In a sign of Hulu's growing clout for building brands, Pepsi has crafted retro-themed spots to run with Hulu's selection of shows from the 1970s and '80s.
The 15-second ads promote "Pepsi Throwback," a beverage launched in April to tap into the nostalgia market. It features packaging reminiscent of '70s designs -- and uses real sugar like the soft-drink recipe did 40 years ago.
Pepsi is running the commercials, beginning today, with vintage fare on Hulu like Hill Street Blues, Battlestar Galactica and The Mary Tyler Moore Show. In all, Pepsi plans to run 11 spots with more than 200 programs through June 15.
The beverage giant hopes the ads will connect with a youth audience that is discovering programs from the '70s and '80s thanks to Hulu. While many of the service's most popular shows are current TV hits, some older entries -- like Doogie Howser, M.D., Alf and Married...With Children -- have found a second life on the site.
"We know Millennials are craving this content," said Ana Maria Irazabal, Pepsi's U.S. brand marketing director. "What happened in the past is not old, it's considered new because they haven't seen it before."
In one spot called "Pet Rock," a Pepsi Throwback can chats with the U.S. Bicentennial-era collector's item about how the two "go way back." The clip closes with a shot of the Pepsi Throwback can on a shag carpet and the message "Made with real sugar" in psychedelic font. Other iterations feature the can bantering with other touchstones from the era, such as a fondue pot, an eight-track player and a Polaroid camera.
The program sprung from a collaboration between several Pepsi agencies, including brand shop TBWA\Chiat\Day, media agency OMD and digital strategy firm Undercurrent.
Pepsi also worked with IAC-owned youth entertainment site CollegeHumor.com to create three of the commercials. CollegeHumor's spots feature two guys spoofing the '80s. In one, they are shown playing videogames when a phone call arrives from someone who uses vintage catchphrases like "Eat my shorts."
The challenge was creating compelling ads on a shoestring budget, said Irazabel. "If we don't have cost efficiencies we wouldn't be able to produce 12 spots," she said. "They need to be nimble."
Hulu, which publicly launched 14 months ago, has quickly registered impressive growth. Estimates of its audience vary widely. According to ComScore, it attracted 42 million visitors in March. Nielsen, parent of Adweek, estimates its audience that month at 8.9 million. Both services believe Hulu's audience and views are up sharply.
Its advertising efforts have not kept pace, despite keen interest from brands in attaching themselves to high-quality, professional content. Hulu visitors frequently see public service ads, and nearly all the site's commercials consist of repurposed TV spots. Hulu CEO Jason Kilar has complained that not enough advertisers are crafting spots geared to the environment.
"Our goal is to target highly relevant environments and experiences for users and for advertisers' brands which ultimately allows us to increase the effectiveness of our advertising platform," Hulu svp of advertising J.P. Colaco said in a statement. "The Pepsi example is one that allows us to uniquely bring together more than 200 relevant archived shows with retro-themed advertising to create a more immersive and engaging experience."
[the article was originally published at http://www.adweek.com/aw/content_display/news/agency/e3i505437152ed713675ae9ae9f8bf96bf6]
Showing posts with label advertising. Show all posts
Showing posts with label advertising. Show all posts
Tuesday, May 19, 2009
Tuesday, April 28, 2009
Rise Of The Advertising Robots
Tim Cadogan pities the plight of the digital advertiser.
Big brands would love to advertise on small, niche-focused Web sites--think Mountain Dew on blogs about windsurfing, or Gerber baby food on sites about vegetarian parenting--but don't have the manpower to screen every site for quality content, let alone negotiate thousands of deals with different buyers.
Yet publishers have it even worse, says Cadogan, Yahoo!'s ( YHOO - news - people ) former head of global advertising. Editors who run small Web sites are so consumed producing content that titillates readers that they turn over their ad inventory to one of hundreds of resellers in exchange for pennies per view.
Through his Pasadena, Calif., start-up OpenX, Cadogan is working on an application to alleviate the anxiety of both beleaguered ad buyers and frustrated Web publishers. OpenX recently unveiled Market, an application that allows advertisers to automatically bid on access to narrow niches of readers across an array of small Web sites.
