VideoEgg

Is that a phone in your pocket?

I, like most people I know, have a love/hate relationship with my iPhone. I miss the Blackberry it replaced, its efficient wheel, meaty keyboard and down to business UI. My Blackberry was a very effective communication device.

That said, I've just downloaded a couple more apps for my iPhone that knock me out. I have been using Sonos (www.sonos.com) music system in my home for years. Wireless controllers for the Sonos systems run about $400. Recently, Sonos released an app for the iPhone. Now I can shelve my controllers and control music all over my house with my phone. How about the Smule apps? They show a platform's potential unlocked with imagination. My phone is now a digital flute with a social twist. There are countless other examples - Google's voice controlled search, SnapTell's media finder, Shazam, UrbanSpoon... In short I love what the iPhone is doing to my phone - if you want to call it a phone.

After a little more than a year, the iPhone platform has spawned almost 9000 applications and more innovation than we've seen in the history of mobile communications. The iPhone is the mobile web and much more. Creative developers are inventing new ways to combine portability, communication, community and entertainment. Android will grow the distribution and economic opportunity across a larger base of hardware and carriers. Watch consumer behavior change fast. Users turn out mobile phones about once every twelve months. The next generation of phone buyers will create demand for platforms that offer the same level of utility and excitement.

It's time for brands to step in. Mobile is no longer just communications. Mobile has become another environment where consumers consume media and communicate - just like the web.

But take note: the ad rules of mobile are like the ad rules of the web...squared. More than the web, your phone is the ultimate "demand" environment. Mobile is personal. Users control the flow. In this environment, advertising needs to complement the user experience. It needs to be entertaining or helpful or both.

I've seen enough to believe my company has to be part of the change. Not because we want to sell mobile, but because we want to connect to consumers in the most vital digital media environments. iPhone and Android apps are promising new frontiers. The growth is significant, and our early tests show a willingness to engage with brand content. Plus the demographics are desirable.

People are asking if mobile is relevant now given the harsh economic climate and consequent elimination of discretionary innovation budgets. But mobile is not about mobile anymore. When marketers take a close look at budgets over the coming months, it will be less about moving back to “tried and true” and more about increased accountability, where ever people are spending time. In younger demos, there is no “tried and true”.

By Troy Young

VideoEgg AdFrames for Mobile from troy young on Vimeo

0 Comment(s) | Permalink | By blog_editor on Nov. 25 2008

Engagement economics and the evolution of VideoEgg

Some 2 years ago, we launched our advertising business with the introduction of the video overlay ad. We were the first to bring a product of this nature to market – an invitation-based video ad that was an alternative to pre-roll, particularly for short video content that was proliferating across the web. “Tickers,” as we called them, were well received by the industry and most major players in the online video space have adopted the approach.

We’ve continued to push our advertising business forward, by exploring extensions to the Ticker concept of invitation-based rich video-driven advertising. AdFrames was our second major advertising product introduction. The vision for the product was much broader than an ad format. AdFrames was designed as a dimensionless ad solution that could live in any size (IAB standard or otherwise) and any environment – pages, flash, video and mobile. AdFrames offered marketers far more functionality than was possible with the video overlay. Its full-screen experience and plug-in features (mapping, localization, movie times, RSS etc) made it a formidable alternative to overlays.

Delivering AdFrames on page-based inventory also opened our eyes to inventory economics and pricing opportunities. We decided early on that engagement based pricing (CPE) made a ton of sense for the product and the ad market and it became core to the offering. As it evolved, AdFrames became a hands-down better product for marketers. More scale, guaranteed engagement, relevant and rich functionality, and all with 2X the performance at half the price. Not surprisingly, we’ve seen demand shift to AdFrames pretty rapidly.

Video is still important to us and for short-form video, Tickers remain a great solution.  We will look to offer a version of AdFrames in the video environment when supply opens up in video and allows for an engagement-based pricing model. In the mean time our publisher partners will see diminished demand for Tickers and increased demand for page inventory to serve AdFrames.

Some things will remain constant. Our mantra “Nice Works” will continue to drive how we approach our consumer relationship. The consistent AdFrames approach and branding, the user-initiated experience, the 3 second countdown to avoid “accidental” engagements, are all examples of “Nice Works” in practice. But expect us to continue to find better ways of creating value for brands, like AdFrames and CPE. The industry needs innovation. We love the challenge.

