Mad Men 360: Augmented Reality Breaks New Ground in Advertising

By Ron Callari

Mobile Advertising will set some new ground rules that will differentiate it from traditional ads in other mediums. Brands and advertising agencies are in development now to determine how to engage and target audiences to interact with a product or service using augmented reality overlays. Experience dating back to the Mad Men of the 1960s has shown that engagement moves the consumer from idea and awareness to familiarity and sale. Augmented Reality aids that process in ways not thought of, even a few years ago.

Working with mobile devices, augmented reality is used to overlay information markers from the virtual world onto real-life images. For example, street scenes can be enhanced where augmented reality applications apply overlaid context, images and/or videos relating to a business establishment’s pricing and promotions.

Augmented reality is a valuable adjunct to any type of marketing campaign.  However it hasn’t reached critical mass yet in terms of how many users can and will use it when it’s made available. This year, marketers will be looking closer at integrating AR to move their marketing message(s) forward. While there are presently no ad agencies that devote themselves solely to mobile augmented reality advertising, there are several new firms, consulting groups and brands that are experimenting within this space.

Tina Whitfield, CEO of EquisGlobal is one of the new breed of marketing firms testing the waters in this new arena. Her company is described as “a flexible organization that easily plays a ground game, gets dirty, goes guerilla, and drives impressive consumer acquisition numbers.” In a recent EConsultancy article titled Augmented Reality for Mobile Advertising, she espouses the need for augmented reality to reach beyond the ‘cool factor’ to become a ‘pleasant experience” in motivating new users.
In a recent interview with Whitfield, she talks about a dichotomy as to what software engineers are focused on versus ad agencies. “Creative agencies are trying to dance their way through technology and technology agencies are trying to sing their way through the science of branding,” she notes.

She asserts that mobile marketers need to embrace, hire, and learn from engineering and product management talent that are working on mobile handset development. “The data is there - tons of it - on how users like to engage with the mobile screen.  You don’t spend hundreds of millions of dollars developing a single handset without due diligence,” she says.

With such a small viewing screen, it would seem that smartphones aren’t the most ideal medium to view augmented reality ads. Whitfield disagrees. “Users who just want to see the world through that screen” might find the AR data feeds and overlays as clutter, but those who are seeking out data fields “find value in AR mobile advertising to assist them in finding restaurants, bars, emergency rooms and other types of facilities,” she says.

Users’ experiences vary, “but clutter is the result of the brand not standing out in proper balance to the scenery.” notes Whitfield. Too many, ads dropped into a street scene can be a turn-off and she emphasizes that, “most app developers wouldn’t allow this to happen, nor would most brand marketers.”

5th Finger is a firm that helps brands navigate the diverse technologies in the mobile space. When CEO, Patrick Collins compares AR ads to traditional online ads, he sees them having “less clutter.”  “On the web, most people are attuned to shutting out the clutter of ads around their content. The experience is newer and more engaging on the smartphone and so click-thru rates tend to be an order of magnitude higher with mobile advertising when compared to online advertising,” he asserts.

With the new tablets soon to be released to the public, perhaps the larger screens these devices offer will overcome the small viewing screen hurdle. While Apple’s new iPad will not include a camera, the HP Tablet and the Dell Mini 5 (with a screen slightly larger than and iPhone) might be the answer. While Whitfield dismisses this option due to the weight of these devices being too cumbersome, Christopher Barger, director of global social media for General Motors says “larger viewing screens are definitely a great feature of tablets and they certainly set the stage for a second application renaissance and plenty of opportunities for Chevy products.”

Barger believes augmented reality mobile advertising is another avenue to support brand awareness versus creating a cause-and-effect sales transaction.  He points to the example of cars being a consumer’s ’second largest purchase decision in life.’ While mobile augmented advertising will not sell the vehicle outright, it will “continue to shape the brand’s image in conjunction with wider advertising, marketing and PR initiatives,” says Barger.

Barger’s team recently launched a mobile augmented reality campaign titled, ‘Chevy iReveal.’ It was inspired by location-app games like Foursquare, one of the current location-based social networks. GM’s marketing initiative promotes a virtual treasure hunt for consumers to unlock GPS-coordinates of hidden vehicles in cities across the U.S.