OpenX is one of many outfits seeking to automate the selling of hyper-targeted digital ads on the Web. A slew of firms--ranging from tiny start-ups to Web giants like Google ( GOOG - news - people )--have rolled out applications purporting to analyze online ad opportunities and help publishers and advertisers figure out how to allocate their respective ad inventories and budgets.
Many of these new applications promise to deploy demographic, geographic and personal interest data to identify attractive readers for advertisers wherever they land on the Web. Such micro-targeting may seem like a potential invasion of privacy, but user data analysis is an established practice. Most data collectors skirt privacy complaints by allowing Web users to block their tracking software.
The boom in new advertising optimization tools could reshape the $7.6 billion market for Internet display advertising. Leery of attaching the brand to sketchy Web content, big advertisers have historically preferred to deal with large Web publishers, such as the digital arms of newspapers and consumer magazines.
But ad tech executives and media planners say the new ad sales tools promise a cheap and efficient way for brands to screen and buy ads on smaller Web sites and blogs.
"These systems help advertisers cut through the clutter online, which will clearly help the 'long tail' publishers,'' says Kelly Twohig, a senior vice president at media planning agency Starcom ( SCME.PK - news - people ) in Chicago, whose clients include Allstate ( ALL - news - people ) and Capital One.
The potential for a reallocation of ad budgets from big publishers to smaller rivals comes at a stressful time for media giants. The New York Times Co. ( NYT - news - people ) announced this week that Web ad sales fell 6% and overall ad revenues dropped 28% year-over-year during the first quarter of 2009.
Earlier this month, Gannett ( GCI - news - people ), publisher of 85 daily newspapers including USA Today, reported that quarterly revenue decline 18% compared to last year.
Publishers participate in the OpenX Market by entering their advertising inventory--the spaces on their Web pages where ads can appear--into an online database and set a floor price for each slot. If an advertiser bids above that minimum, their ad appears on the Web site.
Along with buying on specific Web sites, Cadogan says that ad buyers will be able to use third-party data on Web users' personal interest, browsing history and demographics to find desirable segments of readers across all publishers participating in the market. Web sites currently use OpenX's software to deliver an estimated 300 billion impressions each month.
In addition to the challenge of convincing marketers to spend their ad budgets in a drastically different way, outfits like OpenX have to figure out how to emerge as leaders in an already competitive field.
"We've seen half a billion dollars of venture capital poured into building optimization and planning companies,'' says Matthew Hulett, chief executive of ad network and analytics firm Mpire.
This week, Hulett's firm unveiled an application to help advertisers track on which Web sites networks place ads, where on the actual screen the ad appears and if Web surfers pause their cursor over the ad. The tool is intended to help marketers better figure out how much of their ad spending is essentially worthless.
Google and Yahoo! both operate advertising exchanges that allow publishers to analyze how much revenue different ad sales techniques attract and help advertisers secure the best ad placement for the cheapest prices.
Rubicon Project, a two-year-old Los Angeles start-up that processes 40 billion impressions each month, helps Web sites compare ad prices delivered by different third-party ad brokers. This week, the company unveiled OnDemand, a service that lets advertisers automatically buy ads delivered to specific geographic, demographic and personal interest groups across a network of publishers.
PubMatic, a Silicon Valley start-up known in the ad world for publishing market reports on trends in ad prices, offers a similar optimization product aimed at big media companies' digital arms.
It's too early to say whether advertisers embrace the automated ad buying tools en masse. As people spend more of their lives online, marketers are desperate to reach them cheaply and efficiently. But, as Starcom media planner Twohig says, a human salesperson and trusted media product go a long way in attracting ad dollars.
[the article was orginally published at http://www.forbes.com/2009/04/24/advertising-internet-business-media-ad-data.html]
Big brands would love to advertise on small, niche-focused Web sites--think Mountain Dew on blogs about windsurfing, or Gerber baby food on sites about vegetarian parenting--but don't have the manpower to screen every site for quality content, let alone negotiate thousands of deals with different buyers.