Posted by Troy Young

0 Comment(s) | Permalink | By blog_editor on Oct. 02 2008

When was the last time online advertising made you happy?

Advertising is based on one thing… happiness. Happiness is the smell of a new car. It’s freedom from fear. It’s a billboard on the side of the road that screams with reassurance “whatever you’re doing, its ok , you are ok.” -Don Draper, Mad Men

I am trying to find my happy place. We are at a hotel in Portland, two days into a much-needed family vacation.

Write the byline.

Diversion. I’ve queued up the first season of Mad Men. I am a couple of years late to the show but now I can gorge. I’ve got time for one episode. I am on vacation after all. Maybe it will inspire.

Writing the byline. Would kill for a cigarette. Did people really smoke that much? Too bad we can’t make it healthier.

People in the ad biz always talk about advertising as culture creation. Like all good vocational series, Mad Men’s creators understand the biz. And the have created a hero true to the craft. Don Draper has a gift indeed. He understands what moves us. He has a sense for what we need from advertising.

I’ve thought about online advertising a whole lot over the past couple of years. I’ve participated in countless panels debating the future of advertising and the importance in remaking it for a social web. The refrain is familiar and, quite frankly, exhausting. “Social media doesn’t monetize”. “The banner is dead. Advertising needs to become a conversation.“ “Marketers need a social media strategy.”

All true perhaps, but one thing is missing… joy. Online advertising is no fun. It’s no fun for consumers. The banner has a very hard time making us feel anything at all. For all of the excitement around ad innovation in Silicon Valley, fun has not been at the top of the list.

It seems to me Silicon Valley does not really like advertising… it likes efficiency. Efficiency drove the first wave of advertising and the medium was successfully colonized by direct response dollars. But if we are going to chip away at brand budgets we are going to have to do a much better job at making ads fun.

When was the last time you enjoyed interacting with an ad online? I loved the Mac vs. PC ad I saw a couple of months back. I’ve seen some really cool IBM ads recently. But these are the exception. For online advertising to reach potential for brands it has to make people happy. And, it has to be way easier for people to get something out of it.

Next time you plan a campaign, try thinking about three things – the user’s happiness, how to extend it and countless resources that the web has given you to make this happen.

Happiness: Focus less on the immediate action and more on immediate enjoyment. After all, isn’t this is what brand advertising is all about? The biggest single change the internet has brought to brand marketing is user empowerment. In a demand-based world, consumers elect to spend time with commercial messages. Good ads are content or utility or both. How are you making a prospect enjoy the interaction?

Time: We’ve found that most consumers will spend about 10 seconds with most video ads, but we’ve been able to extend that time by creating more choice in the ad experience. Remember, TV spots are designed for captive environments. Demand-based environments need to pull consumers in quickly and give them control over what they can consume. Push your team to think about how to get users to spend more time with your content. Most importantly, change the metrics. Loose the urge to evaluate everything by the click.

Resourcefulness: I am at the Ace Hotel and it is making me think about doing more with less. The Ace is a case study in resourceful design. Its not fussy but it is thoughtful about travelers needs. I could write an entire piece about this, but visit the hotel next time you are in Portland. Or come by for an exceptional cup of coffee. The point is this. Web 2.0 has given advertisers an incredible set of tools to create really fun localized media experiences. Video, rich media, calendar updates, feeds, games, maps, polls - the tools are available. Push your team to innovate quickly. Find cool ways to syndicate your brand experience.

Advertising used to be pretty simple. Innovation was less about how we deliver a message and more about the message itself. The Internet has driven a dramatic amount of new thinking in relevance, virality, pricing and accountability. But for brands to move online, we’ve got to find ways to make the experience more enjoyable. Remember the universal truth that underlies the best marketing, People love to be entertained. Let’s not forget what made brand advertising work in the first place.

