Filed under: Ad Budgets, Ad Buys, Ad Sales, Advertisements, Advertising, Online Ads, Online Advertising

I just witnessed the most disgusting ad presentation I’ve ever seen on the internet.  The ad itself wasn’t intentionally meant to offend, but it’s format did something that was inexcusable.

Being a native New Englander, I often  got to  Boston.com to check out sports stories.  That’s what I just did a few minutes ago.  Right there, in front of me, was a story “Northboro Native Killed in Washington DC Accident”.  A photo of her shows a pretty, young fresh faced young woman, with a beaming smile.  Now that I live in the DC area, I was especially intrigued by this.  I was once 22 and lived in DC.  Young.  Idealistic.

So I went to click through to read the story.  In the corner of my eye, I began to notice  a ‘growing’ ad coming across the page.  One of those ads that form images across a web page.  In this case they were images of the walking footprints of what looked to be that of a hiker.  The footprints continued across the woman’s face and would not let me click through to read the story.  That’s because just as I pressed down on my mouse, the ad crossed over the exact spot where it was pointing to.  Suddenly, I was transported to another site, the landing page of the ad.  Tourism in New Brunswick.

When I finally got back to the site I wanted to be at and clicked through the story I wanted, I began reading:

A Northborough woman and Amherst College graduate beginning her career in Washington, D.C., was killed in the nation’s capital yesterday morning when she was run over by a garbage truck while riding her bicycle to work.

…beginning her career…killed in the nation’s capital…run over by a garbage truck”…riding her bicycle to work”…

Her young life snuffed out just like that.  Full of promise, full of life, now gone.

But we want to show you this ad first - the ad is more important.

This is definitely not the way to do things, folks.  These ad formats, while enticing, should not be used by news outlets.  At least on their front pages.  News outlets cover news and news is more often bad, or in some cases, tragic.  It isn’t worth the ad dollars.

Advertisers shouldn’t necessarily shy away from using these formats, but they should be very judicious in where they buy them.  They should look for sites that viewers come to be entertained.  I don’t care how effective they are.  Use another formats on front pages of news sites.

No Comments » Posted on July 9th, 2008 by Jonathan Trenn

Filed under: Ad Budgets, Ad Buys, Ad Sales, Advertisements, Advertising, Blogvertising

From Drew B’s Take on Tech PR via Nixon McInnes & Chris Abraham:

“Only 18% of TV ad campaigns generate positive ROI”

“The average person is exposed to 3000 advertising messages a day”

“36% of people think more positively of companies who have blogs”

No Comments » Posted on July 6th, 2008 by Chris Abraham

Filed under: Ad Budgets, Ad Buys, Ad Sales, Advertisements, Advertising, Advertising Networks, Blog Marketing Journal, Paid Advertising, Paid Bookmarking, Paid Media, Paid Placement, Paid Stumbling, StumbleLove, StumbleUpon

I quickly realized that StumbleUpon is the coolest and hottest social bookmarking service nobody has heard of.  I love it but I don’t nearly use it enough: either as a stumbler or as a marketer. I found this on Blog Marketing Journal and thought I would open it up to you:

In case you are not familiar with the concept, StumbleUpon allows you to pay for visitors to your pages, five cents per visitor or click. The question is, do you consider this to be a simple form of paid advertising, or paid social bookmarking.

I have done some experiments with paid Stumbling and what BMJ says is true:

If you set a limit of $20 per day, you will get 400 visitors. They may stay on your page or they may spend five seconds and disappear. Where the situations changes is when they thumbs up your page. That’s a stumble and can lead to more than just the 400 visitors.

So, in this case, content is key, and good content will result in conversions and interest.  If you just throw money at it without thinking your content or strategy through, you will be disappointed with the results, especially since there’s nobody on the planet more savvy than the gang from StumbleUpon — these are earl-adopters and are just the people you want to love you but these are the worse people to piss off. Just because you’re paying to have your content promoted doesn’t mean that people are prevented from digging the content down (thumbs-down) or writing scathing comments.