Yet publishers have it even worse, says Cadogan, Yahoo!'s ( YHOO - news - people ) former head of global advertising. Editors who run small Web sites are so consumed producing content that titillates readers that they turn over their ad inventory to one of hundreds of resellers in exchange for pennies per view.
Through his Pasadena, Calif., start-up OpenX, Cadogan is working on an application to alleviate the anxiety of both beleaguered ad buyers and frustrated Web publishers. OpenX recently unveiled Market, an application that allows advertisers to automatically bid on access to narrow niches of readers across an array of small Web sites.
OpenX is one of many outfits seeking to automate the selling of hyper-targeted digital ads on the Web. A slew of firms--ranging from tiny start-ups to Web giants like Google ( GOOG - news - people )--have rolled out applications purporting to analyze online ad opportunities and help publishers and advertisers figure out how to allocate their respective ad inventories and budgets.
Many of these new applications promise to deploy demographic, geographic and personal interest data to identify attractive readers for advertisers wherever they land on the Web. Such micro-targeting may seem like a potential invasion of privacy, but user data analysis is an established practice. Most data collectors skirt privacy complaints by allowing Web users to block their tracking software.
The boom in new advertising optimization tools could reshape the $7.6 billion market for Internet display advertising. Leery of attaching the brand to sketchy Web content, big advertisers have historically preferred to deal with large Web publishers, such as the digital arms of newspapers and consumer magazines.
But ad tech executives and media planners say the new ad sales tools promise a cheap and efficient way for brands to screen and buy ads on smaller Web sites and blogs.
"These systems help advertisers cut through the clutter online, which will clearly help the 'long tail' publishers,'' says Kelly Twohig, a senior vice president at media planning agency Starcom ( SCME.PK - news - people ) in Chicago, whose clients include Allstate ( ALL - news - people ) and Capital One.
The potential for a reallocation of ad budgets from big publishers to smaller rivals comes at a stressful time for media giants. The New York Times Co. ( NYT - news - people ) announced this week that Web ad sales fell 6% and overall ad revenues dropped 28% year-over-year during the first quarter of 2009.
Earlier this month, Gannett ( GCI - news - people ), publisher of 85 daily newspapers including USA Today, reported that quarterly revenue decline 18% compared to last year.
Publishers participate in the OpenX Market by entering their advertising inventory--the spaces on their Web pages where ads can appear--into an online database and set a floor price for each slot. If an advertiser bids above that minimum, their ad appears on the Web site.
Along with buying on specific Web sites, Cadogan says that ad buyers will be able to use third-party data on Web users' personal interest, browsing history and demographics to find desirable segments of readers across all publishers participating in the market. Web sites currently use OpenX's software to deliver an estimated 300 billion impressions each month.
In addition to the challenge of convincing marketers to spend their ad budgets in a drastically different way, outfits like OpenX have to figure out how to emerge as leaders in an already competitive field.
"We've seen half a billion dollars of venture capital poured into building optimization and planning companies,'' says Matthew Hulett, chief executive of ad network and analytics firm Mpire.
This week, Hulett's firm unveiled an application to help advertisers track on which Web sites networks place ads, where on the actual screen the ad appears and if Web surfers pause their cursor over the ad. The tool is intended to help marketers better figure out how much of their ad spending is essentially worthless.
Google and Yahoo! both operate advertising exchanges that allow publishers to analyze how much revenue different ad sales techniques attract and help advertisers secure the best ad placement for the cheapest prices.
Rubicon Project, a two-year-old Los Angeles start-up that processes 40 billion impressions each month, helps Web sites compare ad prices delivered by different third-party ad brokers. This week, the company unveiled OnDemand, a service that lets advertisers automatically buy ads delivered to specific geographic, demographic and personal interest groups across a network of publishers.
PubMatic, a Silicon Valley start-up known in the ad world for publishing market reports on trends in ad prices, offers a similar optimization product aimed at big media companies' digital arms.
It's too early to say whether advertisers embrace the automated ad buying tools en masse. As people spend more of their lives online, marketers are desperate to reach them cheaply and efficiently. But, as Starcom media planner Twohig says, a human salesperson and trusted media product go a long way in attracting ad dollars.
