Jun 24, 2008
An updated Morgan Stanley Report on Technology Trends was released on 12th June (but I only just noticed!) As usual Mary Meeker and the team have crammed in a huge amount of information. They cover the importance of user driven editorial and user selection of content and offer some suggestions as to why Facebook is growing faster than MySpace.
A large segment of the presentation is focused on my favorite topic - mobile and the longer-term opportunities around the mobile platform - with the suggestion that Mobile to PC is the new client -server model. Unfortunately, the US remains the laggard in many mobile categories (slide 57)
Over at Communities Dominate Brands Tomi Ahonen pull the iPhone statistics from the report
Worth a read
Jun 2, 2008
Given the economic backdrop of 2008, there are more good reasons than ever for sales and marketing executives to engage in a deep scrutiny of their costs. Many organizations have made good progress on cost control, but there is much to be done; and our IDC CMO Advisory research continues to identify big pockets of wasteful spending in these functions. To help technology marketers better manage their investments, we have just completed our second edition of the sales, marketing, and market intelligence (MI) taxonomy. (email me at mgerard@idc.com for a free copy of this extensive marketing investment framework) This expanded taxonomy includes several new line items that need greater “illumination” of spending and staffing, so that executives can make decisions about their investments. These areas include:
- Digital Marketing. Growth in this area continues to outpace other marketing areas, and in many cases takes funds from these other areas. (e.g., more traditional advertising) Most importantly here, the digital marketing strategy must be a component of the broader marketing and sales strategy and not a standalone effort.
- Campaign Management. Marketers need to do a better job of integrating the traditional elements of the marketing mix with the newer elements, so as to achieve a unified campaign approach versus “silos” of program execution. (more to come on this topic since we just finished a Marketing Operations Board meeting on campaign management best practices)
- Industry and Solutions Marketing. These staff areas have received further definition and clarification of roles.
- Market Intelligence; Customer Intelligence; and Business Intelligence. These areas are under active re-assessment at many organizations as the importance of the functions continues to rise.
- Sales Enablement. This is a key leverage point for increased sales productivity. Marketing and sales are increasing their sales enablement effectiveness through a combination of people, process, and technology.
- Tele-sales and Inside Sales. These growth areas of the sales department receive further detail in this year’s study.
May 30, 2008
Very interesting points made by Kevin Mannion in Mediapost….take if from me, IDG is doing this NOW with its Market Fusion study and services…but you should read the story anyway and start thinking more about engagement in the B2B space.
May 21, 2008
eMarketer estimates that while online video ad spending in the US represents less than 4% of all Internet advertising, spending will more than triple to $4.3 billion by 2011 - especially as more viewers embrace full-length TV episodes and other video online.
The recently released numbers from the IAB (Interactive Advertising Bureau) for FT 2007 are more conservative, identifying video advertising revenues at $324 MM for FY 2007 out of the total US online revenues of $21 billion but the expected growth of video advertising has prompted the IAB to release of format guidelines especially covering pre-roll ads which are limited to 30 seconds.
Echoing these sentiments, the Newspaper Association of America (NAA) has just released a report “Zooming In on Online Video: A Development & Growth Guide for Newspaper Web Sites.” that discusses the increase of online video (11.5 billion videos were viewed in the US March, according Comscore).
Additionally, to help identify the revenue opportunity around online video advertising, the NAA has issued a detailed report Making Money: Pre-Roll, Post-Roll and the Ads In Between
The main conclusion: everyone needs to jump on online video. “While still a small percentage of total and local online advertising, online video represents an enormous opportunity for newspapers to grow revenue and audience,”
For the sites that monetize their online video pre-roll and banner ads are the most frequently sold advertising formats.
To date, although there is huge pressure from advertisers to run per-rolls, Google has decided to go for the much less intrusive in-video advertising recently releasing the AdSense for video program
The relevancy of the video advertisement and its duration obviously are major factors in user satisfaction. Some publishers are finding that while users dislike the initial pre-roll video, they are willing to watch a “post” pre-roll that links the first video with subsequent ones.