Read more…

No Comments » Posted on July 6th, 2008 by Chris Abraham

Filed under: Ad Budgets, Ad Buys, Ad Sales, Advertising, PR Ethics, PR Hubris, PR Industry, Public Relations, Social Meda, Social Media PR

CMOs and marketing managers have to wake up.  As do ad execs, PR honchos, and social media heavyweights.  That’s because if we don’t, we’re not serving our clients well.

Advertising is a form of marketing.  Public relations is a form of marketing.  Social media in most contexts is a form of marketing.

In fact, social media often becomes a form of advertising and it often becomes a form of PR at the same time.  That’s because it helps formulate marketing messages.   It strengthens and enhances a brand.  It builds relationships with customers.  Much about social media is new, but much about it’s foundation is in traditional marketing concepts…word of mouth, customer service, sampling, display advertising.

I’m finding though, that just as ad agencies and PR firms often don’t talk to one another, neither do they seem to want to talk to the new kids on the block.  Social media agencies. This is not so much from my direct experience here at Abraham Harrison (although I’m sure it happens), but from my observation from industry trends from my experience in trying to bring in work for A&H.  The ad agency that doesn’t know jack about social media that also doesn’t know who the hell what PR firm their client is using for the major rebranding effort that both are undertaking.  The PR agency that refuses to take the effort to reach across the table to to the ad agency in order to integrate social media capabilities that they either say they have or farm out for.

This is bullshit.

Who’s to blame?  For the most part, I’d say the clients.  Followed by the perceived lead agency of an entire marketing effort.

Both sides should realize that they need to work together to create consistent messages.  Both sides need to play a role in each others strategy sessions.  And they need to bring in social media…as oppose to keep them at bay.

But I blame the company marketing decision makers the most.  It’s their responsibility to, at the very least, INTRODUCE the players.  And knock heads if there is resistance.  But all too often they don’t.  They don’t seem to understand that its vital.  And when they don’t, the key players will often resist involvement with one another.  Hunker down.  Don’t work together.  Sort of like a business merger between two rivals.  Or two law enforcement departments that won’t reveal their findings from investigations.  Turf war crap.

I see a ton of missed marketing/promotional/branding opportunities because one side doesn’t know what the other is doing.  I see problems taking longer to solve - if they get solved at all - because working together is not a priority.  I see great ideas go by the wayside because the concept couldn’t be extended across marketing firms.

It’s stupid, it’s unprofessional, and it hurts all of us.

CMOs and marketing managers need to bring their marketing vendors - and remember, marketing types always positions themselves as “partners” - together.  So we will really be partners.

Otherwise, we’ll all be failures.

No Comments » Posted on July 2nd, 2008 by Jonathan Trenn

Filed under: Abraham Harrison, Abraham Harrison LLC, Abraham Harrison Staff, Activating Bloggers, Ad Budgets, Advertising, Andy Sernovitz, Asset Distribution, Blog Messaging, Blog Strategy, Blogger Engagement, Blogger Influence, Blogger Outreach, Blogger Relations, Blogger Response, Brand Advocacy, Brand Ambassador, Brand Promotion, Branding, Branding Online, Consumer Generated Media, Conversation Marketing, Crisis Management, Direct Marketing, I Will Not Be Broken, Influencer Identification, Influencers, Influencial Bloggers, Internet Strategy, Jerry White, Marketing Conversation, New Marketing, Online Advertising, Online Advocacy, Online Avertising, Online Brand Promotion, Online Branding, Online Communications, Online Conversation, Online Influence, Online Marketing, Online Messaging, Online Outreach, Online Public Relations, Promotional Strategy, Public Relations

Andy Sernovitz’s blog’s name says it all, and definitely reflects my response to reading this: Damn, I Wish I’d Thought of That!, especially in his post Instant Word of Mouth for Restaurants. From our experience doing blogger outreach and blogger gift-giving, this is on-the-money advice you should all consider (Via Chris Abraham — Because the Medium is the Message):

Read more…

No Comments » Posted on June 3rd, 2008 by Chris Abraham

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