Unicast Communications' fledgling Video Commercial ad format delivered increases in brand and persuasion metrics ranging from 5 to 11 times greater than Dynamic Logic's MarketNorms syndicated database, according to a report conducted by the research firm. The report, which analyzed the final results of five advertisers' campaigns--AT&T, Honda, Pepsi, Vonage, and Warner Brothers--comes as Unicast pitches the new format to online publishers and advertisers preparing for broadcast upfront negotiations. The full-screen, 30-second, broadcast-quality ad format is being positioned as a complement to advertisers' traditional TV campaigns. Advertisers' TV commercials are used with the format. Honda and AT&T have already signed on to use the format in campaigns beyond the initial test. ESPN.com intends to offer the Video Commercial, along with its ESPN Motion product, to advertisers in the upfronts. Dynamic Logic analyzed each of the five advertisers' campaigns and compared them to its MarketNorms database of more than 1 million surveys and 10,000 campaigns. Dynamic Logic fielded aggregated responses from nearly 3,000 consumers exposed to the Video Commercial and compared them to a control group of 3,000 who didn't see the ad. The five advertisers' campaigns ran on About.com, AccuWeather, ESPN, Lycos, MSN, and UGO. The research found that the five campaigns surpassed Dynamic Logic's MarketNorms on all metrics--brand awareness, message association, brand favorability, and purchase intent--by 5 to 11 times. Among other notable findings from the study: *Only 27 percent of the consumers surveyed found the Video Commercial annoying, as compared to 38 percent with TV advertising (Harris Interactive), and 78 percent with pop-up ads (GartnerG2). *The Video Commercial significantly impacted brand awareness, delivering an increase of 82 percent, which is 11 times greater than the 7 percent MarketNorms average. *The message association metric for the Video Commercial resulted in an increase of 138 percent in association, or 5 times greater than the 24 percent average via MarketNorms. * Brand favorability shot up 57 percent, or 9 times the MarketNorms average lift of 6 percent. *Purchase Intent increased 63 percent, or 10 times over the MarketNorms average of 6 percent. The consumers surveyed were asked to respond to various statements, such as: "The ad is annoying," "I like the size of the video in this ad," and "I felt like I was watching a TV commercial," with responses "strongly agree," "somewhat agree," "neither agree nor disagree," "somewhat disagree," and "strongly disagree." The majority of consumers surveyed "felt like they were watching a TV commercial"--67 percent agreed, 12 percent disagreed, and 21 percent were neutral. *Size of video: 55 percent agreed that they liked the size of the video in the ad, while 15 percent disagreed and 30 percent were neutral. *Visual appeal: 60 percent agreed that they enjoyed the visual appeal of the ad, while 15 percent disagreed and 25 percent were neutral. *Sound: 55 percent agreed that sound made the ad more enjoyable, although 34 percent were neutral on this point and 11 percent disagreed with the statement. *Annoyance: Less than 30 percent (27 percent) found the Video Commercial annoying, while 34 percent were neutral and 39 percent disagreed. The MarketNorms database includes data on more than 10,000 campaigns that include all forms of rich media. "I think the research makes a really strong case for the Video Commercial online," said Annette Mullin, director of marketing, Unicast. "You are using TV assets and interactivity; you can connect the two; it's a medium that consumers are ready to accept." View-through, or the term used to define the rate at which people view the ad in its entirety, hovered around 32 percent. Mullin said: "Overall, we were really surprised with these findings. We've never tested anything like this--a 30-second unit." Most surprising to Unicast, Mullin noted, was the low annoyance level. "We've tested this in the past with the Superstitial, but it's never been below 30 percent. (Unicast's Superstitial came in at 32 percent). This is 5 percent lower than that," she added. Unicast's Video Commercial plays between Web pages via a pre-caching technology that enables the entire ad to play while viewers are in transition. A Flash component at the end of the ad enables advertisers to build interactivity into the spot. About.com, one of the publishers testing the Video Commercial, said that Honda has re-upped on the format and Verizon is now using the ad on the About network. "We went into it saying 'let's take a look at it from the channel standpoint,'" said Mark Westlake, senior-vice president sales, About.com. Westlake said About.com has three levels of targeting--run-of-network, channel targeting, and guide site targeting by individual Web site topics. The Video Commercial performed the best when About.com used it in channel targeting. "Targeting by channel was much more efficient and effective--the viewer time was higher," Westlake noted. Pepsi ran in About.com's teen channel, while Vonage ran in the tech, small business, and other channels. "What we've learned is that you need more interactivity on the commercial once it's played or while it's playing. Advertisers should take advantage of the real estate," he said. Unicast's Mullin also noted that the test advertisers were not as aggressive as they could have been in employing the Flash-enabled interactive component. "We were really pleased with how the beta performed, and wanted to continue to use the technology and take advantage of the available inventory," said Meridee Alter, senior-vice president, media director, Rubin Postaer and Associates, Santa Monica, Calif., Honda's media buying and planning agency. Honda has since re-upped on the format, and is running it on multiple publisher sites. "Across every metric, they were among the highest, [higher] than what we typically see," Alter said of the Video Commercial's performance. While she declined to give Honda's specific percentages, she said that