Unicast

I remember the days when a URL started to show up at the bottom of TV commercials. Those companies were instantly thought of as being on the cutting edge, because not everyone had a website back then. (And then we walked to school barefoot, in the snow, and it was uphill both ways…)

Nowadays, it’s common knowledge that your business is nothing without a website; those URLs at the bottom of ads are ubiquitous and expected. But now I’m noticing all the Facebook and Twitter and MySpace logos popping up at the bottom of ads. It’s no longer enough for a company that is serious about marketing itself to simply have a website. Now you have to have at the very least a Facebook or MySpace page, and preferably a Twitter account to go with it. And that original website should have a blog. So what changed? I believe it’s mainly two things:

1. The explosion of Viral. Social media takes plain old word-of-mouth and puts it on steroids. The results can turn a normal British woman or a kid coming home from the dentist into an instant celebrity, and the possibility of that happening to your product is too tempting to ignore.

2. People are less willing to try something based on a cool ad campaign alone—they want some proof before they jump in. When a user goes to a Facebook page and sees that the product or company has 600,000 fans, they’re more likely to let their guard down and give it a shot. If a restaurant has bad reviews on Yelp or City Search or Urbanspoon, it’s a big problem because that’s where people are going to find out about them.

Consumer engagement used to go something like this: create a great ad campaign and people would buy. Now the process has changed: consumers find out about the company or product and get hooked through their advertising, look up their website to find out more info, and then investigate them through social media to make sure they’re worth the investment. Consumers are willing to do a lot more homework before they spend their time and money these days, and businesses have to be willing to do theirs too.

We have all seen the articles stating that video in all of its greatest and latest forms will be the driving force behind online marketing in 2010, but what do we have to say about it?

Take a look at "Here, There And Everywhere: Digital Video Trends in 2010" written by Bryan Hjelm, which discusses how interactivity, HD and 3D are emerging and changing online video advertising as we know it.

Let us know what YOU think by posting your comments below!

As soon as the string of earthquakes hit Haiti, I ran to my computer to learn more about how I could help and where I should go to donate money, food or clothing. To my surprise, googling was not getting me very far. My search results were full of sketchy websites that I wasn’t comfortable with plugging my credit card information into. In addition, I tried donating money through the American Red Cross website and the pages were not loading correctly or storing my information. As a typical Generation Y’er I immediately became frustrated. After all, I was at work with a million things to do and had already wasted twenty minutes of my morning. I desperately wanted to help but I needed a way that was quick, easy and seemed relatively safe. This is when a colleague of mine told me about Wyclef Jean’s Yele foundation which had set up a text messaging service for the earthquake relief effort. It allows people to donate $5.00 by simply texting the word “Yele” to the number 501501. I did it immediately and ten seconds later I received a notification confirming my donation. Shortly after, I learned I could donate $10 to the American Red Cross by texting "HAITI" to 90999. I was delighted and donated to the Red Cross as well. It took me less than a minute to make a difference! I immediately went on facebook to update my status with my recent discovery to encourage all of my friends, networks and colleagues to donate and it worked. My friends were ecstatic to learn there was such a quick and easy way to help.

As part of generation Y this is how I live, work and communicate. Texting and facebook have become the easiest and fastest way to share things with my friends without pausing my day for more than 15 to 30 seconds. On the other hand, as a marketing professional I can’t help but to look at the world around me in awe. I’m amazed by the way we have all united and taken advantage of the technologies at our disposal to help Haiti during such a difficult time. According to “Mobile Ad Campaigns Unite for Haiti Relief” written by Mark Walsh, the American Red Cross has raised about 30 million dollars through their text messaging campaign. Through a similar initiative the Yele foundation was able to raise close to two million dollars in a matter of two days. It is inevitable to recognize the power of marketing via these mediums but only if it is done right.

Mobile and Social Network Marketing are powerful but only if the users want to share the information that is being placed in their hands. This is important for all marketers to keep in mind. Your campaign must connect with the user in some way. Your brands logo and slogan are not enought to make the cut. The message must touch the user in a way that they will feel compelled to act or share content - and what does generation Y want to share? We want to share things that make us laugh, help make our lives easier, allow us to voice our opinions and enable us to help anyone around the world without a lot of fuss. Most importantly, it has to be quick and easy because our time is precious and wasting it is not an option.

Need For Speed SHIFT is the latest racing game from Electronic Arts (EA) to hit stores and critics are claiming it is the most realistic speed racing game on the market to date. To promote its release EA has run a series of high impact Rich Media ads across gaming sites such as IGN. The ads attempt to captivate the excitement of the game. Check out the ad below and let us know what you think - Does it quench your need for speed???

To learn more about this campaign, please visit our showcase:http://www.unicast.com/showcase.aspx#/p/301

Projecting rapid growth in online video is pretty much a no-brainer. So what is it that makes online video attractive enough to have marketers pour money into it? For starters, online video is much more intimate than offline. It’s kind of like when you were a kid sneaking downstairs to watch TV after bedtime, you sat inches away from the screen with the volume down and gave whatever you were watching your undivided attention. Online video can provide a near one-to-one experience. Second, targeting the right audience with your message in online is much easier. Many sites know who you are and what you like and can leverage this information to make the experience better. Third, bandwidth has been increasing rapidly each year and this is allowing for more streaming video options for advertisers and the ability for consumers to see these ads without interruptions or connection issues. Finally, and this is both good and bad, the assets for online video can be leveraged from offline which can reduce the production costs. The flip side of this last one is that many offline videos are not well suited to online either because of content or length.

Online video will continue to rise and through further advancements in hardware, bandwidth, and software in the coming years could overtake the other display mediums.

The chart below from Forrester Research, shows an upward trend in online ad spend by Marketers in the U.S.

Unicast will be sponsoring a workshop panel at OMMA Global New York 
 
We hope you’ll check it out! Details below:
 
Title: ‘Entertainment and Rich Media: Partners in ROI,’
When: September 22nd at 11am ET
Where: Expo Hall, Imperial/Julliard rooms.
Who: Nick Johnson, VP, Digital Media Sales, NBC Universal
Glen Sheehan, VP, Group Creative Director, T3
David Card, Vice President and Principal Analyst, Forrester
* moderated by Caleb Hill, Unicast SVP, Product
 
One lucky attendee will win a Flip video MinioHD camera!

In today’s competitive marketing arena, having the best reporting and campaign analysis is essential. Unicast is commited to providing our clients with deep insight into campaign results and and the effectiveness of rich media and web video against other forms of online advertising.

With that in mind, we’ve hired Dan Berra as our new VP of Business Intelligence.

As a respected industry veteran, Dan brings more than 12 years of experience spanning financial and marketing analysis at Dell Corporation and T3 (The Think Tank). Most recently, Dan served as the Vice President of the Customer Insight Group at T3, where he built media and search analytics teams from the ground up and created data integration process and databases tying together ad server data, web analytics and client-side data into one interface. Previous to T3 he served as transactional marketing manager, at Dell Corp, where Dan headed the development of segment-level online metrics, created forecasting models and managed transactional marketing.

You can view the full press release by visiting our website: http://www.unicast.com/about/press.aspx?id=69