Posted by Troy Young

3 Comment(s) | Permalink | By blog_editor on Aug. 20 2008

New Life For Old Ads

Refashioning display inventory for content distribution...and brands

News of a Google powered Seth MacFarlane content syndication play hit the NYT today. Syndicating content across the Google Content Network is not news. MRC and others have been experimenting with the idea for more than a year. We ran a similar program with Motorola and the Burg (http://www.theburg.tv/) across our network more than a year ago (http://videoegg.com/press/ve_theburg9). Crackle (www.crackle.com) has been pushing content paired with ads through social nets like Hi5 for a while. What makes this different is "Seth power" and presumably large ad deals that will bring the ad units-cum-content players to far more sites and to far more viewers across the Google network. The move reflects some significant changes that are being played out in the online ad world and are worth taking a closer look at.

Advertisers and content owners will look to turn 300x250s into expandable video experiences. Old ad real estate becomes a window into a new rich media world. Environments (ie sites, games, apps) that can deliver consumers into these experiences efficiently will be worth more (see previous post). Page based inventory is going to find new demand as a starting point for short media / video experiences – and brand advertising.

These innovations will deliver new learning about content's role in ad effectiveness. Think about this deal in particular. Rather that utilizing the Google network as display inventory to deliver the ad experience, Seth’s short two-minute content is used as a carrier. This probably makes sense to some brands, particularly if Seth is going to make the ad or integrate the brand into his content. But with a lot of mouths at the trough - the publisher, Google, MRC and Seth - impressions will be a way, way more expensive. Remember, one user in twenty will watch the content at best, that inventory then becomes ad inventory. The math gets challenging.

Google already maintains massive real estate positions across with net with Ad Sense. Widgets and soon display inventory will fortify the network. This is an important experiment. A robust content distribution layer would make it even more formidable. It will get harder to out monetize them in an effort to access distribution.

Posted by Troy Young

0 Comment(s) | Permalink | By kderkacz on Jul. 01 2008

Rethinking Intent.

There's a lot of talk about "intention" in recent posts. Intention is the golden center of response marketing and an obvious requirement for transaction. Online marketers are pretty good at finding intent and have worked at exploiting it since the beginning. As we struggle to make the Internet work for brand advertisers, we have to look at the challenge differently.

Here's what I mean....

Intention is one or two steps before purchase and far removed from "unaware." Brand advertisers love intention, naturally, but the real magic is the part before intention—moving a consumer from being "unaware" to being "pre-disposed."

I have been looking at a lot of data lately from across dozens of brand campaigns and hundreds of sites. We are focused on getting consumers to engage with ad content and have been measuring our ability to do so.

What the data shows is this: In creating value for brands, we need to look beyond "intent to buy" and towards "intent to engage" with a brand message.

In many cases, this has absolutely nothing to do with traditional models of targeting and everything to do with the “mode” a consumer is in when spending time on a Web page. We see as much as a 15x difference in our ability to get consumers to spend time with advertising across popular social media sites. We also see massive differences in time spent on ads when looking across various blogs and gaming environments.

Further, intent is almost meaningless for a huge number of brand marketers who are either a) working on the very earliest stages of the funnel or b) supporting low-consideration products (i.e., soft drinks).

How do we account for the differences found in consumers’ "intent to engage?" The same way marketers have always leveraged “willingness” in the consumer psyche as opportunities to influence and sell. Think about items that line the checkout isle—do you ever actually seek out the National Enquirer, stress balls or TicTacs? Think about ads above the urinal. Or TV for that matter. Get 'em while they're open to a conversation. This is the opportunity and it could not be truer than on the Internet. As the medium evolves and time spent online increases, the users’ "mode" is a critical ingredient to creating engagement. While social environments may not offer strong signals around purchase intent, they can be a fine place to generate time with a brand message. The key to making this media work more effectively is in understanding how and where to deliver brand experiences that consumers will willingly spend time with.

Here's one critical implication: Within a site or online environment (i.e., social networking site), a page is not a page is not a page. But CPM treats every page the same - as an impression. The next wave of evolution for Internet advertising is brand, and brand advertising online is about spending time (interacting) with a message. It's time we started valuing inventory accordingly, not by impressions but by time spent. We call it Cost Per Engagement, or CPE. Call it what you want, but if we really want to make it work for brand advertising, then we've got to get a new measure on value. Engagement is a great place to start.