When the user is in the immediate vicinity of a vehicle, the ‘virtual’ car will be revealed and appear in the real world setting. Once unlocked, it may be a Camaro in Times Square, or a Volt in front of Mann’s Chinese Theatre.

The incentive to keep using the app, is the ’surprise factor’ relating to the updates GM will be adding with each new vehicle they include in the program, as well as new functionality that will offer users the opportunity to view ‘interiors’ and hear new ’sound effects.’

The Beta version of this mobile app will debut at the South by Southwest (SXSW) Festival in Austin, Texas beginning March 12. GM will incorporate learnings from the Beta and enhance the application, releasing the full application in Detroit, New York and Los Angeles in April. New vehicles and new locations will be added subsequently throughout 2010. Updates will be posted to Facebook.com/Chevrolet.
The Chevy iReveal initiative is similar to an AR Ad campaign launched by Ikea in 2009, where their AR ‘Portable Interior Planner’ application gave customers the ability to see exactly how Ikea furniture could look in their homes prior to a purchase. Designed by the advertising firm of Ogilvy in partnership with the development group Mindmatic, photos of a room in one’s home taken by a smartphone merge with the app to insert the ‘un-purchased’ furniture into the room.  In this case, a clock was placed into a potential consumer’s living room.

Since AR mobile advertising is a relatively new marketing technique, there has not been a lot of tracking or analysis pertaining to ROI. Collins notes that “to track ROI on early technologies like this is simply too difficult given the early experimentation occurring - no two experiences are the same, so trying to develop standard measurements for them is less useful.”

Barger also feels calculating ROI should not necessarily be the sole objective. App downloads, vehicle awareness, positive branding, app rating reviews, user time spent on the app and positive press about the app are all important components, but these types of campaigns will pay dividends over time, as GM continues to live and engage in this new technology. “This is not a comprehensive, catch-all application for Chevrolet. It is just one (fun) way for Chevy to engage with tomorrow’s car buyers on their own turf,” he says.

In my recent article titled, “Real-Time Augmented Reality: Future or Fantasy?“ it was apparent that the AR language was still under development and at present there was no universal standard code accepted by all developers. Similar to HTML, it will probably take a number of years before a consensus is reached on ARML. However Whitfield did not see this as a hindrance for agencies and brands in using this new technology. “Advertisers should not be picking up ‘AR for Dummies’ to code an app,” she jests. “They need to hire a development shop or developers who are skilled in mobile software development with engineering degrees and expertise in the field to develop their apps and embed the code into the advertising.”

Barger believes it would be easier if “it were standardized to paint all smartphone users with the same brush.” However, with a segmented audience, it forces us to look closely at our core demographic and how to best reach them, no matter what device they are using,” he adds.

For those looking to learn more about AR in mobile advertising, Whitfield suggests attending Cellular Telecommunications Association and Mobile World Congress annual events while both Barger and Collins recommend SXSW that’s held in Austin every March.

How to Cross Promote: The Interactive Solution

Insider Profile: Stephen Strong, Global Director of Interactive, Alberto Culver

Stephen Strong, global director of Interactive, Alberto Culver, oversees interactive marketing strategies for brands such as TRESemme, Nexxus, VO5 and Noxzema. He has been with Alberto Culver for a year and a half.

Prior to that, Strong was the director of interactive for Draftfcb’s Chicago office for eight years. He has more than 15 years interactive marketing experience working with brands that include Kraft, Sears, SC Johnson and Motorola.

At the upcoming Digital Media Measurement & Pricing Summit, Strong will address developing a strategic approach for campaign success, identifying key performance indicators and delivering ROI.

DMB’s Barbara Gengler spoke to Strong about his interactive approach to ad campaigns.

How did you integrate Alberto Culver’s branded content from website to paid media and social media?
We talked about what to use as a spark to have an engaging experience with consumers to support our campaign. The struggle is what’s the big idea to do online? How to create original content to put online?

At Alberto Culver, there are similar challenges to do social media more than product banners on the Internet. There are also sweepstakes and sponsorships to put the message out there. We looked at the marketing pushes last year and started with them and where can we take that to the present marketing events to get that message out there.

