The New Frontier: How Mobile and Apps Are Moving Into Unknown Territory

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The new frontier

How mobile and apps are moving into unknown territory
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NOVEMBER
2011
marketingweek.co.uk
this issue
Justin Pearse Theres no excuse for being digital wallpaper

The central lesson to be learnt from this months Digital Strategy supplement is the need to make your online display budget work harder. This months edition is packed full of inspiring case studies and hard data demonstrating the impact online display advertising can have on your business. The immediately quantifiable nature of digital disciplines like search and affiliate marketing has meant display advertising often feels like the poor relation online. However innovation in areas like social media, analytics and online video are making investment in display advertising essential. Turn to page 55 for some startling proof of this. As with so many brands, insurer Hiscox had been allocating the lions share of its online budget to search 60:40 over display. Digging deeper with analytics, it discovered display had a huge impact post impression. Its now transformed its budget 80:20 in favour of display and already slashed its cost per acquisition by 32%. Our peer panel feature on online display proves that innovation and Video will be a crucial experimentation is essential. In a driver of online, with telling quote, RSA Group chief marketing officer Pete Markey says, on click-through rates as page 61: Online advertising is lot of people. Run a high as 15%. But get it wallpaper to a banner campaign and generic online wrong and you could end youll fade into this background. million up with only 15 views for Instead, Markey saw half a on views for a mini movie ad 750,000 campaign... YouTube. Indeed, video will be a crucial driver for the growth of online display. Brands need to navigate the exploding array of options for running video ads, from TV broadcasters online efforts to less obvious video destinations like AOL and Grazia. The stakes here are high. Get it right and you could see click-through rates as high as 15%, according to Channel 4s Ed Couchman. Get it wrong and you could end up with only 15 views for a 750,000 video campaign. Read our feature on page 49 to make sure you make the right decisions. Personalisation is a key driver for the evolution of display advertising picked out by our peer panel and its this type of targeting that is central to social media marketing. Especially the use of data available through the social graph. As we explain in our innovation update feature on page 45, many businesses, by restricting their view of social media to a few tweets or a Facebook page, are missing out. Brands like American Express are using the social graph to tailor communications to customers based on how they interact across all social spaces online. Targeting based on multiple layers of social interaction is critical. Our case study on VisitBritain on page 46 finds the company growing the number of people who Liked its Facebook page from 126,173 to 255,751 in a seven-day campaign by targeting friends of friends using Facebooks Sponsored Stories. Finally, this months Strategic Play, on page 40, shows French Connection making use of all these innovations to drive online revenue. Online display is a core plank to any online strategy but true success will only come from experimentation and innovation. Dont fade into the wallpaper.
Justin Pearse, editor, new media age
marketingweek.co.uk | November 2011 | Digital Strategy | 35
Cover Story Mobile Brands taking an educational route
38
Strategic Play 40 French Connection How digital is helping the label boost sales Innovation Update Social graph How social media is evolving targeting Innovation Update Online video The brands moving into broadcasting 45
49
Innovation Update 55 Analytics Tools that dig deeper into your web traffic Peer Panel 59 Online display Expert discuss their use of the medium Interactive Resources Index 66-67
Supplement editor Ruth Mortimer (020 7970 4858) new media age editor Justin Pearse (020 7970 4851) Digital account director Bal Bhogal (020 7970 6734) Art director Wendy Webb (020 7970 4133) Production editor Teresa Waddington (020 7970 6332) Marketing community production editor Timothy Weissberg (020 7970 4347) Group production manager George Stuart (020 7970 4315) Deputy group production manager Mark English (020 7970 6242) Publisher Sarah Gilchriest (020 7970 6300)
foreword
SPONSORED FEATURE
Ian Carrington Google mobile advertising sales director
Make your brand mobile friendly

Giving consumers the best possible experience on their mobile device is critically important. A poor mobile web experience can negatively shape a consumers opinion of your brand and make it hard for them to engage or make a purchase. A recent study asked users about the performance of mobile websites and discovered that 61% of users are unlikely to return to a website that they had trouble accessing on their phone. Clearly, the best consumer experiences on mobile devices happen on websites that are designed specifically for mobile. But being mobile friendly is more than just fitting onto the screen. Follow these best practices to turn your site into a great mobile experience. device and send them to the mobile-friendly version of your site. Have your site developer implement this redirect code so your customers get the best version of your site for their needs. And because people use multiple screens throughout the day, convert as much of the functionality of your desktop site to mobile as you can to create a seamless experience. tasks throughout their day. To help, design your site to load fast and make copy easy to scan. Use your desktop site analytics to see what mobile users are doing, then prioritise content accordingly. Reduce large blocks of text, use bullet points and compress images to keep them small for faster site loading.
Navigation
Clear navigation will help your customers easily find what they need, so use seven or fewer links per page, include back and home buttons, provide a prominent search box and eliminate rollovers. A mobile-friendly site will feature minimal scrolling and a clear hierarchy too. Design your site for clumsy hands and a small screen. Create large, centered buttons with plenty of breathing room to reduce accidental clicks, and pad out smaller buttons and check boxes to increase clickable areas. Make it easy for your customers to read content by creating contrast between your background and text, while ensuring everything fits and can be read without pinching and zooming. No matter what your sites objective is, your customers need to be able to achieve it with a virtual keyboard and no mouse. Make it easy to buy something or contact you by reducing the number of steps needed to complete a transaction and using click-to-call for all phone numbers. Consumers look for local information on their phones all the time, from locating the nearest florist to finding an open chemist. Include functionality that helps people find and reach you. Feature your address or store locator on the landing page, and include maps and directions.
Speed
Keep your mobile site quick. Mobile users are short on time, squeezing in online
A redirect code
A mobile-site redirect is code that can automatically tell if visitors are using a mobile
Inclusivity
Ideally, your mobile site should work across all mobile devices and all handset orientations. Find alternatives to Flash, which doesnt work on all devices, and consider HTML5 for interactivity and animation. Remember to adapt your site for both vertical and horizontal orientations too. G
Smart thinking: A mobile website should be pared down to the essentials (above); design for clumsy hands (left)
36 | Digital Strategy | November 2011 | marketingweek.co.uk
case study Kiddicare