Some other interesting video advertising technologies include those from VideoClix and Asterpix.These technologies allow objects in the video to become hyperlinks. Viewers can click on these in video hotspots and either additional information can be displayed in the viewer or they can link off to receive additional information or to buy a product.
To date, hot-spot objects require a mouse roll-over or click but with the success of Apple’s iPhone, it’s not hard to image that the user interface will be adapted to accommodate touch screen technology.
Online video ads are quickly becoming the medium of choice to drive both brand awareness and direct sales and rapid growth is expected over the next couple years as marketers start to see the ROI returns. Publishers need to be ready.
May 19, 2008
Interesting points made by Jeff Jarvis of Buzzmachine. No doubt the broad based portals with very high traffic are seeing a softening in price terms etc. As online continues to evolve we have started to move away from TV type numbers to laser like targeting, on sites that serve a category very well, offering deeper levels of engagement etc. Smart media companies ( caveat I work at IDG) like IDG through its IDG Technetwork offering have added in another layer of targeting by creating ad networks of smaller even more niche sites that can complement the core publisher offering and offer greater reach and engagement to highly targeted audiences. I am also a big fan of the Glam Network model.
Mark today in the history of media. In today’s NY Times, we hear anad guy praising networks over portals (and by portal, we don’t just mean Yahoo, we mean any closed media property, including TV networks and newspaper sites). Networks used to have cooties; they were supposed to be nothing but aftermarkets for unsold inventory - or so the big media properties wanted us and media planners to believe. But networks are quickly becoming more targeted, more efficient, and more economical. From the Times:
Some of the ad dollars that in the past had been spent at portals are being spread around instead. Ad networks, which fan out ads to thousands of sites, are adding targeting and are signing up reputable sites, making them more attractive for advertisers. ”There was a time when we would go out and buy inventory on the portals,” said Quentin George, global head of digital media and strategic innovation at Universal McCann, which plans media for clients like L’Oreal and Sony. “Portals make it easier for us to buy and place media on behalf of our clients. But as time continues and as analytics capabilities increase, you find that your media dollars can work better elsewhere across a range of different sites.”Michael Hayes, senior vice president and managing director for Initiative Interactive, which handles digital spending for clients like Home Depot and Bayer, said that advertisers might be turning away from broad buys and looking for more targeted campaigns on smaller sites.”This is hurting the portals,” he said. “There are more options.”
This is why I say that the Glam model - whether that includes Glam itself or not only time will tell - is a key business model for the future of media. Welcome to the post-scarcity post-media economy.
May 13, 2008
Marketers in the technology sector have made significant strides in developing and deploying their marketing performance measurement(MPM) strategies. Most have moved beyond the unrealistic quest to establish the perfect return on investment (ROI) metric, and have developed a solid marketing operations area that focuses on maintaining a set of pragmatic marketing performance objectives and metrics. Even so, many companies remain behind the MPM development curve, with the economic, marketplace, and corporate pressures continuing to grow.
Where are the best practice leaders today (i.e., MPM 2.0), and what does their next generation MPM process look like? Here’s a quick look at the state of the industry today for MPM based upon a recent study by IDC’s CMO Advisory Service:
- Marketing Operations is “leading the charge” to improve the group’s measurement process and drive analytical rigor across the organization in addition to the more familiar art of marketing. (refer to my earlier post regarding MO staffing levels and responsibilities)
- A cascading dashboard strategy has been deployed, including a CMO or executive-level dashboard, and dashboards at the business unit, functional and regional levels. Nortel has done a good job of building this type of hierarchy into their MPM process.
- Regions and business units are beginning to improve their data input and overall participation in the MPM process. Citrix takes this a step further and puts the responsibility of data collection and some analysis into the hands of the regions.