We are a big sponsor of the Fall 2010 season of Mercedes-Benz Fashion Week, which took place from Feb. 11-18 in New York City, and for a little more money we had a video crew on stage capturing the video so we could put it in online.

Alongside the sponsorship, TRESemme launched TRESemme TRESpass, an exclusive group on Facebook that gives women instant, VIP access to the latest looks. The site features video on how to get the hair seen on the runway and tips on upcoming fall hair trends.

This year we are ramping up the media across distribution channels and testing out ways to push the content out and on to our Facebook page.

How did you expand its reach and effectiveness? What were the results?
For social media we aren’t so interested in the cost efficiency, since it is so low cost to maintain/upload our videos. But we are looking at consumer engagement (which videos get the most views, which gather the most fan comments/”likes”) to help determine what type of content they are most interested in. We would use this information to guide the type of video content we produce for the next program.

Paid media gets the best results and within paid media you get the most efficient views. We are testing out different ways to push it out there from a media standpoint.

On top of that, raising awareness and brand site/Facebook, people are coming there to look at that site on their own accord. We are providing content people are interested in and using the same content to re-establish with users how you serve it up.

Could you talk about identifying relevant Key Performance Indicators?
For online media/video distribution, we mainly look at cost efficiency, (cost per view), which will tell us which media channels are able to capture the most eyeballs at the lowest cost.

We would then pair that with message effectiveness (ComScore, Dynamic Logic, etc.) which tells us how consumers were affected after viewing the videos (association with TRESemme, increased purchase intent, etc.)

We would combine these learnings to identify the best sites/video networks to use for the next program. Also we did get a lot of comments about the content on the web pages and what brand advantages are connected.

How could they increase the effectiveness of digital ad spend?
From my point of view, I hate banner advertising, it’s a huge mistake with the focus on banner ads. I think I would challenge public relations agencies, media agencies to a no banner media campaign.

This should not be where the industry is going as banner advertising has always been terrible. Take that content elsewhere.

We want to put the content together and distribute it ourselves on Facebook, to the media sites, with some control over it. We’ve started looking at the media programs, most of them, and found this is what we want, and we ask them are you in or out?

We’re coming back with a better strategy and the media sites are open to this type of program. You have to get involved with the media content the agencies are creating.

Basically from my point of view, 80 percent of what I hear during a panel discussion is irrelevant. Most of the upcoming session will be from a strategic approach, a case study, examples of how to do it with no events. This is a type of approach you could use.

Spinning Tweets of Gold: Twitter’s Revenue Model

By John Greaves

Twitter, the social networking giant that has revolutionized the way we interact with each other and search for information, seems to be planning to monetize using third-party applications. On the other hand, it might be planning to charge companies for access to its site’s products. Or maybe it will just sell ad space. It’s still not clear despite Twitter co-founder Biz Stone’s promise that we would know how his company plans to start making money in early 2010.

The question of Twitter’s move toward monetization has been a topic of discussion for years, and of course, Twitter has a history of promoting third-party apps without being paid for them. So intense is interest in how Twitter will monetize that a hoax last year concerning paying for premium accounts led to a firestorm of outrage that increased when protesters learned they were the victims of a prank by BBspot.

This is partly because Twitter’s investors have long maintained that they were in no hurry to make money off the micro-blogging site. Stone told reporters in 2009 the company wasn’t fretting about the need to monetize. “There are no dates when we need to break even. We have plenty of money in the bank,” he says.

The question remains, what is Twitter planning and will it be successful? In 2007 Evan Williams, co-founder of Twitter and the current CEO, let slip some of the ways he thought the site could generate income. “Two more-straightforward ideas: 1) Ads on the site. We have a little AdSense on there now, but we haven’t really tried. As the traffic grows, some tasteful sponsorships might be sellable. 2) Charging companies who are using it for marketing or other commercial purposes. If an organization finds Twitter to be a valuable communication tool with their customers/constituents/etc — especially if we’re sending lots of SMS’s for them, which cost us money — it seems viable to make an offering around that,” he said.

Steve Hofstetter, a comedian who has helped create apps for Facebook and the iPhone as part of promoting his brand, is enthusiastic about Twitter monetizing through ad revenue.  “Click on their website right now, you know they have that little useless twitter definition, who gets utility out of that? People in the office enjoy that, if you made that a tiny little ad; it doesn’t just give utility to Twitter, marketers put ads on sites because they’re good for the consumer, I’ve found good stuff through banner ads,” Hofstetter says.