Posted by Troy Young

1 Comment(s) | Permalink | By blog_editor on Jun. 24 2008

Brian Birtwistle, VP, Publisher Network is one talented guy

Brian, along with his a capella group The Richter Scales, received the Webby Award for the best viral video back in 2007 for "Here Comes Another Bubble." What a talented guy!


Here he is posing with the People's Choice viral video winner for "Chocolate Rain," Tay Zonday. We're proud to have such a Web 2.0 celebrity on our team.

0 Comment(s) | Permalink | By lrogers on Jun. 12 2008

When everything is media, what is media really worth?

Note: Ian Shaffer and I are working some cosmic connection. I put a few words together for the blog yesterday and was surprised to see Ian working the same territory. Our sentiments seem to intersect nicely, albeit from different industry vantage points. My comments below speak to the explosion of impressions largely driven by social media, and the implications from a media value perspective...

The market has struggled to place value on social media as an ad vehicle, but with more than 30% of Internet traffic driven by social activities, a lot is at stake. This struggle is part of a larger media phenomenon that is raising significant new challenges for publishers and media professionals. Specifically, what is inventory worth, how do media channels compare and what creates premium value?

In the past 10 years, new categories of ad inventory have opened up as human activity has been digitized. I put them into five categories - communications and self expression (social networks, email, chat, photo and video sharing); commerce (shopping sites like Amazon, EBay); gaming (game platforms, virtual environments like Second Life, social gaming, etc.); reference (dictionary, health sites, wikis, etc.); service or utility (file sharing, even service environments like Comcast bill pay); and directory (search, maps). For the most part, these are new additions to traditional content or environmental media channels (TV, print, radio, outdoor). They’ve given marketers more options but created confusion around how to value and map the media landscape and achieve reach.

Let’s think about the implications. First, more monetizable ad inventory will pressure media prices as a whole. This is a function of volume and the cost structure of emerging media platforms. Content and distribution costs are significantly reduced or eliminated in many new platforms. We are seeing this today with sub-50-cent CPMs on basic bulk inventory.

The market will continue to look at a few drivers to justify premium media value. First and most obviously, inventory that can be linked to sales activity will continue to find premiums. Reach, while not as important as it once was, will also drive demand. No brainers.

Media that creates (or is perceived to create) measurable brand value will be prized (note to self...do not say “content is king ”). Content's ability to create transitive value to brands and/or deliver proximity to elusive psychographic groups will remain important. Brands will demand integration to get closer to the content and value associated with it. Watch for more sophisticated analytical approaches to measuring—and selling—this premium content.

Much of the new inventory does not carry strong signals around purchase intent and will underperform as a direct response channel, just as we’ve seen email inventory do in the past. Publishers will push to market this inventory to brand advertisers for its attention value and target it with demographic and interest data made available by social media.

Publishers and networks will have to work hard to package the mass of inventory that lies between these ends of the spectrum. If the value is not intimately connected to the transaction or the premium association, it will come from delivering measureable time with the brand. Advertising platforms that bring rich ad experiences (entertainment and/or utility...content, video, games, interactivity, etc.), to the right consumer in a friction free way are the path forward. And it goes without saying, as impressions compete for advertising dollars, there will be an inevitable push for accountability. Watch for pricing to shift to demonstrable engagement defined by discrete interactions and time spent.

Marketers too, will have their work cut out for them to create experiences that consumers choose to interact with. This is about content creation, and it’s hard to deliver and scale. Think portable media experiences, not banners or pop-ups.

Social media will be monetized and marketers will find ways of creating value in these new environments. It’s just going to take a bit of time.

0 Comment(s) | Permalink | By t.young on May. 02 2008

Is It Time for Another App-Camp?

According to Justin over at Inside Facebook, F8, the official Facebook developer conference, is expected to draw as many as 1000 developers, or twice as many as last year’s original F8 conference. The F8 conference tends to be “tech heavy” with some talk about promoting your application. Meanwhile, through conversations with media planners, I’m still finding a large disconnect between application developers and media planners - brand marketers could stand to learn more about advertising with applications, and applications could probably still learn more about how Madison Ave. operates.

Last October we hosted an event called App-Camp that had some focus on media planners and developers learning more about each other’s wants and capabilities. The conversation around that was, in my opinion, the most interesting part of the event.

