Solve Media Replaces CAPTCHA With Brand Tags
- by Gavin O'Malley @mp_gavin, June 5, 2012
Although they are a practical security tool, CAPTCHAs have long been the bane of consumers as well as engagement-obsessed publishers.
Turning the little obstacles into assets, however, Solve Media will now help brands use CAPTCHAs as mini research and branding tools.
Starting today, Solve Media’s network of more than 4,000 publishers will begin to replace CAPTCHAs with select brand logos -- including Purina -- and then ask site visitors to type in a word or phrase that they most closely associate with the featured brand.
The brand descriptions will then be aggregated and given to marketers to be analyzed. Dubbed Brand Tags, the initiative is an expansion of the digital ad firm’s performance-based brand ad platform.
“Brand Tags is designed to provide our brand and agency partners with an alternative [to market research reports] that offers useful insights into consumers' stated identification with a brand in real-time," according to Solve Media CEO Ari Jacoby.
Positioned as a “big data” analytics platform, Solve Media says Brand Tags can shorten the research cycle, and give brands more timely data.
Jacoby credited Noah Brier, currently the co-founder of Percolate, with originally developing Brand Tags. Solve Media took over operations of Brand Tags last year.
Although very much a niche brand research tool, Gene Munster, senior research analyst at Piper Jaffray, said Brand Tags represented “a unique approach” in helping advertisers understand consumer sentiment around their brands.
Combined with the company's Type-In ad product, however, Munster said the new service puts Solve Media “in a position to be one of the most important branding vehicles on the Web.”
The startup’s flagship product, Type-In lets advertisers survey consumer interactions with ads by measuring how effectively they remember the brand's messages to complete a transaction.
These Type-In ads replace CAPTCHA authentication systems with a logo or video, a brand message in quotes, and an input box. The technology relies on a link inside of a Type-In ad unit.
Hmmm. So CAPTCHA is the 'bane of consumers', and we're going to insert brand names into something that consumers hate. Remind me of the strategy that makes this a good idea.
I do share your concern as well, but I have to admit if I have to go through the annoying process to authenticate my "humanness" I might as well get something I can easily decipher, even if it is a brand association, I need to think about although, a big part me feels that maybe a bit too much to expect from a consumer.
I think the idea is smart and it's a super easy way for brands to survey consumers. I personally agree with Krithika that writing a brand association for me is a much less annoying process than to authenticate my humanness, however I can't predict whether the majority of consumers agrees with me on this. I'm curious to see some results.