the performance was 2 to 7 times higher than the MarketNorms average. "I think a lot has to do with it being a full-page. The fact that you're the only thing that a consumer sees on the page really makes a big impact; it stands out--you can't miss it even if you don't watch the whole thing," Alter noted. Jay Krihak, group media director at WPP Group's The Digital Edge, New York which handles digital media buying and planning for AT&T, agreed: "No other online video experience comes close to TV quality. The full-page experience is much better than the in-banner and on-demand experiences." AT&T used the Video Commercial for a corporate brand message focusing on the company's business-to-business capabilities. Its campaign ran from Feb. 9 through March 31. "This was a very easy way to test video on the Web and because it was a beta, there was a significant amount of research that was being conducted with it," Krihak noted. Since the test, AT&T has extended use of the Video Commercial to other business properties that it advertises on including Forbes.com. AT&T used the Flash piece at the end of its spot to drive people to different parts of the AT&T site for business products and services. "Our results in terms of lift either met or exceeded our expectations in key areas including purchase consideration. Even from a response standpoint, the campaign performed much better than our previous campaigns have [in terms of] click-through rate and user interaction," Krihak explained. As more advertisers experiment with streaming video and other formats such as the Video Commercial, more research is likely. "These results show that in fact, the majority of respondents 'felt like they were watching a television commercial,' and 'sound made the ad more enjoyable.' As advertisers begin to utilize more of the format's interactivity capabilities, I think consumer reception will grow even stronger, and the value of the ads to advertisers will expand too," said Allie Savarino, senior vice president, Unicast.
Who knew search marketers could have abandonment issues? From the looks of the second installment of iProspect's Search Engine User Attitudes Survey, this time focusing on search user perseverance, search abandonment can affect marketers. Among the surprises: unemployed users and female users are less likely to hang in there than their Web counterparts. While the search marketing company's study shows that nearly 99 percent of Internet users perform searches, many are unwilling to scroll through countless pages before modifying their search terms or switching to another search engine. According to the report, 22.6 percent of searchers bow out after viewing just the first few results, more than 18 percent do so after perusing the first page, over 25 percent leave after the first two pages, and 14.7 percent stick around through the first three pages before ducking out. Study participants were asked: "If you do not find what you are looking for, at what point do you move on either to another search engine or to another search on the same engine?" The study measures search stick-to-itiveness based on user age, gender, profession, and employment status. "These demographics are where we saw the trends," says iProspect CEO Fredrick Marckini, who suggests that according to the study numbers, 80 percent of users won't see a listing if it does not fall within the top three pages. Defying their reputation for nesting, 44 percent of women respondents were apt to fly the search coop after viewing the first page of results, as compared to 37 percent of male study participants. Women "tend to go directly to brands that they know and trust for advice to save time," asserts Lauren Wiener, managing director at Meredith Interactive, publisher of American Baby and Ladies' Home Journal's LHJ.com. Because they are extremely busy with demands at work and home, she continues: "They do use search engines to find specific information, but will quickly abandon them if the first page of results are too generic." Meredith buys targeted search engine keywords like "chicken recipes" to promote subscription sales. The older search engine users become, the more they're prepared to pack it in after one results page. In fact, compared to 32.2 percent of 18- to-29- year-olds and 44.3 percent of 45- to-59-year-olds, nearly 50 percent of those ages 60 years and up said "goodbye" after viewing page one of results. "I suspect that this probably has to do with a feeling of compressed time, or could be evidence of searches being more relevant to them," Marckini conjectures. What folks do for a living may also play a role in their willingness to ride out a search. More than any other occupation measured, over 52 percent of homemakers leave searches after viewing only the first page of results. Educators come in second at 40 percent, IT and MIS professionals come in third at 38.2 percent, and students come in at just over 27 percent. "I would speculate that students are looking for more sources," says Marckini, adding: "It may evidence some of their research behavior where obvious results at the top of the list need to be compared to results deeper down." The study concludes that when it comes to sites that are likely to target unemployed users such as Monster.com and Manpower, appearing within the top ten search results is critical. While 38.4 percent of full-time workers and 41.1 percent of part-time workers say they'll ditch a search after viewing the first results page, more than 44 percent of unemployed search engine users will quit after checking one listings page. "It demonstrates that being on the first page of search results is more important than ever," notes Marckini, who believes that many people searching on job-related keyword terms through search engines are unemployed. According to Overture's Web site, 500,418 Overture searches on keyword "job search" were performed in March. "Search engines are really the gateway to the Internet; they're the front door," emphasizes Marckini. "Marketers have to recognize that this is the way the Internet works."