So, it is time for another App-Camp with more focus on that? Or is this issue being addressed with other conferences I’m missing?

Post by Eric Klotz

1 Comment(s) | Permalink | By blog_editor on Mar. 27 2008

Some Media Agencies Get Social Media More Than Others

VideoEgg works for brand marketers that want to reach people inside social environments. Because these environments are swirling with people influencing each other, mastering marketing within these environments is the holy grail of digital advertising. It is that same influential nature of social environments that makes it so promising for advertisers but that also fills it with some risk. The brand marketer's risk factor is partly due to lack of education, and the lack of education is due to some marketer's low tolerance for risk. Some agencies get this more than others.

One example is Deep Focus, the media agency that I've given praise to often because time and time again when others dip their toes, they'll bounce on the diving board and do a cannonball into the pool (I even lol'd at that analogy.....). In all seriousness, one of my favorite blogs, Agency Spy, asked Deep Focus CEO, Ian Schafer, what their policy is towards social media. I'll highlight a few key points that Ian made and which make them stand out from the type of agency I referred to in my post last week:

1) "Social media is difficult-to-control participatory media, which makes it an environment that makes advertisers uncomfortable.

And you know what? Good.

Uncomfortable situations have the potential to bring out the best in us. They can keep us on our toes. They can sharpen our communication skills. They can improve our relationships by understanding what got us into those awkward relationships to begin with. Advertisers that can accept that they are in an uncomfortable relationship with their customers (and want to improve those relationships) are the ones that are most ready for a foray into Social Media.”

2) "We’re not just spending a lot of time working within Social Media because it’s hot right now, we’re doing it because it is the eventual future of all media.”

Ian, if you were in SF, I'd buy you a shot of Hot Damn. Agencies that understand today that social media will be the standard tomorrow will be best suited to lead the industry and will continue to take big accounts as they depart from the larger and slower agencies. It is good to see that more and more agencies are doing more than just dipping their toes.

Post by Eric Klotz
Director of Creative Development

1 Comment(s) | Permalink | By blog_editor on Mar. 25 2008

The New Roles of Publishers and Ad Networks

People working in the digital marketing space have a couple of things to be happy about in 2008. First, we are finally seeing a decent amount of TV dollars moving online - something that took much longer than it should have, and wasn't easy. Second, if our economy is heading into a recession, every study shows that digital marketing will feel the pinch less than the rest of the advertising industry. This didn't happen by luck, it happened because smart media publishers and ad networks have stepped up to the plate and taken on new roles that traditionally belonged to media agencies, which simply couldn't adapt fast enough.

A recent joint study published by IAB / Booz Allen Hamilton showed that savvy media publishers and ad networks are consistently showing five major behaviors, which I define as five major roles. Below are those roles and my take on them:

1. Invest in ongoing marketer education: Fully 87% of media companies find the need for their ad sales team to educate marketers and agencies “important” or “very important”. As a result, 70% plan to increase their investment in education capabilities by 2010.

*This is critical. The social media explosion is evolving faster than the agencies can educate their staff. Effective campaigns need to be holistic by design. It is on the shoulders of publishers and ad networks to showcase their offerings in the proper context - why and how they fit into the larger scene.

2. Provide consultative services to key clients: Almost all digital leaders already provide agency-like services to many of their marketer clients.

*While I totally agree that we need to consult with clients, I would go beyond "key" clients and say every client. For example take the growing popularity of brands building custom applications for Facebook. Agencies and brands have very little insight into user behavior and how to promote their application. Third-party applications are still less than a year old, and there is no Comscore or NetRatings equivalent to guide their decisions. If we didn't consult with brands they would essentially be shooting in the dark, or buying the concept and hoping for success... which brings us to the next point below.

3. Focus on the metrics that matter most: Leaders understand what marketers want to measure—including reach, engagement, action, and ROI—and they are improving their ability to collect and analyze consumer data. Leaders are more likely to provide performance marketing services and lead generation.

*This is why we continually need to expand our services in today's marketplace. The success metrics of three years ago are not the success metrics of today, at least not exactly. Sure ROI has been around forever, but what defines ROI today is different, by expanding our services we are enabling brands to choose the option that is best for their metrics.