Nevertheless, according to Radar Research founder Marissa Gluck there is a problem with simply relying on advertising to monetize social media. “In terms of advertising, click-through rates and engagement historically tend to be very low on social networks, consumers aren’t really there to search out products or to purchase, they’re not in that mode, they’re not in that mentality, so consumers are not really engaging with ads on social networks because they want to engage with their friends,” Gluck says.

On the other hand, Gluck points to the fact that Twitter wears many hats in the social media arena and can perhaps choose multiple revenue streams to be successful including the second option Williams mentioned. “Twitter is everything from a social network to an RSS feed to a broadcasting platform, so Twitter is a little bit different, which is why for Twitter it makes more sense to look towards paid subscriptions from commercial enterprises as well as advertising,” Gluck says.

Ian Swanson, the CEO of Sometrics, a company that helps developers and brands monetize the social Web, thinks Twitter is right to avoid the ad model for now. “If you look at the expertise of the company, you’ve got to say is this a media company, is this a company that belongs on Madison Avenue or is this a tech company? They really know their strengths. Hey we’re really good at building this platform, really good at the technology - so let’s allow the brands and third-party applications to build on top of our platform and if we go through and charge people for that access, almost like taxing the system, eventually they’re going to make money and that’s just a smart approach for them.”

This echoes comments made by Stone to the Reuters Global Technology Summit in May 2009. “”There are no people at Twitter who know anything about advertising or work in advertising. So we don’t have anyone there to make or take those calls,” Stone says.

It is obvious that third-party applications have figured out how to monetize using Twitter. A PR Newswire press release notes that TwitterJobSearch, the first real-time job search engine, has evolved its offering to include an In-Stream Ads service. Back in 2007, Steve Poland even blogged on easy ways to make money with Twitter using third-party applications. Ad.ly “enables Twitter publishers to make money from the content they produce on Twitter by sending one tweet every day from advertisers that they approve.”

The question is not whether it’s possible for Twitter to monetize itself. Rather everyone is wondering whether 2010 will be the year when Twitter begins to spin tweets into gold.

Greater Than One

• Location: New York, NY
• Notable clients: Genentech, Texas Children’s Hospital, Estroven
• Number of Employees: 70
• URL: www.greaterthanone.com

Headquartered in New York City, Greater Than One is an agency that specializes in all aspects of digital marketing.  While the company has clients in a number of industries, it has enjoyed the most success in the healthcare field. The agency has been awarded many prestigious honors since launching in 2000, including being named by Entrepreneur Magazine as one of the top 500 franchises.

DMB’a Contel Bradford recently caught up with Elizabeth Apelles, Greater Than One’s CEO, to get the inside scoop on one of the industry’s major players.

What qualities make Greater Than One stand out in the increasingly competitive digital marketing space?
Our partnership model, which has attracted a team of proven digital marketing professionals. Our structure, which teams up strategists and marketing experts with technology masterminds. Our digital experience, which is simply unsurpassed. And our ability to help businesses that have complex customer relationships to maximize their opportunities. These are the four differentiators that uniquely define us.

What is your most popular marketing solution and why?
Our solutions have evolved over the past 10 years, so there is no real one most popular. I would say that our most popular offering is clarity of thought, purpose and results. We are in the business of using all available digital tactics and strategies both those available today, and at the same time prepare for those that we know are on the  horizon —  to build our clients businesses and to enable them to make long lasting and mutually rewarding connections with all of their stakeholders.

That’s for our clients. If you ask the children who’ve we’ve worked with through Greater Good, they’ll tell you our most popular offering is giving them the ability to be self sufficient.

Please explain to our audience why today’s businesses should consider integrating analytics with their marketing strategy.
When it comes to strengthening relationships between brands and customers, the past can often help define the future. We know smart analytics — based upon a review of important data points-can provide real guidance in the development of smart marketing strategies. But not just run of the mill analytics. At Greater Than One we strive to understand how people think as well as how they behave.  So, our Measurement and Analytics practice combines the art of consumer insight with the science of statistical analysis. The result is smarter solutions and better measurement that leads to more effective investment.

