• by May 6, 2004

Some interesting comments today by Martin Nisenholtz, the CEO of New York Times Digital, at United Business Media's NOP World Conference in New York.

Speaking on the topic: "Influencing the Influentials in the Internet Age," Nisenholtz indicated that 50 percent of NYTimes.com readers can be categorized as "influentials." No real surprise there.

The term "influentials" was coined in Jon Berry and Ed Keller's: "The Influentials: One American in Ten Tells the Other Nine How to Vote, Where to Eat, and What to Buy." Research by NOP World, RoperASW, the Online Publishers Association, and its members including New York Times Digital and Washingtonpost.Newsweek Interactive, has outlined the behaviors and web media habits of influentials. The research also suggests how marketers might best reach them.

Influentials are more likely to be active in political groups, they volunteer in their communities, are proactive in terms of writing to elected officials and seeking more information about a problem, issue, or customer service. This group is perceived as controlling the levers of change in society and the marketplace. Think of all those Howard Dean volunteers.

In his talk, Nisenholtz suggested that based on research by Digital and NOP, advertisers haven't found the best way to reach influentials online. Often, this group doesn't think there's enough information in online ads, or, the ads insult their intelligence or represent an invasion. However, 63 percent of those polled said ads on NYTimes.com were of a higher quality overall. This, of course, has something to do with reader loyalty to the New York Times brand. Nisenholtz says that half of all NYTimes.com readers are influentials, whereas just 15 percent of the general online population can be considered in the influentials category.

Additional pearls from Nisenholtz: Influentials buy brands that they respect, and from brands that respect them.

Advertisers would do well to harness the viral nature of the Web in ad campaigns.

Two-thirds of influentials email NYTimes.com stories to friends: Influentials like to take action of some sort, or at least feel as if they have.

Advertisers should partner with publishers to create case studies on campaign effectiveness. (Think best practices)

And finally, an illuminating tidbit from NOP World: In 1977, 67 percent of people polled in a research study said they were moved to take some sort of action by word-of-mouth influence. That's compared to 2003, when the number skyrocketed to 92 percent. Talk about the viral nature of word-of-mouth via the web. Think blogging, email, chat rooms.