Eyeblaster today unveiled the latest iteration of its Rich Media Platform with a comprehensive new creative specification database designed to help online ad and media agencies, publishers, and advertisers improve campaign work flows. With version 5.5 of the platform, which is used to develop, deploy, and manage rich media ad campaigns, Eyeblaster is aiming to reduce steps in the ad campaign setup and implementation process. The firm also hopes that new features of the tool--including beefed-up publisher ad specs and an ad demonstration generator--will help it achieve broader recognition. "The new version is oriented around usability and functionality of the platform," says Paul Kadin, executive vice president of marketing and strategy, Eyeblaster, adding: "We're moving away from our heritage of Eyeblaster being the floating ad company. We want to be the means by which advertisers use all of the rich media technologies in all formats." Apart from the floating ads for which the company is best known, Eyeblaster offers expandable banners, commercial break-style ads, wallpaper ad units, and streaming media capabilities through Macromedia Flash MX. The firm competes with rich media ad providers including PointRoll, Unicast, and United Virtualities, and more recently, DoubleClick. New additions to Eyeblaster's platform, which is updated every three months on average, are designed, in part, to entice advertisers to use its platform rather than those of other rich media outfits. The upgraded publisher specifications database features in-depth information regarding requirements of publisher sites that accept Eyeblaster ads, such as available page units, maximum ad play duration, and file size restrictions. Publishers now will be able to update specs themselves, and advertisers can view minimum requirements across chosen publisher sites using a lowest common denominator feature. The database allows every ad to be validated against any publisher's creative specifications. "The publisher spec database could be valuable [if it stays up to date], eliminating some of the back and forth between agency, media company, and publisher about what's allowed," said Tom Goosmann, chief creative officer, True North. "This could save time if we happen to miss something that causes the Eyeblaster to be rejected by the publisher and returned." The database is also expected to fill a void felt by publishers. "Things that were sufficient a couple of years ago are insufficient now," opines Benjamin Reid, vice president, sales operations at About Inc., publisher of niche content site About.com. The site accepts Eyeblaster ads in addition to ads from Adinterax, Eyewonder, PointRoll, Unicast, and others. According to Reid, as rich media ads have grown in popularity and particular features like close buttons have become standardized, guidelines that were once developed through "ad hoc conversations" are now defined in About.com's specs. The platform also validates whether specific ad components meet publisher specifications, and notifies advertisers and publishers when certain ad features don't meet publisher guidelines. Because of the alert system, "the agency doesn't have to send us creative that we kick back because it doesn't fit our specs," Reid adds. Eyeblaster considers the publisher specs database something that can benefit the Internet ad industry as a whole. Eyeblaster's Kadin points to industry trade group, the Interactive Advertising Bureau (IAB), noting: "They're working on rich media standards that have the same objective as the publisher specs database, which is to narrow down the options people have to deal with. A combination of those guidelines, he continues, and "the ability to highlight those standards through Eyeblaster's database go hand in hand." The database stores guidelines on around 4,000 publisher sites that accept Eyeblaster ads, according to an Eyeblaster spokesman. According to Adam Gelles, director of industry initiatives at the IAB, the organization does not provide--and does not intend in the near future to build--a database of publisher specs. "We're not planning to create something like that," he says. Developing such a database for industry-wide purposes would be challenging, maintains About.com's Reid: "The specs Eyeblaster is putting up there are very granular for their particular formats. Some formats are being commoditized, but there's not a lot of overlap vendor-to-vendor," he says, adding: "Down the road the IAB should be moving into this role, but the dust hasn't really settled yet." The new platform version also enables agencies and advertisers to weight rotation of particular ad creative. Interface adjustments have reduced steps in campaign setup, editing, and flight addition, modification, or duplication. Eyeblaster also has developed an offline ad demonstration generator that presents ads on any chosen Web page. "That's just the sort of thing you want in your pitches," Reid says. "It gives advertisers the experience rather than a static snapshot." True North's Goosmann agrees: "The offline ad demo generator allows clients to see the creative on the pages it ran to simulate a live environment. This eliminates the need to create 'fake' pages for presentations and offline demonstrations," Goosmann says. Eyeblaster says it's also working with publishers to develop custom publisher-exclusive ad formats. And the company expects to introduce a new video format that has the ability to create in-stream video ads in coming weeks. Tobi Elkin contributed to this report.