SPONSORED FEATURE
The UKs top online nursery supplier responded to customer demand for a mobile website and saw sales through the channel rocketing
Kiddicare discovers that optimising for users on the go is vital in revenue growth
We tried to move as much of the desktop functionality as possible to mobile, removing anything that would weigh the pages down
Simon Harrow Technology officer, Kiddicare
Kiddicare the UKs largest online nursery and baby supplier puts its success down to a strong commitment to customers, so when the company noticed rising mobile visitor numbers, it knew that action needed to be taken. We were seeing an increase in traffic coming from mobile devices and we knew that consumers were getting a poor experience from it, says Simon Harrow, Kiddicare technology officer. With mobile representing approximately 7% of website traffic, it was important to optimise the mobile experience to maximise conversions. Harrow realised the need was particularly urgent because Kiddicares desktop site utilises Flash, which doesnt work on all mobiles. From concept to launch, the build took seven weeks and was entirely accomplished in-house. What was the process? We went through the desktop site user journey and took out the elements that were important to our customers, such as price, stock numbers, reviews and video, he says. We tried to move as much of the functionality as possible to mobile. We removed anything that would weigh the pages down unnecessarily. The project revealed further best practices. The Add to Basket button has to be within reach of a thumb, says Harrow. Having more pages and clicks is not necessarily a problem in mobile, where on desktop you may want to keep clicks to a minimum.
He also recommends large buttons to accommodate clumsy thumbs, as well as pages that resize automatically according to device orientation. For Kiddicare, a major priority was enabling the customers shopping basket to transfer seamlessly between channels so users have exactly the same experience across all devices. Our mobile solution is very clean and neat. When you visit by mobile you visit the full Kiddicare website rendered to a mobile device user interface, Harrow says. Kiddicares mobile traffic has increased 36% since March 2011, but thats not the only reason it is pleased to have a mobile site. Between barcode scanning apps and our website search feature, the site turns all of our competitors stores into a showroom for us, says Harrow. Because baby goods are a considered purchase and people still like to see, feel and touch items, this gives us a chance to acquire sales from people checking things in other retail brands stores and finding that we are typically cheaper and have a price-match guarantee plus next day delivery, he adds.
Already, 6% of Kiddicares business is conducted via mobile. We think by the end of next year, 20% of our business will be through mobile, Harrow explains. So what does he say are the benefits of optimising for a mobile audience? We dont believe consumers differentiate between devices, he says. Customers are touching your brand; they expect the same experience and the same behaviour. If were able to sell cots, car seats and other highly considered purchases through mobile, we believe you can sell anything. For Kiddicare, this realisation came not a second too soon. We had our first mobile order four minutes after going live, recalls Harrow. Our technical team was still testing the website. G
digital strategy cover story mobile
The rise of the mobile pioneers

As smartphone and tablet penetration extends further than ever before, brands are moving into new territory by taking learning digital with engaging, educational apps. By Nicola Smith
lmost nine out of 10 school pupils aged seven to 11 have a mobile phone, although less than threequarters have books at home, reports the National Literacy Trust. With mobile use so widespread, the UK education sector is waking up to the opportunities that technology can offer in reaching everyone from pre-schoolers to undergraduates. Manchester University is giving its medical and dental students Apple iPads in the first UK trial of its kind, and Cedars School of Excellence in Scotland also arms pupils with the device. As tablets, mobiles and apps become commonplace in education, how are brands getting involved? BT is one business reaching young people more effectively thanks to the convenience of mobile. Julie Hindley, who manages community investment programme development at BT, which has been working on communications in the education space for over 15 years, says she saw a shift in demand from schools for digital products about 18 months ago. Historically, we used to provide booklets and DVDs for schools, at their request, she says. When we integrated our websites and moved from DVDs to PDFs and downloadable material,
we saw increased uptake from schools. It made us think, OK, what is the next logical step? BTs first smartphone app was Coaching For Life, aimed at helping parents and carers to play with and train kids in games and sports. This was initially developed as a website resource, but Hindley and her team soon spotted the opportunity for people to access it on the move. With hindsight, if we had designed it as an app from day one, it probably wouldnt be quite the size it is it is a meaty download, she says. But once it is loaded, it looks fantastic and is easy to use. Another of BTs apps, Moving On, is aimed at giving interview and career advice to 14- to 19year-olds. We hope that by pulling the information into an app, it might be used as a comfort blanket on the way to interviews, says Hindley. There are free text pages too so young people can jot down things about strengths and opportunities. Were a communications company and we want to help all ages with important communications skills. Hindley is now wrestling with whether future BT apps should be designed for the smartphone or tablet noting: We will probably play it safe and go down both routes.
digital strategy cover story
viewpoint
Tim Flagg, marketing director at digital publisher MindShapes The challenge for any brand looking to engage with consumers through the [education] channel is how to create an app that is relevant and useful. The app store is full of fun games, but few are conceived with knowledge of how children learn. There is a low cost to entry for apps but brands cannot take this for granted and should be looking at investing in a long-term relationship. The opportunity for brands is to give purpose to game play. They have often already acquired insights into consumer needs and this should allow them to identify and develop promotional apps that offer solutions or entertainment with specific purpose. But they still need to deliver a positive brand perception and this must be done through high-quality production. Apps are a logical brand extension in a world where major brands seem to be competing to become transmedia, and offer their customers additional content. Historically, entertainment brands have naturally dominated this area but increasingly, all consumer brands will need to have a presence, and licensing existing intellectual property could well be an effective solution. Theres a symbiotic relationship between rights holders looking to gain exposure for their properties and consumer brands, who have the budget to build the apps and the distribution channels to promote them but need the hook to reach the consumer.
Dorling Kindersley: The Human Body app (above). Britannica: Knights and castles app (left)
The Telegraph is also taking a multi-channel approach for the student audience. Last summer, the newspaper teamed up with UCAS to develop a clearing app for Android and Apple, allowing students to search available university places by course, institution and location. It had more than 10,000 downloads. Telegraph classified sales director James Lancaster says: Our research shows the iPad is likely to remain primarily in the hands of affluent 35- to 54-year-olds until mid-2012, whereas smartphones are common across all age groups. In fact, he adds, our clearing app was visited by twice as many people using iPods than iPads, so it comes down to understanding your audience and the devices they use before embarking on any development. Last year, educational publisher Britannica launched its kids app series across iPod, iPhone and iPad, with topics including the solar system, knights and castles and the rainforest, combining interactive games and pictures. They were all curriculum-led, with subjects chosen for their popularity with primary schools, says Eoghan Hughes, PR manager for Encyclopaedia Britannica (UK). Anecdotally, they have been well received by parents and teachers.
The publisher is about to launch a series of apps aimed at the revision market, incorporating games-based quizzes designed for exam preparation. More and more schools are waking up to just how smart devices and mobile phones can be used within the classroom, and as schools become more focused on mobile learning, we are in prime position to offer our services, he says. At the lower end of the age spectrum, educational technology company LeapFrog launched the LeapPad, the UKs first tablet for children, in October, while Entertainment One (eOne), which licenses pre-school brand Peppa Pig, has used tablets to engage more deeply with its key audience. EOne head of licensing and merchandising Andrew Carley says: Three years ago we were looking at this space apps and video games etc and we all said it wasnt for pre-school; it just isnt relevant. This thinking was quickly proved wrong. Here we are three years later with very successful apps and a Nintendo DS game, he says. Up until the tablet, there had been a barrier in terms of how a pre-schooler could interact with a sophisticated piece of technology, such as a computer, but the tablet overcame that in one fell swoop. While eOne has developed what it terms simple smartphone apps, the tablet has enabled it to create a more interactive and sophisticated offering through branded Peppa Pig games, involving shapes, colours and numbers. It is learning through fun and creativity, rather than learning for learnings sake, says Carley. For publisher Faber, the tablet has made literature more accessible to students. In June 2011, the publisher released an iPad app around TS Eliots epic poem The Waste Land. We have a notes function so you can tap any word, line or stanza and see an explanation, says Fabers head of digital publishing Henry Volans. It seems that an app is a good means of helping people to come to terms with difficult work. The app also includes six readings, a filmed performance of the poem and 37 short videos. It gives you a place to put all these huge resources that you couldnt obviously put in books, he adds. Faber was cautious in its expectations of the app. It has not been formally marketed to schools, but has been used by teachers. We were expecting our money back in a year, but we were in profit within two months, says Volans. By app standards, it is pricey [9.99], but the strategy appears to have paid off.
Dorling Kindersley (DK), in conjunction with digital agency AKQA, has also leveraged the full functionality of the iPad with The Human Body app, which appeals to arguably the broadest cross-section possible from doctors to kids. Based on DKs popular book, the app has remained a top-10 seller on iTunes since launching in August 2011. Jonathan Metcalf, publishing director at DK Knowledge, says: We really went to town on the user experience and interactivity. As well as a navigation of the human body, the app also features haptic feedback [vibrations and movement], allowing the user to actually feel the heart beat, the lungs breathe and the nerve impulses race as they hold their iPad. With the arrival of the UKs first mobile book in October a novel written in chapters of fewer than 100 words on a Nokia E6 coupled with the imminent launch of Amazons Kindle Fire set to rival existing tablets, the landscape is shifting fast and brands need to think on their feet. There are many ways brands can get involved in the educational space, says Volans. Content sponsorship is interesting, allowing for cheaper or even free apps. We would look at possibly working with brand partners if its done well, with the right partner, it could be interesting. G
Making the digital connection

