A lot of talented manpower from the traditional ad agencies have formed start ups, mainly in the digital and mobile area. What motivates them to do so is the freedom from the organisational structures and office politics. Until recently, the ad business was dominated by the three main players — WPP, Omnicom and Publicis, which are the agency-networks. This dominance is likely to end very soon in this fast changing environment. What is necessary is a marketing process that is faster, better and economical. That happens when technology is exploited to facilitate the marketing process. In marketing process, we include creating communications, producing them, distributing them. We also consider targeting the consumers and measuring the effects. There is no full satisfaction of the clients in the traditional agency system. A start up called Mob is mobile first agency. It proposes to do braver and more experimental work. Another start up called Brave New World promoted Pocketman jeans with 13 pockets for online brand Myntra. They did not do the traditional promotion, but instead kept a man with a 13-pocket jean, with a 13-pocket jean, all stuffed with survival items, in captivity for 48-hours. This was the longest continuous livestream in the history of YouTube India. Zero Zero, a start up, creates offering around brand communication and design. Tango Media focuses on its patented inventions, e.g. an app where a consumer calls a brand over feature phone or smartphone.
Month: July 2015
Microsoft Reinvents Itself
Windows 10 being launched in July 2015 is the re-invention of Microsoft. It is going to be offered as a free update to users of windows 7 and 8. Henceforth, no new versions of windows will be sold. Instead there will be frequent updates on subscription basis. It is the recognition of the fact that the rules of the software industry have changed. Apple passed on free software, which is subsidised by the profits it makes on hardware sale. Google passes on free software which is subsidised by its advertising revenue. Windows still retains its position as the largest selling PC OS. Here also there are two factors — the overall sales of PCs are showing decline. Google’s Chrome OS and Apple’s Mac are competing with Microsoft. PCs are being replaced by small devices such as cell phones and tablets. Microsoft dipped its toes in water here by offering free apps of MS Office. Cortana, a Siri-like digital assistant has been added. Edge is the new Microsoft browser, which replaces Internet Explorer. Microsoft is shedding the snake skin to emerge as a new vibrant organisation.
Content Marketing
There are so many writers and blogs on Internet. Brand marketers can choose from these. There could be one firm which is content marketer. It partners with the content writers and bloggers. A soap maker will choose the relevant content and will put its advertisement there. Scatter is such tool. It charges advertisers for content, either on cost per word or articles purchased. The revenus earned from advertisers is shared by the content marketer with the publishers. To begin with, this was restricted to social media. Content marketers provide a platform to content owners and brands to come together. Video is the future of content marketing.Videos carry SEO titles.
Brands have become publishers. They publish targeted campaign from time to time. It could lead to direct conversions into sale, but a lot of content cannot achieve this. Every piece of content is not for conversion. A lot of content builds up a reputation for the brand among the target audience. The end objective is to build an emotional connect with the target audience. This will lead to conversions over a period of time. It is difficult to measure this. Though content marketing is used by the brands, the traditional channels of marketing continue to co-exist with it. Brand identity is the fulcrum around which all marketing efforts are directed. There should not be content marketing for the sake of doing it. Marketers must identify the essence of the brand first. This then should reflect in all forms of marketing.
Consumers resent anything that is not relevant to them, or which they find intrusive. They welcome messages that add value. Permission marketing is put in this context. Permission marketing is to be executed properly. There should not be sporadic or yes-no type messaging. The idea is to build a two-way engagement between the brands and the consumer.
Apple’s latest software for the iPhone and iPad is inimical to advertising. i0s9 operating system will allow the owners to download web browser extensions that can block advertising from being shown while they surf the web. This is not very encouraging. Apple has extended an olive branch — an app called News which will allow publishers to bypass blockers so that they can offer ads. Alternatively, they can let Apple sell ads and share the revenue. Publishers may think of new business models to make up for the lost advertising revenue. They can sell more sponsored content. It is a new form advertising popularized by Internet publishers called Buzzfeed. Here the advertisers pay for the articles.
Programmatic Advertising
The ultimate aim of advertising is to reach the right consumer at the right time, and ads are, therefore, targeted and segmented on this basis.This philosophy is incorporated in buying an inventory of ads.. This is facilitated by studying behavioural patterns of the consumers and using analytical tools. Thus there is no mad chase of the consumer by being present on all media. It is about being present with an offer exactly when the consumer is in need of it.
