In a move to accelerate its expansion into traditional media advertising sales, Google Tuesday unveiled a plan to offer online advertisers the opportunity to automatically place ads in 225 newspapers nationwide. The papers, which include some of the nation's biggest dailies such as The New York Times, The Washington Post, The Chicago Tribune, and The Atlanta Journal-Constitution, represent an expansion from a test of print advertising sales Google began with 50 newspapers late last year. Like the earlier test, the new print ad sales agreement enables the millions of advertisers who currently utilize Google's online AdWords system to automatically place print ads ranging from one-inch to a full-page in newspapers much the same way they place keyword advertising online. While Google will offer the new feature to all its AdWords customers, the charter advertisers announced as part of the expansion include some of the biggest endemic online players, including e-commerce marketers like Netflix, eBags, 1-800-Flowers.com, LendingTree, Intelius, Citrix, Blue Nile, Land of Nod, Mrs. Fields, PriceGrabber, and EvesAddiction.com. Information on the program, which is outlined at http://www.google.com/adwords/printads/, says the participating papers are located in 32 of the 35 largest media markets and reach a combined circulation of nearly 30 million newspaper subscribers. The move follows a similar expansion into radio by online players including Google and rival eBay, which has also begun making headway with some cable TV networks in its eBay for Media Marketplace. Oxygen has agreed to participate in the eBay market, and fledgling African-American-oriented cable channel TV One is said to have signed up, too.
Internet video usage continues to climb--it's now 16% higher over a six-month period. Some 81 million users--or 63% of the people who have access to the Internet, either at home or at work--watched some broadband video in March of this year, according to new research conducted by The Nielsen Company for The Cable & Telecommunications Association for Marketing (CTAM). This number is higher than the 70 million recorded in September 2006. The study also noted that the activity had little effect on traditional home TV ratings. Instead, the research shows broadband video viewing was incremental to traditional TV numbers. Some 33% of those surveyed said watching video over broadband Internet increased their television viewing time--compared to 13% who said their TV viewing decreased. The report also noted that 32 million of those light broadband video users say they would be open to more TV programs on the Internet. Among all TV platforms on the Internet, Nielsen/CTAM says ABC.com was the lead TV brand when it came to TV network sites, while Yahoo Movies was the top brand in the movie site category. The research came from the sometimes-controversial 'fusion' of Internet data--although Nielsen//NetRatings MegaPanel and NetViews services--and that of traditional TV data from Nielsen Media Research's National People Meter sample.
There is a shuffle going on in the top tiers of Internet and print media companies. A few weeks ago, Wenda Harris Millard left AOL to join Martha Stewart Living Omnimedia; now Tim Castelli, formerly the publisher of Rolling Stone, is moving in the opposite direction, joining Google as its New York sales director. Although many print pros are moving online, the shift can occur in either direction. Castelli was publisher at Rolling Stone for less than two years, and while no details about his departure were available, this suggests continuing instability at the venerable music magazine. (Rolling Stone's previous publisher, Steve DeLuca, left the company amid a highly publicized dispute with owner Jann Wenner over its 1,000th-issue anniversary party.) His move also reflects Google's continuing expansion of relationships with Madison Avenue executives and media buyers. After building its business on the "long tail" of small and first-time advertisers, the company is seeking to sustain its growth by tapping into the ad budgets of big marketers. With speed a priority for the publicly traded search giant, hiring sales executives from the traditional media is a quick shortcut to building relationships with media buyers and planners. In fact, Castelli is the second top-level mag hire by Google in less than a year. In August 2006, it hired Eileen Naughton, a former president of Time magazine, as the head of ad sales for its New York office. Millard's move to MSLO from Yahoo was part of a larger game of musical (and disappearing) chairs at both companies. At Yahoo, the display ad sales division she headed is merging with the company's search ad business. At MSLO, president and publisher Lauren Stanich is stepping into an advisory role. As the new president of media, Millard will oversee MSLO's publishing, Internet and broadcast concerns. Her new role actually marks Millard's return to the publishing world. Most recently, from 2000-2001, she was Chief Internet Officer for tech and gaming publisher Ziff Davis Media, as well as president of Ziff Davis Internet. In that role, Millard helped launch the smaller publisher's move to digital distribution. Magazine executives are not the only print species to migrate online. Two years ago, Monster hired Peter Newton, a Boston Globe vet, as senior vice president for small and medium businesses--a position where he has subsequently pioneered Monster's initiatives to share classified listings with newspapers. In the more distant past, the Los Angeles Times' electronic classifieds boss Ellen Siminoff left the company in 1995 to help found the executive board of Yahoo.