Setting its brand apart with an experiential story, French Connection is proving that its quirky values can successfully migrate online to unlock valuable revenue streams. By Maeve Hosea
rench Connection is still perhaps best known for its controversial 1990s ad campaign using the risqu moniker FCUK. The slogan may be gone but the companys risk-taking attitude is still present, although much of its edgier marketing is now done online. Digital innovations at the company include this summers digital sneak preview of the brands autumn/winter range for its top customers; and an interactive video shop called YouTique, which allows people to buy when they click on products in short films on YouTube. French Connection director of ecommerce and digital marketing Jennifer Roebuck says: Our brand is associated with innovation and provocation, so it is easy for us to try new stuff because it doesnt look out of place. The need for Roebuck to find new ways to prise revenues from customers is clear. French Connection, like many other retailers on the high
street, is finding times tough, with pre-tax profits of just 0.7m for the six months to July this year. With its prices double of many competitors, such as H&M, it needs to set itself apart from rivals. Roebuck, who has worked in the digital area for 12 years for businesses including Nectar, Orange and Arcadia, says that online is a great area for the brand to experiment with marketing. The worst case scenario is that something doesnt do well and you take it down, she says. As long as you can keep the spend reasonable, make sure the impact on your team and resource is minimal and put something out there that is different, I say: why not? It was this type of attitude that led to the development of YouTique and championing of social commerce through a Facebook page with links to products. YouTique makes use of YouTubes pop-up buttons by letting viewers buy in just a few clicks the items shown. The initial videos, with titles such as How to Shine on a Night Out, were presented by stylist Louise Roe and aimed to give viewers the sense that they had a personal shopper guiding them through various looks. Through running YouTique for two seasons, French Connection has found it brings in higher average order values than when goods are ordered using other channels. The campaign validates video content as a sales tool but the brand is now asking whether this should be done via YouTube or whether it could be better leveraged on its own site. These days people are still gravitating towards shocking, funny or disgusting YouTube content or music videos, says Roebuck. So when you are a brand selling on YouTube, you are not getting the audience. The amount you
french connection
With a range of products for several target audiences, personalised marketing is one of French Connections aims
have to invest sometimes costs more than the sales you are getting. As for investing more in social commerce, Roebuck is sceptical of its weight in the digital mix. Within Facebook, keen shoppers can buy items direct from the brand pages news feed, so she is monitoring the channel carefully. It is very early days for transacting on Facebook and YouTube, she says. So far, the only people who have really seen success with that are film companies selling movie content or sports teams selling T-shirts. Aside from trying new marketing techniques, the brand also has a mature digital strategy mixing search, email, affiliate, display, retargeting and customer relationship management techniques. Like many other retailers, French Connections digital sector has grown over 100% in the past three years, while traffic has grown 200%. The crucial question is how to turn that increase into sales. We are constantly looking at what functionality and visual improvements we need to add, where the market is and who has what, she says. I look at the US market as a benchmark because I think they are a little more innovative and quicker there. Roebuck has already made significant changes to the companys overall identity online since joining in 2008. One of her first tasks was to relaunch the site with a focus on an interactive experience and top products, including launching its shoe and bag ranges online. Fashion-focused editorial sections, including trend reports and stories on celebrity followers were incorporated, along with a discussion board. Roebuck takes a pragmatic approach to the digital mix. All brands are at a different stage with the different channels of digital marketing, she says. Generally, you start with building the business, your traditional digital tactics, then you move onto more innovative areas. Then you move onto extracting as much as you can out of the site through optimisation, and then you move on to personalisation. The brands approach to email marketing, working with agency EmailVision, illustrates
that journey well. In a mid-way stage of digital evolution that has integration but no personalisation as yet, the strategy so far is to have automated communications and standard weekly content updates that people can opt into. This is primarily fashion led and exploits the appeal of fashion staples such as the top-ten sellers or How to wear a black dress. Roebucks hard and fast rules in this space are to carefully consider content, dont over mail and stay on top of the unsubscribe rate. We take pride in being on brand, matching the overarching campaigns and being in sync, she says. The character of the companys email communications follows the offbeat approach seen in the rest of the brands advertising, which currently uses baffling phrases, such as: This is you? You are man and This is the
woman. She is knowing we are looking. The use of email is not just tactical, claims Roebuck, who sees it as a brand-building tool. When we are releasing a campaign video, we will send it out via email, she says. We use it for communicating brand as much as sales. Search marketing is high on the agenda and the brand is active in both natural and paid search. Roebuck says that having good agency relationships is particularly vital in areas such as search, where numerous changes take place regularly with Google, Bing and Yahoo!. With a goal to make the most out of generic terms, she is enthusiastic about the functionality that Google is adding. There are constant improvements in terms of what you can do with your ad, she says. As Google does that, our generics are performing much better.
strategic play french connection
casestudy FOR YOUR EYES ONLY