- The importance of measurement at the activity, functional and campaign level have penetrated the organization as an established “culture of measurement”, resulting in improved efficiencies and effectiveness across marketing. In Intel. . . “discussions driven by the dashboard have made the staff smarter and more cognizant about how we’re contributing to Intel business success and why.”
Essential guidance for every marketer to either catch up to your peers, or to stay ahead of the MPM curve includes: 1) If you don’t have a MPM process yet, start now!. . . And don’t aim for perfection; 2) Use relevant metrics that drive action; 3) Include all marketing groups in your MPM process as well as sales; and 4) Include your MPM process as part of your weekly, monthly, quarterly and annual reporting and strategic planning process, with a well communicated cadence in alignment with sales and corporate.
Feel free to comment below or email me at mgerard@idc.com to continue the discussion. I’ll be glad to share some additional insight regarding where I see companies headed for “MPM 3.0″.
May 13, 2008
One of the most interesting aspects of mobile devices is their ability to link the physical and the digital world. 2D barcoding has been extremely popular in Japan and Korea for the last few years and is starting at last to penetrate the more mobile challenged regions of the world such as the US.In the US, the uptake on 2D barcodes and other technologies linking the analogue and the digital world has been slower- largely due to lack of agreement among the five major carriers as to which technology to adopt but even more importantly, the expensive data plans that still exist around MMS in the US and other Western countries.
One major test around 2D bar-coding and mobile discovery has been conduced at Case Western Reserve University to mixed results with a fairly negative article in the NY Times covering the experiment.
ViPR (Visual Pattern Recognition) allows the camera phone to take a photograph of an object or image - the user sends this photo to an email address after which the user receives additional information such as an invite to buy, a coupon or free gift - whatever action the marketer wants to take place.
There are various companies experimenting with ViPR technologies including MobiGlyphs.com a subsidiatry of Compex Inc. and Snap Tell which recently conduced a fun contest around the movie “Where in the world is Osama Bin Laden” and received coverage in the NYTimes for their technology.
For ViPR and 2D technologies to become more prevalent over the next years the carriers will need to more aggressively push the technologies and include them with new mobile devices - with the imminent release of the iPhone 2.0 there will be several applications released over the next month or so using these technologies which will spur adoption. While adoption has been slow to date, it’s likely to pick up very rapidly over the next couple of years. One to watch !
May 8, 2008
Excellent post below from today’s adage.com. When Everything Is Media, What Is Media Worth? This is one of the reasons why IDG has focused so much effort on it’s Market Fusion research and lead service. We really want to better help our clients what types of content, media formats and messaging our readers /their prospects better respond to, and what that means from an engagement point of view and thus your ROI. If you are not aware of Market Fusion, check it out on the Innovations section of the site.
Why the Market Has Struggled With New Categories of Ad Inventory
Posted by Troy Young on 05.05.08 @ 11:41 AM
 Troy Young |
Note: Ian Shaffer and I are working some cosmic connection. I put a few words together for the blog last week 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, e-mail, 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 e-mail 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.