This is called programmatic advertising. It targets specific users at the right time with the right message. It leverages some of the information about their past online behaviour such as search pages visited and transactions done. It constantly follows the user. It is virtual stalking.
At times, this may lead to the appearance of the same ad on the sites he visits for a couple of days. It could be annoying. Of course, this raises the issue of the privacy of the consumer. Care is taken to make the data anonymous. Personally identifiable information (PII) is never shared.
In digital advertising, the publishers still sell about 80 percent of their digital inventory through manual deals. It allows them to command better ad rates. Only 20 per cent inventory is sold through programmatic
Inventory sold through manual deals is sold on the basis of cost per impression ( CPM ) . Established publishers get Rs.200-250 cost per impression. Newbies and second rung apps and sites get Rs 70-150 cost per impression. Cost of running ads during a video ranges from Rs 3-4 per view in case of popular sites.
A month’s fixed presence on websites/ m-sites/apps command Rs.5-6 lac. A roadblock dedicated to one advertiser costs Rs. 6-7 lac per day. This shows why the publishers prefer manual deals, rather than programmatic.
Let us see the break-up of digital advertising. It is a market worth Rs. 4800 crore. Of this, 35 per cent is accounted for by Search Engine Optimisation ( SEO ) and Search Engine Marketing ( SEM ). Display and Social media account for 42 per cent. Rest includes e-mail marketing, mobile advertising among others. Programmatic advertising is 10-15 per cent of display advertising. It currently stands at about Rs.300 crore.
Programmatic Buying Formats
There are basically three formats
- programmatic direct
- real time bidding ( RTB )
- programmatic PMP
Programmatic Direct: A buyer and a seller negotiate a fixed price. Thereafter, the inventory is traded on programmatic platforms. In this method, there is no auction.
RTB: Advertisers bid for inventories in an exchange environment and win impressions. In real time bidding, each impression is auctioned off. Each impression is priced individually.
Programmatic PMP: Within the real time bidding, there exists the private market places ( PMP ) option. Here the publisher opens the inventory to only a select group of buyers
In India, PMP and programmatic direct work better.
There are a number of agencies who provide programmatic services — Group M’s Xaxis, Komli Media, Appenexus, Chocolate. Some of these are pure demand side platforms ( DSPs ). Others are trading desks ( or ad exchanges ). Each has their own programmatic tools. Facebook has its own platform called Facebook Exchange ( FBX ) which allows real time bidding. Google has two different kind of platforms — one for advertisers, and the other for publishers. Digital agencies so far relied on third party tools but now aim at creating their own tools.
Which advertisers use programmatic? Many online e-commerce companies who have the ability to mine user consumption data. FMCG companies, beverage makers, automakers are catching up.
So far programmatic was restricted to digital advertising only. In the US, it has taken a leap from digital to television. A marketing and analytic software Turn has launched programmatic TV. It is a new tool to spot target audiences online and offline, across every device and channel.
In-film Placements of Brands
Tata Safari has been used in the film Road. In Yaadein ( 2001 ), brands like Coca Cola, Hero Cycles and Paas Pass were placed. Some film makers do not welcome such placements, as they feel that such placements might take away the emotions in a story-line. The brand’s presence may distract the viewers from the dramatic tension. Hollywood has used brand placements successfully in Bond movies with BMWs, Omegas and Smirnoff Vodka as preferred brands of Bond.In , a Bond movie, Aston Martin car and Finlandia have replaced BMW and Smirnoff respectively. In What Women Want, Nike’s new range Presto was launched. Spielberg’s Minority Report had an array of brands from a futuristic Lexus to Nokia, GAP, Aquafina and Pepsi.In Top Gun, Tom Cruiser uses RayBan glasses. Subhash Ghai’s Karz promoted music company HMV. Gardish placed Goodknight insect repellents. Taal ( 1999 ) placed brands like Coca Cola, BPL and Kenstar. Akshay Khanna, the hero sips Coke from the bottle tasted by the heroine. A brand is made a part of a story-line. Bobby ( 1970 ) had Escort’s smaller version of Raajdoot. The risk in placement is that the central idla of the film does not match what the brand stands for. The cost of placing a brand in a film could be anywhere from Rs. 10 lakh to Rs 2 crore. It has become an alternative revenue stream. Even news channels of TV have been placed in the movies, e.g. Aaj Tak has been used as a news-channel in Khakhee for its credibility and Star News has been used in Ek Hasina Thi.