French Connection launched a preview site initiative to help generate loyalty among its fickle 18- to 35-year-old consumer base. It has been using a small-scale technology investment to enable its top customers and Facebook fans the opportunity to get their hands on the 2011 autumn/winter collections before they hit the stores. The functionality driven campaign went live on 20 July, allowing these certain customers private early access to the collection. People received the preview site log-in after being sent a link to it and then mailed a password. The site featured a countdown page bearing a ticker that told consumers how many days and hours there were until the collection was available. Then they received another communication when it was live. The aim was to give customers with access to the preview site a sense of kudos because they had two weeks before the collection went into the main universe of French Connection, where everyone could buy it. French Connection director of ecommerce and digital marketing Jennifer Roebuck explains: Part of what we are trying to do is figure out what we can do for our customers to help drive loyalty and make them feel like they are being rewarded in an ongoing way. From a retention perspective, we will be more focused on personalisation to ensure we can try and deliver things to our customers that are of interest. The perennial challenge for the company is to offer value to the customer without discounting or offering loyalty cards, things that are not considered a good match for the premium nature of the brand. Roebuck has been measuring the success of the initiative by looking at the sales, average order rate, visits, referral rate and response to the communications that went out containing the preview messaging. One key indicator of the traction gained is the Facebook activity where customers have proved to be more engaged through commenting and participating than they had been with anything else on the Facebook site. We performed very well with an average order value that was a lot higher than normal, says Roebuck. We also had good engagement levels. Browsing time and viewing of products was much greater than when weve launched in the traditional way and there was a very good referral rate.
Her work with natural search puts an emphasis on link density, link building and any SEO benefit she can build through content. She judges this to be the biggest improvement the brand has made over the past year. Although French Connection uses affiliate marketing, Roebuck claims the channel does not derive striking results. It has two networks in the UK, and ones in Canada, the US and Europe. The brand doesnt do the discounting and coupon offers that affiliates typically find drive growth and get high responses. The leverage it can gain from affiliate marketing is also limited because it is very restrictive about which sites it will appear on from a brand perspective. Affiliate and search are important as channels because they are probably the lowest cost of acquisition and of sales in retail, so they can help drive the volume, says Roebuck. But they can only help drive so much volume.
key points
G Make sure you understand customer interaction with each channel available to your brand. G Affiliate and search channels are important because they offer a low cost of acquisition and the lowest cost of sales in retail, so they can help drive volume. G Make sure your online experiences are interactive. Online should be just as creative as offline. G Use the participation elements of social sites, such as Facebook and YouTube, to engage your most eager customers. G Consider how your marketing initiatives can reward loyalty and make consumers feel like they are being rewarded in an ongoing way.
Mobile is an area where Roebuck expects to see some big developments in the near future. Yet she believes there is significant hype in this area. Rather than rely on agencies for mobile know-how, she aims to learn from her peers. As such, French Connections mobile strategy involves keeping the site simple with easy navigation cues, steering clear of too much content and graphics. Roebuck says: A lot of people looking for your brand on mobile are more functionally minded, looking for things like your store and your opening hours, your product categories, how to buy and how to transact. We have an iPhone app and an iPad app, but have chosen not to develop other apps because apart from tablet apps, a mobile site is all you really need, she adds. With so many marketing and sales strands to pull together, on and offline, evaluation of digital work is appraised on the brands commercial success. Analytics, sales and consumer engagement play a part, as does brand impact. Increasingly, marketers are looking away from the last-click model to try to ascertain the true value each marketing stage be it display, social media, mobile plays in the consumers journey. It can be a challenge, though, to make sense of the data and make it actionable. Attribution modelling is one way, perhaps, of assessing these pathways and an area Roebuck is considering. I think, long term, it will be useful because as more and more channels develop, you need to see what the consumer interaction is with different channels, she says. Large companies with massive budgets are probably leveraging their attribution model for ad exchanges, but most retailers in our space are just starting out with it. While French Connection may be keen to display a youthful insouciance to attract its customers, its business operations are heavily backed by data. It may take creative risks, but it is keeping a firm grip on the execution. G
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innovation update social graph

The social graph is an evolution of retargeting, offering brands the ability to target customers via their social activity online as well as that of their friends. By Charlotte McEleny
Sharing data among friends

Brands have been quick to sign up for Facebook pages or broadcast their views on Twitter. But many businesses are failing to capitalise on the valuable data revealed by their customers social graph or open graph, which could allow them to reach a greater number of consumers with personalised messages. The social or open graph is a way of mapping people online and how they relate to each other. An individuals social graph may include their Facebook friends, Twitter followers and LinkedIn connections anyone involved in their interactions and content sharing. It is not confined to one social network or business. The social graph applies to the entire internet. Finance brand American Express is testing importing Facebook data into its credit card system in the US to help deliver targeted offers based on social information. Alex Tait, director of international digital acquisition at American Express and chair of the ISBA digital action group, explains: We are using social data for offers. In the US, you can sign up via Facebook and get offers based on your Likes and social data. Our view is that what feels right for the consumer should be the point of reference, he adds. It is no different to being customeroriented. It is like the traditional marketing aim: a relevant message at the right time. The benefits of targeting peoples social
case study visitbritain