May 8, 2008
With reference to the recent coverage of IDG within NYTimes ” publisher tested the waters online and dove in..” ..full story available here. There has been some interesting commentary from different sources but this post from BusinessWeek.com really caught my attention and for emphasis I have posted the story in its entirety :Updated 5/7) There’s a happy-dappy profile of tech publishing and conference giant International Data Group in today’s New York Times. The story notes how IDG’s publishing arm got 86% of its revenue from print and 14% from the web five years ago but now its getting slightly over half its revenue from the web. Wow. Indeed, this is seen as some kind of important and hopeful sign for the publishing and media business at large, with a comparison to the decision by The Capital Times newspaper to abandon its print edition and a closing quote from venture capitalist Stewart Alsop that “what’s happening at I.D.G. is a fairly accurate map for every other publishing organization.”I hate to be the bearer of bad news, especially for my own industry, but using what happened at IDG as a map for the rest of the publishing industry would be like using Christopher Columbus’s charts to fly to the moon. There’s a publishing pink elephant in the room that nobody in the NYT’s story seems to notice. Most of IDG’s publications are what’s known as controlled circulation. Readers paid nothing but were selected to receive titles like Infoworld gratis based on their attraction to certain advertisers. There is no subscription revenue to the publisher and the publisher still bears all the costs of printing and mailing. So when IDG shifts a publication to the web and stops printing, it can cut costs to the bone and shift advertisers to its web site.But most publishers charge for subscriptions - in fact they charge a lot. The New York Times collected $227 million from subscribers in the first quarter, for example, along with $458 million in ad revenue. For mainstream publishers, that’s a much bigger potential loss from the seemingly obvious and simple shift online depicted in the IDG story.The article also raises questions about advertiser behavior. A tech-industry trade publication’s advertisers come from a narrow slice of the entire ad market, a slice that’s likely more comfortable going online and more likely to be selling directly online than other segments. But when you look at the whole ecosystem of advertisers, especially the big players in mainstream publications, you find a rather different attitude. It’s a lot easier to imagine Cisco Systems and Salesforce.com shifting ads to a web-based version of Infoworld than it is to see Tiffanys or Bulgari moving from the New York Times Sunday Magazine to the web. Research I’ve cited in the past examining the revenue shift for mainstream publishers concluded that its an almost insurmountable mountain.Finally, I’m also a little wary of stories about private companies that don’t disclose all their financial information the way public companies do. We know that publishing is only one part of IDG’s business but not how big a part. We know the publishing division got a higher percentage of revenue from the web in 2007 than in 2002 but not anything about the dollar amounts involved. I emailed a PR rep at IDG to see if they’d disclose more info but haven’t heard back. In the meantime, there’s less than meets the eye for the rest of the publishing industry from IDG’s transformation.
http://blogs.businessweek.com/mt/mt-tb.cgi/10175.1259714642
So here’s my rapid fire response ( caveat I did not spend anytime researching facts). The author does indeed make a good point regarding subs revenue etc and the impact of just walking away from that revenue. However, IDG also has many magazines throughout its publishing empire with sizeable subs revenues ( particularly as a % of that magazines revenue), and yet as company we still continue to make the transformation…we see our readers soending more and more time online, we see the value of our content in providing platforms to our readers and advertisers online that print just cannot deliver. I believe newspaper circs continue to fall at an alarming rate ..so no matter what the mindset at NYT or any other major newspaper..readers are voting with their wallets and their time….you have to adapt and push the boundaries . With regards the comments about Cisco and other tech advertisers being willing to shift dollars online, well I don’t disagree with that, however tech, financial services and travel are I believe the 3 biggest categories of online advertisers..IDG only gets to play in one of those categories, national newspapers get to play in all 3 and some! Lastly, the point about Tiffany type advertisers does make some sense, its hard to see today how one could recreate the whole reader experience of say Vogue, but a counterpoint is to look at the success of the Glam network of sites, and just how much money they are taking off the print table and the table of well established print brands that have been slow to adept to the web.I don’t believe there is any simple answer or that IDG is an example that every media company can replicate, but as a company we have been through pain, but we continue to innovate and adapt and to lead in our markets…readers and advertisers are driving change…. and for IDG it’s a mindset to constantly listen to customers and to constantly innovate.
Apr 17, 2008
Since its inception in 1964, International Data Group, has managed to stay ahead of its competition by remaining true to the corporate values established by its chairman, Pat McGovern.
- To remain dedicated to our mission of providing exceptional services on information technology.
- To show respect for the dignity of each individual.
- To invest in our people through training and career development.
- To produce products of the highest quality.
- To provide excellent customer service.
- To keep close to our customers and qualified prospects.
- To be responsive to changes in the marketplace.
- To keep our corporate staff lean.
- To encourage autonomy through locally managed business units.
- To foster an action-oriented “let’s try it attitude.”
