• ONLINE SPIN
    The Aftermath Of Acquisitions: Who's Winning The Display Advertising Battle
    The online advertising industry has recently seen an unprecedented flurry of acquisitions. The rapid consolidation highlighted the market's close-to limitless inventory and steadily growing numbers of eyeballs, as well as further propelled online advertising on its way to becoming a mature industry. At this moment, however, with the consolidation still far from finished and the industry in flux, many -- both inside and outside the industry -- are wondering what will happen next.
  • ONLINE SPIN
    Don't Forget About Customer Service
    According to an estimate I saw about a year ago, when consumers have a positive experience with a brand, they tell half as many as those consumers who have a negative experience with a brand (around 12 with a negative and around 7 with a positive experience). With all of this information, I find it disturbing and very surprising that in this digital economy, we tend to overlook one of the most fundamental elements of marketing: customer Service.
  • ONLINE SPIN
    Facebook Unveils 'AdWords For The Social Web'
    Facebook has unveiled AdWords (plus) for Facebook Social Web. If you think about Facebook as its own smaller, self-contained version of the Internet, then you can begin to appreciate the magnitude of the solution Facebook is trying to introduce. Especially if one day the Social Web overtakes the Informational Web in users' attention and interactions. If you look at the release as a whole, you can see its brilliance is in its simplicity.
  • ONLINE SPIN
    Is Your Brand Wearing Protection?
    As an advertiser of digital media, don't you want your ads to have the right messages at the right time in the right places? It's a fundamental media objective. Well, currently the only thing we have much control over is creating the right message. I'd add the right format to that. We can typically design the right ad unit sizes from the onset of a campaign. However, with today's media landscape constantly sliding, we often have no control over the right time and the right place.
  • ONLINE SPIN
    The Cost Of Advertising For Consumers
    "What is your message, really?" That was a critical and well-timed question that Ted McConnell, P&G's director of interactive innovations, called out during a keynote panel at the recent Ad:tech New York. He was describing a common phenomenon whereby advertisers get so caught up in elementary particles, mechanics, rationality or even bad intentions that they end up losing sight of what their message to prospects and customers truly is (or has mutated into).
  • ONLINE SPIN
    It's A Fast-Growing Market Outside The U.S.
    I am writing this as I fly to Europe for the Monaco Media Forum, where much of the focus over the next couple of days will be the growth of digital media and marketing around the world. If you're in the U.S., why should you care about this? You should care because the percentage of the global online ad market represented by the U.S. is only going to go down. If you want strong, long-term growth, you will need to be global to serve the needs of global advertisers.
  • ONLINE SPIN
    My (Early) Predictions For 2008
    Now that it's November, there's no better time than the present to lay out my predictions for 2008! I know, I know... some of you might think it's a little early, but I like to be first, so that none of my predictions are too heavily influenced by what everyone else is thinking. So with that brief explanation for jumping the gun, here are some of my bold and not-so-bold predictions for 2008
  • ONLINE SPIN
    Do The Laws Of Branding Not Apply Online?
    Don't get me wrong, I love what Microsoft is doing. The concept of proper "click attribution," or giving credit to all of the impression prior to a click that may have contributed to the end result, is an important step in the evolution of online advertising....
  • ONLINE SPIN
    Most Consumers Are Clueless
    So I was visiting with my grandmother yesterday and the phone kept ringing off the hook.She ran to answer the phone many times, then got mad and slammed the phone down. I asked her what was wrong. She said, "These damn people keep calling me to buy stuff. I don't know how the heck they got my number."
  • ONLINE SPIN
    We're All Suckers For Narratives
    According to a three-year study by the Advertising Research Foundation and the American Association of Advertising Agencies, ads that tell a branding story work better than ads that focus on product positioning. While this study of advertising effectiveness and emotion is fascinating, it's critical to acknowledge that its greatest relevance really has nothing to do with advertising. The most valuable takeaway is at the core brand level -- specifically, how our minds are hardwired to embrace narratives and distill meaning with emotional force.
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