The goal of VisitBritains most recent Facebook campaign was to increase the size of the fan base on its Love UK page. The organisation has been active on the social network since 2009, attracting more than 100,000 fans, but to increase this, it turned to targeting friends of friends via Facebooks Sponsored Stories advertising. Sponsored Stories allow businesses to increase the visibility of organic Facebook News Feed stories when they relate to their organisation or business. The campaign ran from 25 April to 1 May, and also used Page Like and Page Post Sponsored Stories. VisitBritain and Love UK head of digital and social media Justin Reid explains: They are shown to friends of people who had Liked or commented on our page, which is the real golden area. As a result, Love UK increased the number of people who liked its page from 126,173 fans to 255,751 over the course of the sevenday campaign. In one day alone, 42,000 people liked the page. Through the use of Page Post Sponsored Stories, which increase the distribution of posts among existing fans, engagement with the Love UK Page has also increased significantly. Feedback on Page Posts has increased by 29%. The results have caused VisitBritain to take a Facebook-focused approach to its marketing, despite the wealth of other social channels available. Our overall social media strategy is based on Facebook because thats where our main successes have been, says Reid. The Love UK page has more than 500,000 fans. The company has three more campaigns set up for the coming year; the next one starts in early June and will again centre on Sponsored Stories, says Reid. The next major step change will be to embark on an effective Facebook Commerce strategy, moving towards integrating other digital and commercial channels into a Facebookcentred strategy.
VisitBritain: Taking a Facebook-centric approach to marketing
graphs or friends of friends online as a means of expanding brand reach was recently explored in research by web measurement firm ComScore, which collaborated with Facebook to find out how effective targeting via the social graph could be compared to standard ads. Using its own data and figures extracted using Facebooks own analytics, ComScore concluded that the social graph throws up two potential audiences: fans of a brand (or those that have chosen to Like it); and friends of fans, which you can establish by reading the social data. Targeting this second group friends of fans increased the potential pool of customers by 34 times, according to ComScores analysis of the hundred largest brand pages on Facebook. Microsofts Bing page had 1.7 million fans on Facebook, but by considering the friends of fans, this jumped to 232 million. Kodak is using social data as a way to humanise its customer dealings. It uses the social graph via Facebook and its agency Blast Radius to encourage people to print the photos stored on their profiles. The graph has given the photography brand a way to link its online and in-store retail business with an upgrade to its kiosks in stores such as Boots to allow people to
download their Facebook photos. Kodak marketing manager for EMEA Charlie Yianoullou explains: Tapping into the Facebook social graph has allowed us to reach an entirely new customer base and enter a conversation with them about printed photography. However, broadcaster Sky says it is cautious about pushing consumers too far in using their social data. The brand was the first UK advertiser to target consumers using Twitters full set of paid advertising solutions to promote the third series of US TV show Glee. Skys social media activity is predominantly around the retention of its 10 million-strong customer base. It has used social media agency Jam to create activity that helps existing customers make better use of the huge range of content they subscribe to. Using digital billboards in commuter stations, the broadcaster asked people to tweet questions about viewing. The brand then replied with a personalised recommendation, also shown on the billboard. Sky head of digital and social media Katherine Drought says that while this has been a good use of social media for her brand, she does not yet see it being integrated into other Sky services, such as its electronic programme guide (EPG).
The biggest challenge at the moment is how [social data] equates to business key performance indicators. she says. A Nielsen report recently found that a 9% increase in buzz will equate to a 1% increase in people tuning into a show, she adds. For us, increasing this buzz or net promoter score is key because it can translate into retention. The use of social data for personalisation whether in ad targeting or content is a key theme for brands. As Play.com marketing director Adam Stewart explains: We use Facebook Like data to capture friends, age, email address and even mobile number. There is a pool of social data that we can create a database out of: CRM, mobile, email and so on. Were building our personalisation strategy via email at the moment; we can use the social data to learn about our customers as individuals. Similarly, charity British Heart Foundation is using data extracted from its Facebook page and is looking to do the same with Twitter to apply to its analytics strategy around other channels. Roberto Kusabbi, communities and social media manager at British Heart Foundation, says: We have a data analyst in-house and use both Omniture and Google analytics. We want to
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Katy Jo Stanton Digital acquisition manager Jobsite I work in digital acquisition, which is mainly candidate focused. Our core activity tends to be SEO, pay-per-click and display. We've put standard display on a backburner, investing instead in dynamic display retargeting. Social targeting is a similar process. We got interested because we saw people doing this in the US. We also started to get interested in the gamification trend. That is a bit of a buzzword but it essentially means lots of people from a wide demographic using gaming online and combining that with a rewards-based system. We see an untapped market in those people playing online games because there may be candidates doing that who we haven't managed to reach elsewhere. There's a contextual layer on top of targeting people this way and thats a new way of reaching them. The sentiment and meaning you can extract from share data is more human than traditional means of retargeting, which can be very formulaic. We've already been doing some really sophisticated retargeting without social data with retargeting technology firm Struq and have seen the benefits from doing so. We have found that while the volume of people in retargeting goes down, the relevance is much higher, so it ends up as a much less scattergun approach to online display advertising.
Using Social Graph: (clockwise from top) Sky; Kodak; American Express
link the two together with social spaces, because we know the audience crosses over. You get similar data for Facebook paid ads as the data on Facebook page, so incorporating data from both paid and non-paid activity is also important. The more information we have, the easier it is to say It works, he adds. We need to show how this engagement data translates to moving from Facebook to our site and then to find out if the user donated or agreed to do an event. Recruitment brand Jobsite a Brand Innovator of The Year finalist at Marketing Weeks Engage Awards in 2010 uses Facebooks social games to expand the reach of its recent TV campaign. In return for gaming credits, players select to watch a Jobsite ad, introducing them to the brand with a soft call to action. It then uses ad network Radium Ones technology to retarget them with a stronger ad, encouraging email sign-ups. Katy Jo Stanton, digital acquisition manager at Jobsite, says using a network via social gaming sites meant that the brand didnt have to first rely on traffic to its site to be able to retarget. The process is around retargeting to people who have interacted with your brand, but it is designed so they do the activities to start the conversation, she says. You are not reliant on
other channels to bring traffic into Jobsite first. The company can also track how people on its network share with their friends, with the ability to see what type of content and with whom. As well as being able to retarget those that have interacted with your brand, you can also target their social connections, she says. The idea is that you can tell a persons social connections by seeing who they share content with, which can differ between different people. For example, with one person, I may tend to share funny videos of cats, but with my boss, Ill be sharing relevant marketing information and articles. If I then wanted to target with an ad about a marketing product, Ill be less likely to want to connect with the connection that shared the videos and instead want to reach the boss. Being able to understand this contextual layer to content sharing means that brands can be more targeted. From our perspective, thats a new way of reaching people, says Stanton. The sentiment and meaning you can extract from share data is more human than traditional means of retargeting, which can be very formulaic. But while there are huge opportunities for utilising this open graph or wealth of information about how we share with one another, the
industry has to balance this with consumers expectations about their privacy. A lot of data tracking requires the use of cookies, and brands will need to comply with the European ePrivacy directive, which requires consent to be given by consumers if they are to be tracked. American Express Tait says consumer concern about privacy is very real and that advertisers and marketers need to start understanding the technology behind it. The industry needs to raise its game; user choice, convergence and the different technology available means there is so much data, says Tait. There is a very real consumer concern about privacy and data collection. ISBA is working with other trade bodies, such as the Internet Advertising Bureau, and the first stage is to have an evolving framework set, so that we wont be playing catch-up. With social media often criticised for failing to offer concrete measurement options, using the data thrown up by the social graph could give brands a justified reason to keep investing in the area. For those businesses that can balance their customers privacy needs with the use of their data, the social graph may lead to a wealth of opportunities. G
innovation update online video
The brand as broadcaster
It is no longer just broadcasters creating online video content, and there are increasing opportunities for advertisers to engage consumers in the space. By Jessica Davies
Marketers are spotting fresh opportunities in the video-on-demand (VOD) market as nonbroadcaster publishers, including Google and AOL, make significant investments in premiumquality video content. As online video views surge 36% year on year to 785 million, according to Experian Hitwise, this area is set for a boom. Until now, the market has largely been dominated by the major UK broadcasters. Agencies tend to trade straight VOD pre-roll advertising as part of their TV trading deals for their clients. The remaining VOD inventory is then divided among ad networks, which can serve them out across publisher sites. Internet Advertising Bureau (IAB) head of industry programmes Jack Wallington says the increase in video content on the market is opening up new marketing opportunities for a wide variety of brands. A great raft of publishers outside of the broadcasters, like Grazia magazine and music platform Vevo, are investing in, producing and securing their own premium, broadcast-quality video content, he says. Magazine brand Grazia runs its own Grazia TV station on its website, while its online-based competitor iVillage is also investing in video. Meanwhile, AOL announced last month that it is developing more than 15 video web series using original content in a range of genres to run
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across its Huffington Post Media Group sites. These series will join its 300,000-strong library of premium videos. It is not just media businesses either. Computer business Dell and tea brand Twinings are also using video. As Dell global mobility online merchandising and content manager Stephen Jio explains: Video is becoming very interactive and that provides marketers with the ability to seed product and brand messaging within a video and allow the customer to become more involved with it. The reason that so many companies are keen to get involved is clear. YouTube, which accounts for 70% of all UK online video
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Stephen Jio
Global mobility online merchandising and content manager, Dell At Dell, we have seen both purpose-built and viral social videos help customers learn more about our products, as well as generate interest in new products. An example would be our Dell Duo viral created for social distribution. When we released it as a teaser, it had over 250,000 views in the first 72 hours. Another example is for the launch of our Dell Streak 5 tablet/phone last year. We created a video that has had more than 800,000 views, mostly through viral republication. Video for internet should be bespoke and not just a copy of TV material because the social community expects unique content. Critical messaging can be quickly created and presented via video. It also lets marketers manage potential issues swiftly and compassionately through the use of a spokesperson or executive. Our relationship with [media content business] ChannelFlip is a great example. Our video series David Mitchells Soapbox has given us excellent exposure to an audience of early social media adopters and potential customers. Its had over 4 million views across all digital channels in four months [see main copy, page 52]. Viral videos provide customers with a peer-trusted experience. We know through various research that they find their friends more believable than companies. Ratings and reviews are featured on Dell.com, both good and bad, so customers can see honest feedback on products. Virals take it a step further, giving viewers the chance to see the context of the feedback.
casestudy the perfume shop