4. Translate media value into marketer ROI: Leaders are more likely to have ROI metrics than other media companies. Most have the ability to tie media behavior to sales.

*At VideoEgg, we call this accountability. I'll say it again - accountability. One media planner I spoke with said his biggest challenge is figuring out how to bring direct response metrics to his brand marketing. We recently introduced our AdFrames offering to address this exact challenge. AdFrames is a pay-per-engagement model for brand marketers. This is a huge step in bridging the gap between direct response and brand marketing.

5. Know what drives consumer behavior: Digital leaders are developing the ability to incorporate consumer insights into marketer's predictive models at a faster pace than non-leaders.

This one actually encompasses the previous four and probably should have been titled "Know what drives your user's behavior as well as consumer behavior in the market." Insight into consumer behavior doesn't just come from in-house data or third party data published a month behind real time. Publishers and ad networks can't get caught up in their own bubble or they will end up as stale as the agencies they've had to step up for. By understanding the big picture combined with in-house learnings we can continue to improve the performance of campaigns. Every publisher and ad network is, and should be, under the gun to develop and adjust their offering according to changes in user behavior - and fast.

Like with any industry the companies that do the best in ours are the ones that remain malleable enough to change with the market, and humble enough to realize when they're not. Many agencies are making unprecedented restructuring efforts to adapt the new digital landscape by breaking down silos, combining budgets, committing to more education, and rethinking their success metrics. But for the next few years at least, its up to publishers and ad networks to understand the market, explain the market, and keep those budgets moving online.

Post by Eric Klotz
Director of Creative Development

0 Comment(s) | Permalink | By blog_editor on Mar. 20 2008

Engagement Debate is Sold Out: Limited Standing Room Only Available Today

We sold out. Not like when the Sex Pistols did a reunion tour sponsored by Hot Topic, but sold out of tickets to our Engagement Debate '08. We are past the number of seats available, but we're going to let a few of the people that wait until the last minute (like me) buy standing room only tickets for a few bucks cheaper than the regular price. Get 'em today if you're considering because they'll be gone quickly.

Post by Eric Klotz
Director of Creative Development

1 Comment(s) | Permalink | By blog_editor on Feb. 12 2008

The Engagement Debate '08 is Nearly Sold Out

With little more than word-of-mouth and some "knock out" ads on Ad Age (see above), VideoEgg's debut out-of-office event is nearly sold out. The Engagement Debate '08 has been officially announced today, but we're already almost full. And we've added some more top-notch names to the verbal warfare that will take place on 2/20 in NYC:

Jean-Philippe Maheu, Chief Digital Officer, Ogilvy North America
Lars Bastholm, Executive Creative Director, AKQA New York

To get a taste of why we are having this debate around engagement, and to see first-hand how different opinions are about this one word, download our new PDF thought piece, Engagement: 4 Perspectives. It features four experts, representing four major segments of the digital marketing industry - publisher, media, research, and brand. See how different their points of view on engagement are.

And get your tickets to The Engagement Debate '08 today.

Post by Eric Klotz
Director of Creative Development

0 Comment(s) | Permalink | By blog_editor on Feb. 04 2008

New Study: Advertisers Biggest Losers of TV Strike; Madison Ave. Reacts with Major Changes

When the Financial Times asked NBC's Jeff Zucker about the upfronts, the yearly ritual of networks throwing lavish parties to showcase their upcoming shows to media planners, he showed his disdain for the state of the television industry by stating that, "Things like that are all vestiges of an era that’s gone by and won’t return." It is easy to understand why he is frustrated. Thirty-five perecent of American's have changed their TV viewing habits as a result of the strike according to a new study conducted by new media consultancy group, Interpret LLC. That has a significant impact on advertisers, who Interpret refers to in their study as "the biggest losers in the TV strike."

The viewers aren't the only ones making changes as a result of the strike. I recently learned that Madison Ave is making some some huge changes that underscore Zucker's point that the TV industry will never be the same. OMD, the largest arm of Omnicom, in the next few months will train ALL of their TV buyers how to buy digital media. Think about that for a second - the world's largest media buying/planning agency has a mandate to train all their TV buyers to learn to buy digital because they can no longer reach the audience they need from TV buys alone.