Fathom Online, a search services provider, and Acceleration, an emarketing services firm, today said they will recommend DoubleClick's SiteAdvance analytics product as a preferred tool for their clients. The agreement will allow Fathom, which provides keyword campaign management, design optimization, and site analytics services, to use DoubleClick data in building landing pages for clients pursuing cost-per-acquisition analytics. "From the advertiser standpoint, removing the barriers to conversion is important," said Chris Churchill, founder and CEO, Fathom. "Users want to reduce the number of pages they see on their way to the shopping cart. This type of software helps us analyze that." DoubleClick's SiteAdvance is a hosted, Web site measurement and analysis tool designed to help online marketers understand the relationship between user experience on a site and transactions. "Our clients are always very interested in tracking campaign performance and analyzing its impact on their bottom line," said Eri Golembo, executive vice president, Acceleration. Fathom's clients include Universal McCann, which services the Microsoft Corp. account; Hilton Hotels; and Intel Corp., for which it handles international search. "Most of our revenues come from pay-per-click, local search, and contextual," Churchill said. Working with DoubleClick's SiteAdvance will allow Fathom to gain a more holistic view in analyzing click-to-conversion tracking. "We want to improve the user experience. [We know that when it's good] users tend to convert and spend more money," Churchill said, adding: "This will give us the capability to do that now."
Pharmaceutical-related email messages promising too-good-to-be-true physical enhancements account for the largest spam segment at 57 percent, but financial-related spam appears to be on the rise. That's according to Clearswift, an email software company that monitors spam. Clearswift's latest "Spam Index," report, which provides a monthly overview of the content of spam emails, shows that financial-related spam rose from 10.8 percent to 26 percent, month-over-month, for the period ending March 31. The jump represents the biggest the U.K.-based Clearswift has seen in the eight months since it created the Index. The company attributes the jump to an increasing number of bogus stock tips. Clearswift analysts theorize that the spammers responsible for such emails may be attempting to drive up the value of specific stocks for their personal gain. Alyn Hockey, Clearswift's Director of Research, says: "It is hard to believe that spammers can influence stock market prices, but they wouldn't be sending these emails unless there was something in it for them. Perhaps the pickup in the economy is tempting the uneducated investor to have a flutter." Financial spam often suggests that the sender has "insider" information and attempts to persuade recipients to act quickly on tips or advice. Financial analysts who spoke to MediaDailyNews confirmed that such mass emails can influence "bulletin board" stocks, or "penny stocks" that trade at lower volume and can show large price spikes quickly. "It's very possible to create a false market," says Tom Taulli, fund manager at Edgar Online and author of "The Edgar Online Guide to Decoding Financial Statements." Taulli says: "If you have a stock that only trades 100 shares a day, a little buying, and it can be up 200 percent. Sellers can then claim heavy growth, but there is not any real value there." Taulli could not point to specific Internet stock scandals that arose from instances of financial spam, but says that it's very possible that "one or two guys in a fly-by-night operation can conduct a 'pump and dump' by making a lot of outrageous claims. This sort of thing has been going on for years," he says. Analysts say that the Securities and Exchange Commission has gotten tougher than ever in enforcing laws against stock scams, in light of the many corporate scandals of the past several years and the federal Can-Spam legislation passed early this year. Both the SEC and the Nasdaq post extensive warnings and complaint referral systems on their Web sites regarding Internet financial scams, and specifically, the dangers of hoaxes via spam.