High-street retailer The Perfume Shop ran a six-month online video campaign last summer, centred on promoting its range of celebrity-branded fragrances to 16- to 36year-old women. The Perfume Shops ecommerce manager Natalie Walker explains: For us, it is essential to be part of the growth and domination of online video advertising, and recognise the benefits and results driven by online media. The retailer used a YouTube tool that allows advertisers to directly target specific pieces of video content, rather than the platform as a whole. The Perfume Shop worked with pay-perclick specialist Net Media Planet on the campaign, using the YouTube tool to make perfume advertising appear on videos on the site featuring celebrities with perfume lines, such as singers Kylie Minogue and Beyonc and actress Sarah Jessica Parker. The campaign was also aligned to the publicity plans of the celebrities, so every time one of them released a new album or film or had a trip to the UK, the ads were targeted to the video promotions. Over the six-month period, the ads attracted 9 million views. In addition to direct click-throughs, the brand also saw an impressive 236% return on investment on a view-through conversion basis, whereby consumers that saw the ad then looked for the brand through a search engine. Additionally, the revenue for the celebrity fragrances up 193% generated through YouTube outstripped the revenue from search engine PPC alone. This was a first for The Perfume Shop and was a significant achievement for the campaign. The results did not end there: an analysis of the effect of YouTube PPC on search engine traffic revealed a positive impact on Google traffic volumes long after the campaign was launched, showing a long-term impact on the brand reputation too. The company says the results of the sixmonth trial were comparable to the reach it would have seen from a TV campaign. Todays media is focused online with many traditional forms taking a back seat when it comes to market share, says The Perfume Shops Walker. With the influx of smartphones, tablets and the accessibility of online media, consumers are able to access news, videos and music in an instant.
The Perfume Shop: Used YouTube tool to link ads with videos of celebrities
traffic, according to Experian Hitwise, is also expanding its long-form content. It has rolled out an online movie service in the UK following a string of tie-ups with major movie studios, including Warner Bros and Sony Pictures. The rise of specialist video ad exchanges, such as Spotxchange in the US, suggest there is scope for even more development in this area. Broadcasters will have to contend with the increasingly competitive propositions from internet companies, including YouTube, which also accounts for 75% of all online video viewing, according to Nielsen. YouTube has innovated with a suite of interactive video ad formats under the umbrella brand TrueView family. The first to roll out was its skippable ad formats. These let YouTube viewers skip the ad after five seconds, and the advertiser is only charged if the ad is watched for at least 30 seconds. The skippable ad format has become so popular with advertisers it now accounts for half
of all pre-roll ads that are run on YouTube. Bruce Daisley, head of YouTube and Google Display says: New ad formats have allowed advertisers to get involved in video in different ways, and formats like skippable pre-rolls have led to advertisers being inspired by only having to pay for a viewers full attention. Other innovative formats include First Watch, designed to let advertisers reach users as they watch their first video of the day. The latest to roll out in the UK is In-slate, a format created specifically to run against long-form content, that allows viewers to choose between different pre-roll ads from different brands. Twinings is one of the brands to have tested the format. It kicked off an integrated campaign called Gets You Back To You, targeting women aged between 20 and 60. The ad was created to encourage female viewers to take 10 minutes out of their busy daily lives to relax with a cup of Twinings tea. Twinings head of digital and ecommerce
Alexander Sandover explains that the skippable format played a core part in the campaign. In just under a month, total ad views exceeded 1 million, with TrueView skippable ads driving 70% of total views, he says. The results were also delivered at excellent value at a cost-per-view of only 0.02 and a view rate of 50% above industry average, we were able to make incremental reach to TV a reality, he adds. These are exciting new ad formats that well be investing in more. We can do retargeting from the skippable ads, which means if you have seen an ad and engaged with the brand when you are in other areas of YouTube, we can serve content from our channel we think is relevant for you, he says. Red Bull, M&S and Adidas were among the first to use Channel 4s VOD format Ad Elect, launched earlier this year, which allows viewers to choose between different ad creatives from the same brand ahead of the content they watch.
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Paul Coggins
UK managing director, Ebuzzing Online video gives you a way to create a more personal conversation with consumers. Video content is easy to share and lets viewers interact with your brand. For example, we recently ran a video campaign for luxury accessories company Longchamp. Viewers chose where the content took them as they went on a virtual treasure hunt around Paris. This type of video gives the consumer a branded experience, while creating an opportunity for conversation around the campaign. In terms of measuring success for such projects, we dont just measure the number of views and the length of consumer engagement. We use advanced monitoring tools to report extensively on the actual conversation that has occurred around the video, as well as where it has been shared. There is endless innovation occurring in the online video space. First, theres everincreasing interactivity. We worked with eBay on a project that involved our social publishers fashion bloggers in this case running a competition on their respective sites. Winners were filmed selling clothes on eBay and accompanying the bloggers on a shopping spree with the proceeds. Theres also innovation in social gaming. We now offer players the chance to progress through stages of a game by watching a branded video. Advertisers can tap into the millions of people playing social games and gain huge reach for their video campaigns within a targeted audience, which has opted in to watch 100% of the video. When creating videos, follow these rules: Keep it short and snappy Eight-minute tutorials rarely keep consumers attention; we see completion rates of around 65%. G Unique content is vital Vodafone is very good at using its exclusive relationships with racing drivers Jenson Button and Lewis Hamilton to make original, fun and entertaining content. G Include your branding near the start of any video If only 65% watch the whole video to the end, you need to ensure that the other 35% have at least seen your brand. G Distribute it in the right places When you use our network of social publishers, we often encourage content sponsored conversation to be written around the video. This increases the opportunity for interaction between the brand and its customers.
G
Media agencies appreciate that online video offers them incremental reach
the size of a small digital channel. So the capital cost of producing specific online video ads is restrictive when compared to the reach. However, he notes that media agencies are developing online video to build anticipation prior to a linear launch, using it to maintain a message when off air as well as covering the incremental reach. Dell sponsored the third web-only series of comedian David Mitchells video series Soapbox this May [see viewpoint, page 51]. The series launched on ChannelFlip, Dailymotion, Digital Spy, Facebook, Guardian Online and YouTube, as well as Apple and BlackBerry podcast apps. In the first four months, it generated over 4 million views across all the channels. The series was viewed 515,901 times on Guardian Online, while YouTube generated over 2 million views. As part of the sponsorship deal, content business ChannelFlip developed a Dell-branded video player to run on the Guardian site. During the series, Dell ran a competition episode that fed back directly to its Facebook activity. The computer companys website then saw a surge in traffic, with 15,000 people visiting the site as a direct result of watching the series. However, advertisers looking to invest in bespoke online video advertising must pay equal attention to distribution. There have been cases in which brands have invested hundreds of thousands of pounds in the creation of premiumquality video content, and then failed to seed it properly, with disastrous consequences. One particular brand, which cannot be named, recently spent 750,000 on an online video campaign, which only got 15 views. In all likelihood, the brand would have commissioned a big production company, which charges TV rates, to create the campaign, only to thrust it on YouTube without any promotion or engagement with the people who run the site. But for those companies that take the time and opportunities to get online video right, the rewards are obvious. The broadcasters may have been first into the market, but they need to watch out for competitors from every sector and business area. As the IABs Wallington says: The inventory is there and advertisers are using it. G
Channel 4 commercial controller of future and digital media advertising Ed Couchman explains that around a third of its 4oD channel viewers choose to select an ad, and those that are selected have a much higher click-through rate (CTR) than the ones that arent. The selected CTR can be as high as 15%, averaging around 10%, he says. Interestingly, even when a viewer hasnt selected an ad, CTR is higher than our standard campaigns. The broadcaster has released an additional four formats Ad Bloom, Ad Interact, Ad Pop and Ad Social to complement Ad Elect. Each of the formats features different ways for viewers to interact with the ads ahead of VOD shows. We are currently running Ad Interact campaign for Vodafone, where you can request a free SIM card from within the ad, says Couchman. Mikado is the first brand to use Ad Bloom to showcase additional video content and a Facebook competition. Barnardos, H&M and McCain are all signed up to use ad social. But even though broadcasters are creating online video formats, research shows that bespoke video ads created specifically for the internet are more effective for driving engagement than repurposed material. Car insurance brand Swiftcover has hedged its bets on bespoke online video ads, finding they outperform repurposed TV ads in both CTRs and brand favourability. It monitored response to a campaign featuring popstar Iggy Pop for one month. Viewers were divided into two groups, one of which was shown the same swiftcover.com 10-second TV ad four times, while the other was shown four different online-exclusive ads. CTRs for the bespoke online ads were a third higher than the TV counterpart, and the majority of viewers (73%) ranked the bespoke ads as more favourable. However, Channel 4s Couchman believes the reach of digital channels is not sufficiently scalable to always justify the cost of creating a bespoke online video ad. Media agencies know and appreciate that online video offers them incremental reach and coverage of an all-important young, upmarket audience who dont watch much TV, he says. But the reach is still relatively small around
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innovation update analytics

