

A Bank of America analyst asked Mr. Armstrong about Google’s ad-serving philosophy and whether that was hindering marketer use of its display network. While most major online agencies serve their ads through Doubleclick or Atlas to simplify delivery and reporting, Google hasn’t yet opened up its network to third-party ad serving. That means an agency that uses Doubleclick for virtually all of its ad placement would have to use a separate ad server, Google’s, for buying display ads across AdSense.

Mr. Armstrong said Google faced the same issue in 2000 and 2001 with search — people had asked whether Google would use a third-party ad server for search. Third-party ad servers, he said, “assume they can figure out how to target more effectively than you can.” He said Google has been happy not to use third party ad servers to deliver its search ads and that it’s “working diligently” in the branded ad space to continue to serve ads effectively.

In terms of search text ads, there’s really no reason to use a 3rd party ad server to deliver the actual creative since most advertisers do not consider a “view” of a text-link to have a significant impact. Google already allows 3rd party click tracking through AdWords, advertisers just use Atlas/DART redirects in the Destination URL fields.

The Google display network, on the other hand, would greatly benefit from allowing 3rd party ad serving, but not for the reason the article outlined — “Third-party ad servers, he said, “assume they can figure out how to target more effectively than you can.”

Here are 3 benefits from 3rd party ad serving that would allow advertisers to derive more value and in turn spend more branding dollars with Google’s display network if 3rd party ad serving was allowed:

1. View-Conversion Tracking - Google still takes the “click tracking” approach to display as it has done with text even though advertisers are increasingly looking for brand metrics beyond the CTR including brand engagement and view-based ROI. Without 3rd party ad serving, advertisers are not able to measure whether or not people who see the branded ad are in turn visiting the site, even when they haven’t clicked. Experiments to measure “non-click” activity can also be controlled through testing on 3rd party ad servers which allow for test/control group setups of users who are exposed to branded ads and those who are not. Atlas Institute has already conducted a study into the effects of banner impressions (http://www.atlassolutions.com/pdf/BrandingEffect.pdf)
2. Behavioral Targeting - Contextual relevance is a great first step. When you can overlay behavioral targeting, it gets even better. 3rd party ad serving has nothing to do with where the ad gets served (Google still controls that), it has to do with what message is served for which audience. Using simple targeting on 3rd party ad servers, one can target messages based on past user behavior on an advetiser’s website. For example, if you’re a car manufacturer, having your “Visit AcmeCars.com” is a great message for those customers who are not in-market. What about a user who has already visited your site and browsed for, let’s say, the Acme Destroyer. With 3rd party ad serving on Google’s display network, the ad server can serve up “Test Drive the Destroyer at your local Acme Dealer” and that may improve ROI and response rates.
3. Unified Platform - Agencies and Advertisers hate having to go into multiple interfaces to run and track their marketing programs. Swapping creative and changing landing pages can become part of the existing production/execution process flow once ad serving is consolidated into a 3rd party ad server.

In short, everyone wins.

Related Articles:

Jay Sears at ContextWeb has a write-up on this as well on the ContextWeb Blog.

Disclaimer: I work for Avenue A | Razorfish, a division of Aquantive, which also owns Atlas, a 3rd party ad server. My comments in this post are my opinions and are offered out there as my 2-cents.

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