In a sign that the social media and user-generated content market may be developing a traditional advertising model, revenue-sharing online video aggregator Revver this morning announced a plan to begin offering "impression-based advertising products" to advertisers and agencies. The new CPM-based ad deals will include both pre-roll and post-roll ads, which have become the online video industry's equivalent of TV's 30-second spots. Revver said the impression-based pre-roll ads will be no longer than 15-seconds in length, due to the shorter duration of viewing online video, and that to qualify for a pre-roll ad a video must be at least 30-seconds long. Like its original cost-per-click ad pricing model - which pays a user according to the number of ad clicks - Revver said it would split the revenue generated from impression-based ad sales 50/50 with content owners. "As the demand for online video advertising continues to grow, we're building a customizable range of ad products to better meet our partners' needs," said Revver CEO Kevin Wells. The company said the new ads would be tested over the next several weeks.
Radio ad rep firms are scrambling to expand their online ad serving capabilities, with the latest deal coming from Ronning Lipset Radio, which announced Tuesday that it has partnered with Corstarr to use its Adcor technology for delivering Internet radio ads. The Lipset announcement comes a week after Katz Radio bought Net Radio Sales (renamed Katz Net Radio Sales) from Aritaur to gain control of its online ad-serving technology. Lipset hopes the strategic partnership with Corstarr will make Internet radio more accessible to advertisers by dealing with various issues such as scheduling, customer service and performance reporting. Its performance reporting capabilities include data describing click-through rates on banner display ads that have been synced to the audio message. Adcor, created by Corstarr co-founders Val Starr and Justin Corbett, allows broadcasters to set up multiple radio channels and deliver ads across one or all of them, targeting audiences by demographic characteristics and daypart. It also features an "intelligent" ad algorithm that delivers ads appropriate for these specific targeting goals. In the future, Lipset and Corstarr hope to expand the Adcor offerings with online video, social networking, and mobile functionality. Last week, Katz Media bought Net Radio Sales in its biggest digital investment to date. The acquired company allows advertisers to deliver ads across a variety of audio and Web-based platforms, including hundreds of station Web sites in its digital network. The company also provides a variety of interactive ads to station Web sites. Net Radio Sales already offers advertisers a choice of more than 1,000 Internet radio streams, including both broadcast and Internet-only stations, which reach a total 5 million listeners per month. Internet radio measurements will be provided by Ando Media's Webcast Metrics. It will also handle the planning and placement of ads through its Campaign Management System, which allows advertisers to execute both targeted and run-of-network campaigns. A recent report on Internet radio listening from Arbitron and Edison Media Research, titled "The Infinite Dial 2007: Radio's Digital Platforms," counted a weekly online radio audience of 29 million people in the United States. That represents 11% of the total population. Plus, 16% of adults ages 18-34 have listened to Internet radio in the last week, and 55% of the listeners are male. Finally, online listeners are more affluent, with members of the cohort 40% more likely than the average population to have a household income that exceeds $100,000 a year.
The Audit Bureau of Circulations is set to begin incorporating data from Scarborough Research, Nielsen//NetRatings, comScore and server-based analytic tools to give subscribers a holistic view of newspaper audiences, including unduplicated print and online readership. The new "Audience-FAX" figures, scheduled to launch November 5, will give newspaper publishers the option of reporting print, online and net combined readership. The data will also be made available to ABC members in a database hosted by Scarborough, which will allow users to create custom reports focused on specific publications and demographic segments. Publishers hope that the initiative, approved at the ABC board meeting last Saturday, will give a much-needed boost to newspapers, which have struggled to demonstrate accountability and transparency in measurement to advertisers. With most big newspapers investing heavily in an Internet presence, advertisers are demanding specific, unduplicated figures for print and online readership. And the unduplicated ABC audience figures--while smaller than those achieved by simply adding up Internet and print readership--may compensate newspaper publishers with proof of a highly engaged audience that interacts with their brand across several platforms. A recent study by Scarborough, commissioned by the Newspaper National Network, confirmed that there is a great deal of overlap between newspapers' print and online readership, with 81% of respondents saying they regularly consume both types of media. Within this group, 63% read printed newspapers in the morning (before 10 a.m.), versus just 34% who visit newspapers' Web sites in the same time period. Conversely, 46% of these "crossover" users visit the Web sites in the afternoon or evening, versus a relatively lower 41% who read printed newspapers in those time periods.