Improved analytics tools can let brands really dig deep into data on the people visiting their sites and help them tailor activity to reach the most fruitful consumers. By Steve Hemsley
Making sense of all that traffic

Analytics has come a long way since the early days of marketing executives studying their spreadsheets and patting themselves on the back for website traffic going up. Brands now realise that monitoring and measuring the activity on their homepages and ecommerce stores is only part of the story. VisitScotland analytics and optimisation manager Paul Bruce is starting out on his own epic voyage to make sense of the who, how and why questions surrounding the brands online visitors. In his case, VisitScotland has more than 50 websites, thanks to sub-sites for different types of holidays, such as walking and golf, and content is available in up to eight languages. Bruce appreciates that for the organisation to gain a full picture of consumer sentiment, behaviour and spending, it needs analytics to not only reveal what people are doing on its site but where they have come from and, more importantly, what mechanic and which channel has brought them there. It also
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James Wintle Head of ecommerce AllSaints
Sales lift by asking what works?

Fashion is an incredibly fast-moving sector, and at any one time, we have a number of campaigns running to launch new collections or to promote popular lines. We implemented Webtrends Optimize to help us gain a view of customer behaviour across our sites in different areas. This is especially important because customers in the US want and expect different things from their shopping experience, compared to those in the UK. The software provides AllSaints with concrete data to tell us how customers are behaving when they visit one of our sites what parts of the site are the most successful, which were impacting customers getting through to the confirmation page and what might cause them to abandon their purchase. The important part of the analysis is that it goes to a deep enough level to ensure that successful parts of the website, which customers responded well to, werent removed. Since weve implemented the system, weve experienced a 3-4% increase in UK sales in the first four weeks. In the US, sales increased by nearly 7%, which, in a territory of that size, equates to a significant increase in revenue. Were able to identify and analyse which campaigns in relevant regions are driving sales, and whats working for different customer demographics. Were able to use the analytics with each new territory and campaign that we roll out and it makes sure that were in tune with our customers across the globe, while staying true to our brand and values.
Gethin Jones: Advocates the Get On campaign for the MCIA on social networks
needs to know which messages prompt the most profitable customers to visit a site, make a purchase or elect to receive further information. Like many other marketers starting out on the analytics journey, Bruce has until recently relied on the free Google Analytics tool, which he and his digital marketing agency, I Spy Marketing, now believe needs to be supplemented with the newly released Google Analytics Premium. He believes that using a more comprehensive and better supported tool will allow him to get a unified picture of many different properties and marketing channels. Were working to bring so many sites into one, so we need to be able to measure everything when they are separate as well as when they become one, he says. We also need to track all the touchpoints with the public, such as web addresses specific to TV ads, email, display and affiliates, and we want to be able to understand all this traffic in its entirety, he adds. The basic package relies on a sample of your data, but with the advanced product, we get results from all our traffic and theres proper support on offer. For those retailers working in the mobile area, such as travel brand Ebookers, analytics is being used to understand the behavioural differences between the desktop and mobile channels. It has discovered that mobile web users are four times more likely than a desktop user to book a hire car for the same or next day; hotels too. Two in three desktop bookings are made a week or more in advance, while nearly two in three mobile web reservations are made for the same or next day. The iPad is the next channel the brand and its agency Fortune Cookie will be examining in greater depth, and although it is early days, the tablet appears to be performing far more like the desktop than a mobile. Ebookers director of product strategy Rob Define explains:Our analytics allowed us to prove that the mobile and desktop internet were different markets and also measure them.
Given that the mobile web is more about immediacy than the desktop web, Define decided to make sure banners on the mobile site and search creative highlight the speed and convenience of the channel. With hire cars, for example, we make the point in paid-for mobile search results that a customer can have a vehicle booked and ready within two hours, he says. We also bid for local, short keywords on mobile and our offers are generally for two- or three-star hotels because on mobile, people are more interested in getting a bed for the night than researching four- or five-star luxury, he adds. The overall result has been impressive with our mobile click-through rate rising by 25%.
Maximising value
Home and business insurance brand Hiscox is also working on taking analytics further than measuring traffic visiting a desktop or mobile website. The company has spent the past year looking at whether splitting its home insurance budget 60:40 in favour of search over display has been the correct strategy. Hiscox online marketing manager Simon Wood reveals that it has been working with its analytics provider Celebrus to examine the contribution of each channel post click and post impression. It came to a startling conclusion. We thought there was more going on than you can understand through just measuring click-throughs, he says. So we examined control groups and realised that display has a very positive effect post impression, even for people who dont click on an advert. We feel this could well account for so many of our sales coming through branded search terms. In other words, display could be leading people to see our branding and then search for us. So weve now made the decision to split our budget 80:20 in favour of display and its working out really well, he adds. Weve seen a lift in conversions, which has led to a 32%
reduction of our cost per acquisition. If that sounds like a major uplift in efficiency, Play.com claims since it took the step of using analytics to examine post-click and postimpression behaviour, return on investment has improved by 200%. Play.com head of online Chris Howard reveals the figures have surprised the retailer as well as its digital marketing agency, Bigmouthmedia. While overall spend has increased throughout the year, it is weighted 80% towards display, compared with 75% a year ago. The great thing about analytics is that you cant argue with the data, even if it surprises you as much as our display findings shocked us, says Howard. We even ran testing with a display advert for a charity so we could separate two distinct groups who had and had not seen
Patrick Hoffstetter Chief digital officer Renault
Measuring social engagement

The unabated rise of social media platforms has transformed the way brands communicate. Rather than pushing messages at consumers, we have the opportunity to engage with them. Renault is a people-centric brand and understanding how consumers feel about us is vital. We want to create a social face for the company with which consumers can engage. Over the past six months, weve been working closely with social media analytics agency Socialbakers to refine the way we communicate digitally. Communication success at Renault is measured according to engagement rate, and using analytics we can measure not just overall engagement, but can drill down into engagement on everything we publish across Facebook, Twitter and more. By monitoring those posts that trigger the highest engagement or the most debate, we can better refine our social communications ensuring our information is useful, timely and adds value to our community. We also monitor how some of our key competitors are using social platforms. We believe in benchmarking social conversations beyond Renaults community; seeking out what conversations are causing a stir from our competitors is a fundamental part of social media best practice. Since putting the people and the tools in place to be able to maximise the benefits of social media and to bring engaging content to our audiences, we have seen huge success. Our recent Quality campaign for French TV secured 1.2 million YouTube views in a few days and 90% of comments were favourable. We recently celebrated 50 years of the
iconic Renault 4, and the fan page we created for it ranked fourth highest for engagement rates out of all the brand pages in France this August. The brands global fan page has frequently been in the top 10 both for engagement and fan activity. These are the sorts of engagement levels we value and analytics allow us to implement innovative and engaging social campaigns.
Steve Howells Senior marketing manager McDonalds
Sharing analytics boosts trust