[the article was orginally published at http://www.forbes.com/2009/04/24/advertising-internet-business-media-ad-data.html]
Friday, April 24, 2009
TiVo Promotes Ads It Hopes You’ll interact with, Not skip
The company that attacked television advertising is trying to resuscitate it.
TiVo, which allows viewers to digitally record programs and fast-forward through ads, is trying to sell ad spaces on its screens.
It is in a footrace with other companies, including Cablevision, Cox Communications and DirecTV, to offer interactive alternatives to the zapped-through television spots. The ads are called interactive because they ask the viewer to do something — enter in a new channel number, press a button on the remote — to get more information.
“In the last 18 months, the momentum has just lifted,” said Jacqueline Corbelli, the chief executive of BrightLine iTV, which designs interactive ads. “It’s started to become a staple of very large advertisers.”
In December, TiVo began offering ads that appear as a small piece of text when viewers pause a show. Advertisers can choose the specific show or genre they want their pause ad to appear on — Mercedes-Benz USA used it to promote a new car during football games earlier this year. TiVo also offers ads that appear when viewers fast-forward through shows. Advertisers that run regular 30- or 60-second spots can buy these, and when the viewer presses fast-forward, a static box appears. One for Tourism Australia shows a photograph of a girl on a beach with the text, exclaiming, “Don’t tell me I just skipped the Australia ad!” TiVo viewers are instructed to press the Thumbs Up button to see the ad and get more information.
Once a viewer interacts with its ads, TiVo can show them a video about the product, let them request more information or a coupon, or even let them configure a car with different colors and options. TiVo also sells ad space on TiVo Central, its home screen.
“By catching them at a time when they’re pausing the program, when they’ve finished with a program,” said Tara Maitra, vice president and general manager of content and advertising at TiVo, “the viewer’s main reason for being there isn’t being interrupted.”
TiVo is not the only company devising a solution to commercial-skipping. Cable and satellite companies, and technology providers like Microsoft’s Navic Networks, are also working on interactive ads.
The cable offerings vary by market. In Tucson, Phoenix, San Diego and Las Vegas, Cox Communications sells interactive spots, with graphics on top of commercials that direct viewers to vote or ask for more information using their remotes. In the New York metro area, Cablevision sells special video-on-demand channels to companies like Disney, which runs videos about its amusement parks and stars and a “talk to agent” button that is associated with the viewer’s phone number, provided by Cablevision; selecting it results in an immediate phone call from a Disney representative.
Time Warner offers some interactivity, too. Last September, the media company MPG ran a test for the insurance company American International Group with about 180,000 Time Warner subscribers in Hawaii. MPG, a unit of Havas, used Navic technology to send different ads to households with different demographics, and a banner sat on top of the ad as it ran, telling viewers to click a button on their remote for more information. Only 566 of the households interacted with the ad, said Mitch Oscar, executive vice president of televisual applications at MPG. But, he said, that number was promising.
“We’re doing branding spots anyway,” he said. “If advertisers are going to run commercials one way or the other, and we can add this element to it.”
For now, the cable company’s interactive offerings are largely limited to the two minutes of advertising an hour that each local operator sells. But Canoe Ventures, the consortium of the nation’s six largest cable companies, has announced it will make interactive request-for-information ads available by the end of 2009, and those will be available nationally.
The satellite providers, DirecTV and Dish Network, also offer interactive ads that can run nationwide — a recent Nike ad on Dish Network allowed viewers to zoom in to see a shoe, among other features.
Unilever, the consumer products company, which owns brands like Bertolli and Dove, has been aggressive in the interactive television space for the last couple of years, so much so that it held an “upfront” in the winter to book and negotiate for interactive television slots.
“What we love about it is, if you think about it, the remote control and DVRs have really been a marketer’s worst nightmare,” said Anne Jensen, brand-building director at Unilever. “What we’re doing with ITV is we’re actually making the remote control our friend.”
Last week, Unilever introduced an interactive campaign for Axe on DirecTV that had new interactive features. The campaign promoted Axe’s body washes for men, which come in four varieties, like “Shock,” to wake you up, and the exfoliating “Snake Peel,” so “if you’ve had a very questionable hookup you can scrub away the shame,” Ms. Jensen said.