Our process integrates consumer and customer insights, media and site performance analytics, database behavioral analytics and ROI analysis and design. Through a deep understand of each of these disciplines, we offer our clients a truly integrated, fact-based strategies and initiatives.

The sky appears to be the limit for mobile marketing?  What is your outlook on this fast growing segment of the industry?
Some have dubbed 2010 as ‘the year of mobile marketing.’ This is not the first year to be tagged with that moniker. Unlocking the potential of mobile marketing in the US has been more difficult than any industry analysts have predicted. There are two factors responsible for the slow growth (compared to other geographies around the world) of US mobile marketing.

The first is the overwhelming successes in the online digital space. Online search, display, and social media have become staples of Fortune 500 company marketing budgets, often at the expense of traditional media like TV and print. Many senior marketers are just now adjusting to the online digital sea change, and are wary of reducing traditional media budgets further to test a new ‘emerging’ platform. The same agency execs who grabbed off 10-30 percent of the company ad budget for online media are looking for more digital dollars for mobile, and never suggesting it could be funded from existing digital budgets.

The second limiting factor is penetration of 3G service. In recent years, despite significant hype around the mobile Web and 3G capabilities, as of the end of 2009 only 40 percent of mobile users had access to 3G mobile web services.  The cost of service is the reason most often quoted for the limitation of 3G penetration.

There has been one recent development, though, that could accelerate the growth of 3G and 4G. That is the Apple vs. Google battle that is brewing as the Android operating system takes on the dominance of the iPhone in the 3G space. With the launch of the ‘Google phone,’ the Nexus One, Google made its boldest foray to date into the mobile marketplace. The real game changer is that the service providers are no longer supporting one or the other platform exclusively; Verizon will soon have a version of the iPhone (previously exclusive to AT&T) and AT&T is already selling Android phones.

There are other concerns, including the form factor (really small ads), privacy and security. However for direct response marketers, the nature of the device (it’s a phone, after all) means it’s made for interactivity, and therefore holds tremendous promise for one to one marketing.

In your opinion, what is the single most important thing Greater Than One has learned during its 10 years in the digital marketing business?
Over the past 10 years we have learned that our initial thinking — focusing on what is best for our clients — is the right thinking.  It has never been about doing the easiest or most profitable or “coolest” thing, it has always been about doing the right thing.

By keeping our clients’ business needs at the forefront, we have the right focus and the right priority.  And, ultimately, what is best for our clients is best for us.  Over the past 10 years we have developed successful, long-term  relationships and business successes of which  both we and our clients are justifiably proud.

The Paywall Debate: A Historical Perspective

By Sheila Shayon

The New York Times Company recently announced a paid, metered model for  the beginning of 2011. Users will have free access to an - as yet - unspecified number of articles per month, and then be charged when usage exceeds that number.

What they’re looking for - like all Web publishers, is additional revenue streams. The company says this will provide the “necessary flexibility to keep an appropriate ratio between free and paid content and stay connected to a search-driven Web.”

“Our new business model is designed to provide additional support for The New York Times‘ extraordinary, professional journalism,” says Arthur Sulzberger, Jr., chairman of The New York Times Company and publisher of The New York Times. “Our audiences are very loyal and we believe that our readers will pay for our award-winning digital content and services.”

News Corp, the largest and loudest proponent of ‘pay-to-play’ online content, has also begun rolling out pay walls for its online news. “We’ll be charging for online wherever we have publications,” says chairman and CEO, Rupert Murdoch. “Consumers are willing to pay to be entertained and informed.”

And therein lies the problem.  According to Joseph Turow, professor of Communication at the University of Pennsylvania’s Annenberg School for Communication, “The media history of the 20th century has been teaching people that content is cheap. It goes as far back as the late 19th century, when The Ladies Home Journal and Saturday Evening Post exhorted readers to buy what their advertisers were selling, because they support your magazine. There has always been the intrusion of advertisers - you, the consumer, don’t have to pay for anything because it’s all ad-supported. But - this does not work on the Web.”

Media history is a series of outmoded distribution and economic models being ported from one technology to another - without requisite reinvention or evolution: newspapers and radio to TV and now the Internet. The basic equation of distribution, access and revenue - has not yet been adjusted for the Web.

