The key points made during the first day of the 2002 ANA/AAAA Marketing Conference & Trade Show in New York yesterday, which focused exclusively on online advertising, were that not enough is being
done to promote online against traditional media and unusual forms of online advertising are worth trying.
The first point was stressed by Michael Zeisser, principal of McKinsey & Co., a
consulting firm, who said that while traditional marketing is losing steam, online isn't doing enough to replace it.
He provided statistics that show the changes in media usage and consumer
behavior that chart the demise of TV and the rise of the Web, which have implications for advertising. For instance, three TV spots were enough to reach 80% of women in 1965, but 97 spots are needed
today. Also, 23% of viewers mute TV commercials and 30% of Web users reduced their TV viewing. All these figures suggest that online advertising should be booming, but Zeisser says that only $5 to $15
billion was spent on it last year, out of $350 billion spent on all advertising.
Part of the problem is that advertising is still bought the same way, with demographic targeting, CPMs and a
traditional media mix. But these tactics aren't relevant any more, due to the fragmentation of media and the growth of the Internet and other new media which hinders the traditional media mix.
"Marketing isn't changing as fast as consumer behavior," Zeisser says. It's a wake up call to online marketers who must figure out how to take advantage of the changing marketplace and use it to
their advantage.
One marketer who is doing that is Nike, whose Road to Paris iTV digital marketing campaign was the subject of one of the afternoon sessions. Clark Kokich, president of Avenue A,
the interactive agency, discussed the campaign, which Avenue A worked on with Weiden & Kennedy, Nike's agency of record. W&K created a one-hour TV documentary about cycling prior to last year's Tour
de France, which Nike used to target cycling enthusiasts. The show ran once on CBS Sports, then a series of times on roadtoparis.com, the website created for the campaign. The documentary made many
references to the website, the goal being to drive viewers to it who would go from there to nike.com to purchase cycling gear.
Kokich called the campaign two screen but distinguished it from iTV,
since the documentary wasn't made for iTV. But like iTV it directed viewers to the Web, so it can be thought of in the same vein. Indeed, the campaign suggests that "you shouldn't wait for iTV to
arrive," Kokich says, "but you should find ways to combine the best aspects of TV and the Internet."
Research provided by Avenue A shows that a significant number of viewers became engaged in the
two-screen experience and many shopped at Nike.com. In fact, they turned out better than average customers who spent more than those who hadn't watched the documentary or visited roadtoparis.com.
Other highlights of the first day of the ANA/AAAA show included Joanne Bradford, vice president and chief of media revenue at MSN, who spoke about some of the best online campaigns on MSN; Martin
Nisenholtz, CEO of New York Times Digital, who spoke about surround sessions; and Nick Riso, vice president eBusiness at Nestle USA, who spoke about the variety of sites Nestle uses, including
consumer platform sites that group together many of the company's brands.
The show continues today.