The idea with this campaign was that “guys don’t really talk to each other about personal hygiene,” Ms. Jensen said. The interactive piece, designed by BrightLine, comes when the commercial’s host points to a space on the screen, and a button pops up that viewers can select for more information. Then, there are clips where Axe diagnoses what variety is appropriate for the viewer, and suggests pranks the viewers can play on friends.
Axe receives reports on how many people responded to the ads, what sections of the extra video they watched, and how much time they spent with the Axe material. “What’s nice is that this medium can be quite flexible in terms of how we optimize our campaigns and improve it as we go along,” Ms. Jensen said.
For all of the data and features that interactive ads offer, the fragmentation of the industry tended to scare off advertisers, said Craig Woerz, managing partner of Media Storm, an agency based in Norwalk, Conn., that has run interactive ads for clients like Magnolia Pictures and the Food Network.
“Advertisers and agencies love to take the easy way out, which is, I’m not going to look at this interactive stuff until I’ve got 90 million households, 60 million households,” Mr. Woerz said. “There’s a heck of a base out there. But you’re not going to do it with one phone call.”
[credit : http://www.nytimes.com/2009/04/23/business/media/23adco.html?_r=1]
TiVo, which allows viewers to digitally record programs and fast-forward through ads, is trying to sell ad spaces on its screens.
It is in a footrace with other companies, including Cablevision, Cox Communications and DirecTV, to offer interactive alternatives to the zapped-through television spots. The ads are called interactive because they ask the viewer to do something — enter in a new channel number, press a button on the remote — to get more information.
“In the last 18 months, the momentum has just lifted,” said Jacqueline Corbelli, the chief executive of BrightLine iTV, which designs interactive ads. “It’s started to become a staple of very large advertisers.”
In December, TiVo began offering ads that appear as a small piece of text when viewers pause a show. Advertisers can choose the specific show or genre they want their pause ad to appear on — Mercedes-Benz USA used it to promote a new car during football games earlier this year. TiVo also offers ads that appear when viewers fast-forward through shows. Advertisers that run regular 30- or 60-second spots can buy these, and when the viewer presses fast-forward, a static box appears. One for Tourism Australia shows a photograph of a girl on a beach with the text, exclaiming, “Don’t tell me I just skipped the Australia ad!” TiVo viewers are instructed to press the Thumbs Up button to see the ad and get more information.
Once a viewer interacts with its ads, TiVo can show them a video about the product, let them request more information or a coupon, or even let them configure a car with different colors and options. TiVo also sells ad space on TiVo Central, its home screen.
“By catching them at a time when they’re pausing the program, when they’ve finished with a program,” said Tara Maitra, vice president and general manager of content and advertising at TiVo, “the viewer’s main reason for being there isn’t being interrupted.”
TiVo is not the only company devising a solution to commercial-skipping. Cable and satellite companies, and technology providers like Microsoft’s Navic Networks, are also working on interactive ads.
The cable offerings vary by market. In Tucson, Phoenix, San Diego and Las Vegas, Cox Communications sells interactive spots, with graphics on top of commercials that direct viewers to vote or ask for more information using their remotes. In the New York metro area, Cablevision sells special video-on-demand channels to companies like Disney, which runs videos about its amusement parks and stars and a “talk to agent” button that is associated with the viewer’s phone number, provided by Cablevision; selecting it results in an immediate phone call from a Disney representative.
Time Warner offers some interactivity, too. Last September, the media company MPG ran a test for the insurance company American International Group with about 180,000 Time Warner subscribers in Hawaii. MPG, a unit of Havas, used Navic technology to send different ads to households with different demographics, and a banner sat on top of the ad as it ran, telling viewers to click a button on their remote for more information. Only 566 of the households interacted with the ad, said Mitch Oscar, executive vice president of televisual applications at MPG. But, he said, that number was promising.
“We’re doing branding spots anyway,” he said. “If advertisers are going to run commercials one way or the other, and we can add this element to it.”
For now, the cable company’s interactive offerings are largely limited to the two minutes of advertising an hour that each local operator sells. But Canoe Ventures, the consortium of the nation’s six largest cable companies, has announced it will make interactive request-for-information ads available by the end of 2009, and those will be available nationally.
