Ad Sales Blog

Engage or die

Denise Shiffman’s new book "Age of Engage" is insightful, illuminating, and potentially terrifying for media sales people. Shiffman lays bare what the marketers we sell our ads to will be expecting in the next 10 years and sees a future requiring different skill sets and media products. In this world media consumers demand total engagement and control over the content we now dispense at our discretion.

Although she offers little specific advice on transforming our current products into Web 2.0 versions she clearly describes what expectations of all Web products and services must be. Here is a handy chart from the book describing expectations of the old vs. new Web:  

According to Denise:

"The original, static Web drew millions of companies online to offer information about their products, and to sell their wares. The second coming of the Web has transformed the online marketplace into an interactive, personal, and communal space. Consumers have been transformed from passive viewers and choosers to active and powerful beacons collectively creating winners and losers. Breaking through the clutter of voices in this new marketplace is an audacious challenge for any marketer. E-mail, viral, search, social, widgets, avatars, authenticity,and story make up the new language. New media, tools, and technologies have to be mastered to remain in the game. In this reinvention
of marketing, it is the fast, the unique, the innovative and creative, the socially connected, and most importantly, those who engage their audience that will win."

How well will your next media products engage your community? Your future could depend on it. 

Download and read the first chapter of "Age of Engage" for free

Article in Chief Marketer on the book

Targeting the...crotch not blogs!

In early January www.ShapingYouth.org, a blog on marketing to children, complained to mass retailer Target about a new ad campaign that depicted a woman positioned on a target pattern with the bull’s-eye seemingly targeting her crotch.

What gives Target? A subliminal sexual message? A lapse into bad taste? Publicity through controversy?  Or, did their art director, so wrapped up in the "snow angel" theme, miss the obvious innuendo?

Mistakes happen, but Target's response to the criticism was a showstopper that enraged the blogosphere.

In an e-mail response published in today's News York Times Target replied:

“Unfortunately we are unable to respond to your inquiry because Target does not participate with nontraditional media outlets.”

“This practice,” the public relations person added, “is in place to allow us to focus on publications that reach our core guest,” as Target refers to its shoppers.

The Times covered the response:

Word of the exchange quickly spread and the blogosphere did not appreciate the slight. “Target doesn’t participate in new media channels?” asked the Web site for the Word of Mouth Marketing Association. Target “dismisses bloggers” commented the blog for Parents for Ethical Marketing. “Ahem! So bloggers don’t count!” Ms. Jussel chimed in on ShapingYouth."

How long the issue will rage in the blogosphere is hard to say. But a lot of people who held a fine opinion of Target think less so because Target did not offer a simple response to a blogger.

On your next call:

If you have a blog product to sell. Remind your client that while blogs often deliver small numbers, the readers can be extremely influential and able to quickly muster armies of like minded individuals that can do great harm. As Target may now be learning, ignore blogs at your peril.

Read the article in today's NY Times

"Dear NBC your ad stinks"

As an interactive evangelist you have to get tough with advertisers who send you lousy ad copy. In interactive media there is no place to hide when an ad does not perform. If an ad tanks on your blog, or website the advertiser will more often blame your media than their message.

B.L. Ochman, publisher of What's Next Blog, was faced with this situation and posts about the tough love she dished out to NBC who submitted poor ad creative for her blog: 

"Dear NBC - Please don't get me wrong: I love you for advertising on my blog. But I want you to get results so you'll keep coming back, and this ad sucks...

So I'd like to give you a little free advice about how to make your blog advertising more effective.

- The job of a blog ad is not to tell your story. Blog ads need to be intriguing, interesting or entertaining enough to get us to a convincing landing page where you have lots of room to tell us what you've got for us.

- Talk about us, not about you. Don't take this personally, but we don't care about you. All we care about is what you can do for us.

- What's the ROI? Tell us about what advertisers got in the last Olympics. All advertisers care about is ROI, either in orders or awareness. Give us stats. We don't care how many days are left before your Olympic coverage starts. We want you to tell us, in the headline, why we should care.

- Be topical, timely, edgy, and fun. Blog readers are inured to traditional advertising. They're here, and on other top blogs, looking for something new and interesting.

- Be clear! You want to get brands to advertise on NBC during the Olympics. Tell me in the headline why I should bring my clients to you

- Don't make your ad a black hole. When that dreadful flashing stops in the ad, you're left with what is basically a black hole.

- White space is your friend in blog ads. You're competing with lots of copy that my readers came here - by choice - to get. What you have is basically a blob of copy, and since it's not easy to read at a glance, it's pretty much invisible. Less is more in blog ads.

- Don't scream in blog ads. You need to be clever.- Have a sense of humor.

- Don't be boring.

Read all of B.L. Ochman's story on her blog

The power of blogs is in...journalists?

Selling sponsored Blogs can be though. Many are sold on the blogger's reputation when traffic is not high enough for a "by the numbers" buy.

But the power of blogs is often not about big numbers, rather in their ability to influence the the influencers.

The Arketi Group, an integrated marketing and public relations consultancy, released a study of journalists last  month that can help you make this point stick.

On a call:

Share this point: Journalists are clearly influencer's in what ever field they are in. They help shape opinion and attitudes within an industry or category.

Now share content from the study:

According to the study, blogs are now a big influence on journalists. The "2007 Arketi Web Watch Survey: Inside B-to-B Media Usage of Web 2.0" revealed that when it comes to using blogs as primary or secondary sources for articles, 84 percent of journalists say they would or already have.

Sixty percent of journalists say they spend more than 20 hours a week on the Internet. When asked how journalists use the Internet:

• 98 percent say reading news
• 97 percent say emailing
• 93 percent say finding news sources
• 89 percent say finding story ideas
• 72 percent say reading blogs
• 67 percent say watching webinars or webcasts

Share this information with your client. Then share that the same kind of information that journalists find so useful is also the content that industry leaders also find useful. Blogs influence the influencers. How about a sponsorship? 

Read the release on the Arketi web site

Download a report of the findings

Study: strong link between ad spend, blogs, and buzz

For new publications looking to sell advertising, buzz sells, and blogs spread the buzz.
So says a new study from Nielsen's BASES research division on new media launches which found a big correlation between big media spend and the buzz generated by blogs.

"Marketing strategies that separate advertising and paid media from pure word-of-mouth tactics can be severely misguided, according to a just-completed study by The Nielsen Company, which found that high blog interest, or buzz, around new product launches is tightly linked to paid media spending."

While this might be great news as you launch a brand extension, consider what this means for your existing portfolio. Blogs are a great way to build buzz, and buzz sells!

Read a report on the study in MediaWeek

Read the press release posted on the Nielsen site