Those of us that work in digital media can only hope that with the retraining, TV buyers will not only ween themselves free of their dependency on TV's reach, but also see that digital media has far superior engagement, tracking, and performance than TV.

Post by Eric Klotz
Director of Creative Development

0 Comment(s) | Permalink | By blog_editor on Jan. 21 2008

Sneak Peek @ The Engagement Debate '08

The word "engagement" has been abused by our digital marketing industry long enough, and dammit, we're not gonna sit by and watch this word be abused anymore! I think most people can agree that "engagement" is a buzz word that gets thrown around a lot, but it remains abstract because it has a different meaning depending on who is using it. That is a shame because our good friend engagement can actually have a real value. So we decided to set up a no-holds-barred event to debate about it and elevate it to be more than just the marketing term du juor.

We're holding an event in NYC on 2/20/08 called The Engagement Debate '08. We'll hear perspectives from media agency executives, from C-levels to Group Directors (because even their opinions vary), and we'll also hear from brand marketers, publishers, and researchers. People will be challenged and people will be put on the spot, but dare I say, it will actually be entertaining. Check back on the VideoEgg website next week for more details.

Don't worry, engagement, help is on the way.

Post by Eric Klotz
Director of Creative Development

0 Comment(s) | Permalink | By blog_editor on Jan. 09 2008

We Are All Still Learning Social Media: The Sony Snow Globe App Example

I read two posts yesterday about how Sony failed miserably with their attempt to make a branded Facebook Application. The first post was on FaceReviews.com, and the other was a slightly different take on Valleywag. Basically Sony created an application that allows users to make Sony branded Christmas snow globes, and less than 500 downloaded it in the course of a month. I'll agree that those numbers aren't flattering, but I don't completely agree with the roasting Sony got from the aforementioned sites.

Rodney Rumford, a consultant who runs FaceReviews.com and Gravitational Media, is a smart and nice guy - I've met him on a couple of occasions. He critiqued Sony's Facebook custom application attempt showcasing several flaws, including:

* No tabbed navigation
* No clear way to invite friends (I can’t believe they missed that!)
* It does not remember that I created a globe (very frustrating)
* After I create and send a globe I can’t navigate anywhere else (like to make a new one)
* No way to see which snowglobes my friends have created
* Text instructions are too long.
* Only allows for Christmas snowglobes. Too short of a product life cycle window

Well, Rodney is right about those things, but he looks at it from a different perspective than me, and most likely, Sony. We don't know Sony's self-created success metrics, but it is pretty evident that this was a test. Nearly all bigger brands have test budgets, often referred to as emerging media budgets. Now I'm not proposing that Sony purposefully didn't include a way to invite friends, but I'd be willing to bet that with such a basic application (and so many flaws), they are glad less than 500 downloaded it.

Valleywag and FaceReviews.com also pointed out that active users for Sony's app are extremely low. Well, so are the vast majority of apps on Facebook. In the image below you'll see Sony's Snow Globe app growth rate as well as Mountain Dew's DewMocracy app, an app that Rumford did consulting work with - and could just have easily been the subject of both scathing posts. You'll notice both have 1% active users and unimpressive numbers for downloads.

I'd like to point out that the DewMocracy app is a much better app than the Sony one, and had Mountain Dew put more dollars into promoting it, Rumford's consulting would have paid off on a much larger scale - but he can't force them to spend money on promotion. That is why the real #1 rule to making successful apps (if downloads is your success metric) is to promote through other applications. In other words, no free lunch - you have to make a media buy to promote your application otherwise no amount of smart consulting can help you. That is step one, but if active users is what your going for, then you'd better make a reason for them to come back after you get them to download. In this case, it looks likes the DewMocracy app isn't necessarily concerned with users returning after the vote, so you can't look at that 1% as a failure, and same for Sony's Snow Globe.

Having worked on Madison Ave myself, I think it is great to see brands willing to take a risk at all. The more risks they take and testing they do, the more they will understand, and everyone working in digital media will benefit from it.

Post by Eric Klotz
Director of Creative Development

1 Comment(s) | Permalink | By blog_editor on Jan. 03 2008