Digital Advertising : Whether to opt for Ads or Apps
Ads do influence the behaviour and thinking. However, as action comes at the end, they just make us more favourable to the brands. Instead, why not to emphasise the direct action? The maxim should be ‘ acts ‘ rather than ‘ads ‘. Digital advertising has changed advertising as a whole drastically. There are more changes in the last 5 years than there were in the last 50 years. The main themes of contemporary advertising are : digital is life giving, story is to be shown rather than told on difficult screens, 24×7 media platforms require accelerated marketing, learn to manage risk, and good ideas can be delivered quick and cheap. There are different relationships people have with the four screens. TV screen is friendly. Computer screen is saintly. A tablet shows wizardry. Mobile is an intimate lover. Yes, the mobile screen’s intimacy is to be protected. Brands should not focus on ads but apps. Those brands which do this will be loved.
The emphasis is now not on scale, but scalability. Scalability requires collaborative partnerships which share our view of multi-polar world and culture. Scalability keeps the agency rooted to its vision.
Print Advertising
Since TV is too expensive, cluttered and fragmented, print seems to be having a revival. Print has geographic selectivity. It is cheaper and faster to produce and place ads in print. Though FMCG are yet to embrace print wholeheartedly, it is mainly durables who rely on print. There is media multiplier effect — the impact is greater when both press and TV are used.
There was a time when there was no shortage of copywriters who were willing to write print copy of 250 words. Print ads have now lost their bite. They simply look like bad posters. In a visually driven world, copywriting is a casualty. It has become almost inevitable that when an advertiser’s budget grows beyond a certain level, it triggers an automatic switch from print to TV. But the written word is still very powerful. Print will get back its glory if colleges begin producing copywriters again. It is not that the consumers have lost their ability to read, it is the industry that has lost its ability to write.
Media Professionals
Media professionals decide where, when and how the Rs 50000-odd crore worth of advertising money in this country is spent. Media has acquired a new status in the communications industry, and does no longer play a second fiddle to the creative and service people. Media was once a cost centre, today it has become a profit centre. Clients used to interact with media professionals just once a year. But now they prefer a close interaction with them on a continuous basis. Media plan requires constant monitoring and it incorporates charges as add when the dynamics of the environment demand it. Media has come to the forefront. We find individuals and agencies specialising in media. Media CEOs are young, dynamic and have capabilities to drive media as a business. Earstwhile media directors had strong technical knowledge, but they lacked business orientation. Media people also should have the ability to manage relationships as they deal with clients directly without using client services. Media people cannot afford to be back-benchers and introverts who are adept in number crunching. Managing client perception is as important as number crunching. Media job has become high-profile job with its own stress. Media professionals should form an industry-level body.
Death Appeal
Ad agencies considered death to be a taboo and avoided using themes of death and mortality in their campaigns. But slowly the veil is being lifted from this taboo, and dying is being used to get the message across. Benetton uses AID’s patient on death-bed in its campaign. Nike exhorts us to play hard since life is short. Dead celebrities are used to sell several products like Diet Coke. Posthumous promotion has been attempted for several products.
Receiving Scent Digitally
In those days of snail mail, you used to receive letters which were scented. In these days of emails and digital communication, there are efforts to recreate the aroma by employing a table top device oPhone or a cartridge Scentee that connects to a Smartphone, and is set up with an app. These days plastic pallets with scents are used, and aroma is released when air flows over them. A small pallet is called an oChip. These chips are arrayed in oPhone. Each chip contains one to four aromas. These chips are sold in packets of eight. These are families of similar smells. A person positions the chips depending upon the smell he desires, and air flows over them, and a combined smell is emitted. Each chip lasts for 1000 uses, and costs $2. oPhone is accompanied by a table top receiver.
A scented message can be sent by tagging a pic with oSnap iPhone app. The sender selects the aromas. The person at the receiving end taps for the scent. The app directs the receiver to position the air flow. A fan switches on and the device emits aroma. oSnap app is free on iPhone. It will be available on Android next year.
Scentee is simpler. Here liquid aroma is changed into an aerosol by a small motor. Each cartridge is good for 200 sprays.