As part of an expansion of its digital out-of-home advertising network strategy, New York-based Zoom Media & Marketing has cut a knock-out deal - literally. The agreement, with mixed martial arts fitness chain LA Boxing, adds more than 35 fitness centers to Zoom's health club network, with plans to add 80 more soon. The deal brings to more than 800 the number of health clubs participating in Zoom's so-called Fitness and Indoor Sports network, which also includes New York Sports Clubs, Boston-based Fitcorp and Windy City Sports in Chicago. Because of the desirable demographics, the relatively long duration of "dwell time," and the captive nature of people working out in health clubs, such venues have become among the most prized locations for the burgeoning digital out-of-home market, and has attracted 50 national advertisers to Zoom's fitness channel, including HBO, Revlon and Frito-Lay. As part of this program Zoom will place its 25" x 37" backlit boards in the workout areas of the various facilities, and 16" x 20" classic boards in the locker rooms. It will also offer promotional and sponsorship programs to advertisers in conjunction, including the opportunity to provide sampling directly inside the facilities.
Energy-drink marketer Glaceau plans to bolster its ad efforts--but the initiative is apparently unrelated to its acquisition by Coca-Cola last month. However, Coke does have plans for the brand's international expansion. Coke's President-COO Muhtar Kent said Tuesday that Glaceau was looking at "ramping up advertising" before Coke's $4.1 billion purchase and that has "not changed in any way or form," despite Coke's long-standing expertise in the area. One example: A campaign with national reach starring actress Jennifer Aniston for SmartWater. Glaceau, known also for its VitaminWater, has focused on "mainly very localized marketing up to now," Kent said. Glaceau has a roster of sports superstars who serve as endorsers. It has used billboards in the New York market, as well as some viral marketing tactics, but Kent suggested that wider-reaching efforts like the Aniston push are on tap. Coke is keeping Glaceau's management team in place, and while it will work with that team collaboratively, it indicated that it would give it considerable autonomy. Evidence of Coke's faith is its shifting marketing management of Powerade to Glaceau (which also goes by Energy Brands) weeks after the acquisition. Kent made his comments on a conference call to announce Coke's second-quarter results. Also on the call, CEO Neville Isdell said international expansion for Glaceau is coming. So are efforts to spread the brand further in North America. Isdell said "significant returns on our Glaceau investment" should be expected. Isdell indicated that the Glaceau acquisition is proof of Coke's commitment to continue growing domestically, where it has struggled, even as international results have been strong and propel the company at-large. In the second quarter, net revenues dropped 9% to $1.9 billion in North America. The period included launching a new, more traditional design on Classic Coke's cans. Pepsi recently has unveiled a more futuristic look. Executives continued to express support for its "Coke Side of Life" campaign that Isdell has called "a global hit." It was the subject of multiple Super Bowl spots, and just won awards at the recent Cannes ad festival. In 2006, Energy Brands spent some $8.8 million in measured media, per TNS Media Intelligence, up from $3.4 million the year before. In both years, magazines generated the most spending, and TV was not employed.
A new report from Magna Global indicates about half of all viewing of prime-time broadcast programs by TiVo users is done via time-shifting, which means 70% of commercials are skipped in non-live or recorded viewing. The research emerged from the Interpublic holding company's subscribing to TiVo's second-by-second viewing data, which tracks behavior of the estimated 4.4 million subscribers to the DVR service. (Magna is part of Interpublic.) Data culled from TiVo users is not necessarily representative of the larger population of DVR users, since they are believed to be more upscale as well as tech-savvy early-adopters. The Magna Global study also found that when viewed in time-shifted mode, the first ad and last ad in a commercial break have a higher-viewed rate than ads in the middle of the pod. That's not surprising, since--at least with the last ad--people who are fast-forwarding are readying for the return of the programming. Separately, TiVo, which is trying to hold on to its subscriber base in the face of increased competition from cable and satellite operators marketing their own generic DVRs, has named a new CMO. Clint Richardson will report to CEO Tom Rogers in the role. Richardson comes to TiVo from Nortel, where he also held the Chief Marketing Officer post.