The satellite providers, DirecTV and Dish Network, also offer interactive ads that can run nationwide — a recent Nike ad on Dish Network allowed viewers to zoom in to see a shoe, among other features.
Unilever, the consumer products company, which owns brands like Bertolli and Dove, has been aggressive in the interactive television space for the last couple of years, so much so that it held an “upfront” in the winter to book and negotiate for interactive television slots.
“What we love about it is, if you think about it, the remote control and DVRs have really been a marketer’s worst nightmare,” said Anne Jensen, brand-building director at Unilever. “What we’re doing with ITV is we’re actually making the remote control our friend.”
Last week, Unilever introduced an interactive campaign for Axe on DirecTV that had new interactive features. The campaign promoted Axe’s body washes for men, which come in four varieties, like “Shock,” to wake you up, and the exfoliating “Snake Peel,” so “if you’ve had a very questionable hookup you can scrub away the shame,” Ms. Jensen said.
The idea with this campaign was that “guys don’t really talk to each other about personal hygiene,” Ms. Jensen said. The interactive piece, designed by BrightLine, comes when the commercial’s host points to a space on the screen, and a button pops up that viewers can select for more information. Then, there are clips where Axe diagnoses what variety is appropriate for the viewer, and suggests pranks the viewers can play on friends.
Axe receives reports on how many people responded to the ads, what sections of the extra video they watched, and how much time they spent with the Axe material. “What’s nice is that this medium can be quite flexible in terms of how we optimize our campaigns and improve it as we go along,” Ms. Jensen said.
For all of the data and features that interactive ads offer, the fragmentation of the industry tended to scare off advertisers, said Craig Woerz, managing partner of Media Storm, an agency based in Norwalk, Conn., that has run interactive ads for clients like Magnolia Pictures and the Food Network.
“Advertisers and agencies love to take the easy way out, which is, I’m not going to look at this interactive stuff until I’ve got 90 million households, 60 million households,” Mr. Woerz said. “There’s a heck of a base out there. But you’re not going to do it with one phone call.”
[credit : http://www.nytimes.com/2009/04/23/business/media/23adco.html?_r=1]
Thursday, October 9, 2008
Preventing Friday's mail screw up's - Googles New Feature
For those who have been following this space... I know i have disappeared for a while, thats just because there was too little time at hand :( [after you read this post, do not conclude that I've been partying :)]
Google comes with new features all the time and ofcourse, for a common cause. The latest feature is something we all have been thru (At least those of us who are party animals) and ofcourse tend to check mail [and reply] when we get back home [or wherever you call home :)] and when sanity returns, and expression says "WTF... did I do that"!!!!
So here it is Prevent sending mails you regret later... and your wondering what is this doing on "The Advertising blog" ??
Well, well if it wasn't Google's product feature [since they believe in clean & non-cluttered advertising), it was an amazing space for branding, especially for the likes of Chaser and so many others who have a party pill.
If there were cookies being set, each time you encountered the math in "Mail Googles", you'd probably be in Google's list of "drinking and mailing" and they'll identify you each time you log on & ofcourse, especially on Friday nights :)
You can read more at Official Gmail Blog: New in Labs: Stop sending mail you later regret
Cheeeerrrsss Googles
Google comes with new features all the time and ofcourse, for a common cause. The latest feature is something we all have been thru (At least those of us who are party animals) and ofcourse tend to check mail [and reply] when we get back home [or wherever you call home :)] and when sanity returns, and expression says "WTF... did I do that"!!!!
So here it is Prevent sending mails you regret later... and your wondering what is this doing on "The Advertising blog" ??
Well, well if it wasn't Google's product feature [since they believe in clean & non-cluttered advertising), it was an amazing space for branding, especially for the likes of Chaser and so many others who have a party pill.
If there were cookies being set, each time you encountered the math in "Mail Googles", you'd probably be in Google's list of "drinking and mailing" and they'll identify you each time you log on & ofcourse, especially on Friday nights :)
You can read more at Official Gmail Blog: New in Labs: Stop sending mail you later regret
Cheeeerrrsss Googles
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