A bit of historical perspective is helpful in understanding the axial moment we’ve arrived at today regarding a fundamental shift in the delivery and economics of mass media. It was the advertising industry, in the 1920s, which first coined the term medium as a backdrop to placing ads across different media, which were previously known as publications.

In the early 1960s, Marshall McLuhan coined the term global village. It described the end of an individualistic, visual, print culture due to emerging electronic media, which would move society from individualism and fragmentation to a collective identity, and a “tribal base.” These comments, made in the 1960s, of a global village, interconnected by an electronic nervous system pre-dated the Internet but stamped the concept into the DNA of popular culture 30 years before it actually happened.

Digitally defined pay walls have been compared to the Internet equivalent of the Berlin Wall. Professional journalists fear the disintermediation wrought by the Web, especially the burgeoning forms of social media such as blogging, and massive content factories employing amateur experts for meager wages.

Simultaneously, it’s a fact that bloggers and crowdsourcing are uncovering news otherwise not covered. Traditional journalists writing behind pay walls are prevented from building their own personal brands, while un-credentialed and unskilled writers can rise to the top of their peer heap in meritocratic online communities.

The explosion of social media bloggers underscores the fact that the online experience is not just about the content.  It is about the relationship. Pay walls limit a news organization’s relationship with its customers - the public.

Pay wall proponents are exponents of news organizations no longer providing free content at point of delivery. The underlying theory is that this will augment the value of news content by reinstating rules of scarcity and habituating a new generation to paying for news.

The pay wall protestors affirm a fundamental lack of understanding of the information abundance era — a misguided effort to sustain a 20th century ethos of intermediated media. Charging for content depends on an entitlement environment, an antiquated business model built on scarcity and publishers who control the food chain.

Charging is replete with its own lack of profitability: increased marketing expenses; smaller audience; less ad revenue; fewer clicks and links. The new linked economy, leveraging networks and specialization efficiencies born of Web usage, demands collaboration.

The following timeline takes a historical point of view on major metrics for when the media of newspaper, radio, television and Internet reached mass (for the time) distribution, and how and when audiences began to pay for content. The incubation period ranges from 1615 years for newspapers; 21 years for radio and 14 for TV. The Internet still hasn’t been able to prove a pay model for its content, but e-commerce agent, Amazon, did post a profit in 2002.

The entire content industry is in upheaval. Transformative technology, free public classified sites like Craigslist, the impact of the economy on advertising and fundamental changes in consumer habits, add up to new rules and shifting business models.

“We are now in the midst of an epochal debate over the value of content, and it is clear to many newspapers that the current model is malfunctioning,” Newscorp’s Murdoch says.

One thought is that e-readers may ’save the goose,’ holding the line for charging at the handheld device portal.

“It’s a continual process of advertisers taking over and supporting media, and a continuing dilemma: denying the right of professionals to be paid for what they do. People go to The Huffington Post and feel they’ve read the NY Times. The propositions that worked historically for radio and TV were ported to the Internet and they just don’t work there,” Turow says.

Arrayent

The Internet of Things took a major step toward becoming a more widely distributed reality this year when Arrayent introduced its Internet-Connect System at CES in January. This complete end-to-end communication system enables companies to connect their products to Internet-based applications at very low cost, with high reliability. The technology enables customers to monitor and control products from a smartphone or web browser. The company sees three markets that are particularly interested in integrating this kind of connectivity into their products: home automation suppliers looking for ways to connect customers’ home LANs to remoter diagnosis and repair suppliers; companies in the health monitoring field who want to connect their products to web apps such as Google Health and Microsoft HealthVault; and companies making toy and entertainment devices such as ebook readers, personalized radio and connected physical toys. Mattel selected Arrayent’s technology for its IM-ME, wireless messaging system designed for girls ages 8 and up. Over 100,000 units have already shipped in the U.S.

Features

• Rapid time to market
• Low-cost alternative method of connecting to Internet
• Small memory footprint
• Data rates from 250kps to 2Mbps, ideal for telemetry ad light media applications
• Low-power consumption; 12-month battery life on 3 AAA batteries

Learn more about the features that Arrayent technology brings to Mattel’s IM-ME.

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