By focusing on the changes in the marketplace, being close to our customers and having an agile company willing to try new approaches, over the last decade, IDG has been able to transform from being a print-centric to a web-centric organization.As EVP Interactive for IDG Communications, I consider the likely changes to our business over the next decade and it’s clear that, once again, the company will have to transition - this time to focus on information and services being delivered to our audiences via sophisticated mobile devices.According to the International Telecommunications Union there are over 3.3 billion mobile phone subscribers (2.6 billion unique users) - that’s not far off 50% of the world’s population. The mobile industry is already significantly larger than the internet with its 1.3 billion users and it continues to grow rapidly. There were 1.14 billion mobile phones shipped in 2007, according to IDC, and that number is expected to increase by 8.7% to 1.24 billion units in 2008.Driving growth will be shipments of mobile phones into emerging markets but there will be an increasing emphasis on replacement handsets. In South Korea and Japan, young adults replace their phones every 6 months resulting in a “spring” and “fall” fashion cycle. Growing faster than the overall mobile phone market is the segment of sophisticated mobile devices that employ a high-level operating system (HLOS) to run mobile applications. These devices are appealing to both to the prosumer market, which identifies the mobile device as a tool to improve personal efficiency as well as to enterprise users looking to improve corporate efficiency.Worldwide shipments of these sophisticated mobile devices, which are often referred to as “converged mobile devices” (CMDs), will grow from 124.6 million in 2007 to 376.2 million in 2012. CMDs accounted for 10.9% of all mobile phone shipments in 2007, up from 2.9% just three years prior. In 2007 in the United States shipments of mobile devices reached 181.9 million units of which 20.1 million (11.1%) were CMD shipments, an astonishing increase of 139.2% from 8.4 million units in 2006.Following on from print (newspapers, books and magazines), voice and music recordings, film/cinema, radio, TV/cable and recently the Internet, now mobile is the newest and most exciting mass media. Over the next few years, the mobile phone is on course to replace the PC as the primary device for getting online. Already 30% of worldwide Internet access is from mobile phones - but in certain countries such as Japan - it’s as high as 70%. We’re moving from the PC World to Personal Communications World.The scale and particular characteristics of this latest mass media means that it will be much more powerful than all its predecessors. The Internet added two unique benefits over previous media - social interactivity and search. Mobile goes even further - not only can all elements of existing media be delivered via mobile, there are additional advantages of mobile that makes it far superior to other media forms. These include:
- Personal. Mobile is so personal that we don’t even share our phones with those closest to us.
- Always-carried. Our mobile devices go with us everywhere - to the bedroom and to the bathroom - they’re always within an arm’s reach.
- Always-on. Mobile has the capability to be the ultimate news and alert media - faster by several magnitudes than any other media.
- Targeting. Mobile is the first mass media where every single consumer can be uniquely identified and content (and advertising) targeted to meet their interests.
- Payment and purchase channel. Mobile phones will become wallets offering alternatives to cash and credit cards.
- Creative Input device. With image and voice inputs users can create and share content via their mobile devices.
- Enhanced communications. On mobile devices, e-mail and instant messaging are complemented by SMS and MMS including visual communications.
The scale of the mobile market produces enormous economic opportunities for content creators and marketers and for those who can look beyond some of the keyboard and screen limitations to the “power” of the device. With the emergence of any new mass medium, there is a tendency to copy from legacy media models - however, this approach normally has a high failure rate. The new medium must make use of attributes not available in previous media.The ability of the Internet to allow users to interact has driven user generated content and online social and business networking. With the move to mobile, new applications and approaches to content and services will have to take heed of users very personal interaction with their mobile devices.We are seeing the dawn of a new medium - it feels a lot like the launch of the World Wide Web back in 1993. No one quite knows how things are going to turn out but everyone is sensing great potential and opportunity. As mobile usage continues to surge, IDG will be at the forefront - guiding users through the choices of hardware, software and services, developing content and services for our mobile audiences and working closely with marketers to find the most appropriate ways to engage with mobile users and to measure the impact of that engagement. It’s going to be a very exciting journey.