American adults are increasingly skeptical of mortgage advertising, according to a new study from Harris Interactive, which outlines the general shape of consumer sentiment amid the sub-prime lending debacle. As the study indicates, mortgage advertisers have pushed the envelope too far, with 66% of adults viewing mortgage advertising as "not credible" and an additional 22% finding it "not at all credible." Attitudes toward home-mortgage products were linked to the type of product being advertised. Thus, traditional fixed-rate mortgages had the most positive reception, with 71% reporting a favorable attitude. This dropped to 52% for home-equity loans, 27% for no downpayment and 25% for "reverse" mortgages--the bogeyman of the sub-prime lending market. Older consumers were generally more knowledgeable about the variety of mortgage products than younger respondents. The Harris poll, which surveyed 2,383 adults online from May 8 through 14, has serious implications not only for the financial institutions hawking mortgages, but also for the advertisers and media planners who help them execute sales. The subprime lending hangover is deepening as lenders endure a second year of bad publicity. After accounting for $640 billion of U.S. mortgages in 2006, the market will probably experience a 25% to 30% volume decline in 2007, according to Bose George, an analyst with Keefe, Bruyette & Woods. But ad messages have not adapted to the changing environment--calling into question how in tune advertisers are with their target audience. Specifically, they are failing to convey the appropriate messages to skeptical consumers who are seeking more transparency and ease of comparison in mortgage rates. A recent article by Patricia A. McCoy in the Harvard Journal on Legislation, titled "Rethinking Disclosure in a World of Risk-Based Pricing," found that "numerous subprime ads are tantamount to affirmative misrepresentations." Specifically, McCoy found two main areas of advertising deception under the terms of the Truth in Lending Act. First, "TILA allows sub-prime lenders to tout their best rates, without disclaimers and regardless of the fact that numerous sub-prime customers will not qualify for those rates." Second, TILA also "permits lenders to dangle alluring teaser rates before consumers without notifying them how high their interest rates might go following rate reset." In effect, this means, she adds, that "sub-prime lenders can entice customers with rosy prices that are not available to weaker borrowers, hike the price after customers pay a hefty application fee, then raise the price again at closing."
Like most major media companies, NBC Universal continues to look for ways to spread its content in the mobile space. The conglomerate said Tuesday it has a deal with Alltel Wireless to offer 11 VOD channels and other content to its customers. Alltel, with 12 million subscribers, will also offer access to mobile Web sites and the more traditional ringtones and wallpaper with an NBC link. Subscribers to Alltel's Axcess service--a subset of the 11 million--will have access. The VOD channels include short-form content from NBC News, Bravo, and the dotcomedy.com site as well as "Late Night with Conan O'Brien." Full episodes of "Friday Night Lights" is also available. "NBC Universal is committed to offering its programming on a variety of platforms," said Jean-Briac Perrette, president, NBC Universal Digital Distribution.
Maybe it's the kids who need to take the remote control away from their parents. New research has shown that older adults consume much more traditional media than younger adults, according to Integrated Media Measurement Inc. The biggest group--females 45-54--will watch more TV, DVDs and theatrical releases than anyone else, estimated to be around 47.6 days, or 1,142 hours in 2007. Men 45-54 are the second-largest group. They will watch 40.2 days of media. The younger female group ages 35-44 come next, at 38.3 days. Middle-aged men ages 35-44--the fourth-biggest group--are on pace to watch 33.9 days. Further down the list are teenagers 13-17, who will screen 33.35 days. That's 30% less than older woman, and 17% less than older men. For this study, IMMI didn't look at the wild card in all of this: new digital platforms. But it says that is a major factor in the results of its study--that teenagers and children are looking at other "screens": computers, video, Internet. IMMI suggests that because of this, the gap in traditional media will continue to widen. IMMI creates its research sample by giving its members a mobile phone, asking them to carry it everywhere they go. The mobile phone is equipped with a technology that can pick up audio signals from television, radio and movies.
An ending. A beginning. Bathos. That's it. That's all the column you get this week. Don't know what I'm talking about? Good. That means you are in a frenzy to figure it out. You are permanently wedded, like a sneer on the face of Victoria Beckham, to my bylined brand. You will neglect your children, forgo bathing, forget your job, in your desperate search to discover what I'm talking about. But you will get no more from me. Can't wait to read my column again next week, now, right? Sure, you do. I know you do, because David Chase and J.J. Abrams did the same thing with their gangster saga and forthcoming film, respectively, and their "to hell with the audience" shtick got more buzz boost than Britney's breasts. The national Sopranos obsession is just as virulent now that Chase has whacked his show--with an incomprehensible blackout--than when it was alive. The beyond-obscure trailer for Abram's new movie that ran before Transformers has become the newest Internet mega-storm, saturating cyberspace with agitated electronic conversation about, well, nothing. And in the obscene union of entertainment and marketing, it is inevitable that this kind of reptilian "viral marketing" will show up in every movie campaign and media plan on the planet for the next year. We may be on the cusp of a new communications era. One in which the mantra is "tease, don't please." No more consumer control. Now, we're going to treat them all like co-dependent bitches, which is kind of retro. So I had to chime in on the most arrogantly dismissive ending in TV history and the beginning of what looks like a new low in movie marketing--and that's saying a lot. The Sopranos was a great show once. I was really excited about Star Trek: Academy when I heard Abrams was going to do it. But that was before he demonstrated that he's never seen a plot he felt obligated to finish. (Do you really think he is ever going to tell you what really happened on that damn island?) Bathos: "a ludicrous descent from the exalted or lofty to the commonplace." And that's all you're going to get in this column, even though as a reader, I owe you an ending. Like Abram's mystery film, however, you can log on to a Web site, dropdead.com, where you will find some stills of me mooning you.