Triple-Play Monopoly the sixth generation of the McDonalds Monopoly promotion ran across 1,200 UK McDonalds stores between March and May this year and was the most successful iteration of the promotion [which is a sweepstake game] to date. The core challenge for the 2011 game was to address the long-standing barrier to entry: believability. Another hurdle was to innovate and invigorate the Monopoly concept, while remaining true to the games core values. Our lead agency for the promotion, The Marketing Store, recommended innovations primarily through use of digital channels and went on to introduce an online winner-perminute mechanic, supported heavily by online and in-store advertising. We created a Monopoly-specific application which, when accessed through the campaign site or through Facebook, presented an interactive location map infographic. This aggregated masses of prize and location data to reinforce campaign believability by showcasing the prizes being won by real people, in real places and in real time. VisitScotland: Uses analytics to reveal what people do on its site and where they have come from better targeted. The result has seen the previous 20 cost to attract someone to sign up for a free motorcycle lesson drop to just 6. Weve managed to convert around 10% of the people visiting our mobile site compared with around 5% of our desktop traffic, he says. Weve looked at the demographics on the mobile websites so we can tailor messages. Weve demonstrated through analytics that the younger segment of our 18- to 32-year-old target audience respond best to messages highlighting the fun of riding, he adds. The older segment respond best to the economy message of bikes being far cheaper to buy and run than cars.
The power of recommendation

The improved targeting has seen the MCIAs mobile click-through rates rise to 1%, which is about 10 to 20 times better than the association had been experiencing in less-targeted, desktop display campaigns. However, the analytics has also shown that social media recommendations from friends and celebrities are better at converting potential new riders than ads. Due to the results, it has encouraged members to chat about riding in social networks, as well as getting celebrities, such as Dame Kelly Jones and TV presenter Gethin Jones, to mention the campaign when posting or tweeting about riding. As the mobile channel and social networks continue their unabated rise, analytics are likely to be called upon to help marketers make the move to not only understanding their own site but also the third parties through which they can earn new customers. The early pioneers are already demonstrating that significant lifts in click-throughs and conversions can be achieved if brands are prepared to reconsider gut feelings and look at the data with a fresh set of eyes to establish which content, marketing activity and channels are culminating in the best results. G
our display. The results were irrefutable and, like a lot of brands, we had been facing the problem of keywords for hot products going through the roof, so it was a huge relief when we saw that we could pull back from search and maximise return on investment through display.
Picking best performers

In addition to choosing which channels to prioritise, analytics are also increasingly being used by brands to pick out not only the best performing search terms but also the affiliate and display advertising sites that perform best. Now that digital marketing has matured to a stage where large visitor figures are no longer impressive on their own, Paul Wishman, group ecommerce director at insurance brand LV= needs to demonstrate overall value of traffic. He
has been working with analytics agency iJento to work out where his most valuable traffic is coming from, and prioritise those sources. Using analytics and analysing results has helped our conversions from people starting the quote process increase by 30%, he says. Weve not only removed barriers that the analytics revealed but we can also see which keywords, display sites and affiliates were sending us traffic that converted, he adds. When analytics has led a brand to the best sources of traffic, further delving can ascertain the demographic of visitors and push different messages to each segment. Miles Taylor, head of the Get On campaign at the Motorcycle Industry Association (MCIA) has been working with digital agency Agenda 21 to study analytics so the messages within its mobile campaign can be
peer panel online display

SPONSORED BY
Mike Hoban Chief marketing officer, Confused.com
Georgette Harrison Head of marketing communications, Selftrade
Pete Markey Chief marketing officer, RSA Group
Joel Christie Marketing controller, BSkyB
Nick Futcher Brand manager, Oxfam
Five marketers discuss getting the best from online display, the innovations that are helping to perfect its use and whether talk of it overtaking search are greatly exaggerated. By Jo Roberts
Marketing Week (MW): Do you use online display as a tactical campaign tool or do you see this as an always on form of advertising? Georgette Harrison (GH): We at Selftrade see it as a combination of both forms, as we have a consistent online presence to help raise awareness and a tactical approach for special offers or specific campaigns. We use it predominantly as a direct-response channel. Joel Christie (JC): Display performs different roles for various parts of the business at Sky. For acquisition, always on is the most effective, while for brand marketing or for cross-promoting certain products to customers, it is usually campaign-based advertising. But if you look at Sky as a collective business, which is ultimately how the end user will view it, then display is very much an always on strand. Its vital that our different business units and media agency teams communicate about what ads are being run, where and what roles they are due to play. Obviously, the great facilitator of that is data and understanding our audiences. Mike Hoban (MH): Its both tactical and constant for Confused.com. If youre a direct response business like us, it has to be continuous. The always on strategy will deliver business for you providing you get the targeting right and constantly optimise performance. But display, as a support to traditional media, will also build brand awareness, providing you get the coverage right and ensure your creative is something that your audience wants to talk about. Pete Markey (PM): We havent gone down the always on route with display at RSA Group [which owns the RSA and More Than insurance brands]. Im a bit sceptical about the effectiveness of online display advertising, so Id rather keep traditional media always on and bring in online display when were running campaigns. Nick Futcher (NF): At Oxfam, we use online display tactically as a campaign tool. Our spend is limited and online display enables us to effectively communicate campaigns to our audience in concentrated bursts of activity. MW: Which other marketing channels best combine with online display and why? GH: We are using pay per click (PPC), buying both brand and generic terms and we see this as symbiotic, since brand awareness is key to driving brand searches. We also have a sustained
Learning to handle a new breed of ads
One size will not fit all: Sky uses tactical or always on display depending on the role of the campaign
Emotive: Oxfam used online display for its Stop Land Grabs issue to communicate the sense of loss victims feel
presence in personal finance magazines as well as running campaigns in the national press in personal finance and business sections. We see press driving online awareness, although we havent been able to correlate this yet. We are also using Yahoo! as an acquisition tool to drive prospects to our website, as well as driving awareness for any tactical activity. We run a variety of creative in different sizes, and over the year weve used a combination of manual and auto-optimisation depending on whether we need to have a tactical weighting for specific ads. The activity is a blind buy across the network on a cost-per-thousand views (CPM) basis and using some targeting. MH: The reality is that TV still works. Building brands and driving mass awareness depends on broadcast media. Our most successful campaigns use digital media to extend and amplify the TV creative. NF: Combining outdoor and print works best for grabbing our audiences attention and engaging them with an issue, then online display picks up the story and takes people to an interactive space where they can act to make a difference. Additionally, online display offers us the reach we need. For example, we concentrate our outdoor spend in the UKs South East due to audience targeting, and marketing online gives us affordable and effective national coverage. PM: Search plays an important role and we make sure we link that to comparison websites that have our best offers available. When you advertise, you have to make sure everything else is the very best it can be. Theres no point in launching an ad and then not having the best insurance offer you can provide. Its like running a big advertising campaign for a great brand of cereal and then it not being available on the shelves. MW: What do you see as the biggest innovation in online display? JC: Measurement metrics are taking a real leap forward and there are some really interesting technologies out there that let us look way beyond the standard impressions, clicks and conversions. Were working with one creative technology partner that is allowing us to look at the amount of time our ad was on a page and actually being viewed (so not falling below the fold), as well as other new metrics such as mouseovers on an ad, which suggest a level of engagement above and beyond clicking. Ultimately, we can match these softer metrics with campaign performance and it gives us a new way of reporting and optimising campaigns both for direct response but also brand activity. PM: Were not quite there yet, but for us the biggest innovation will be personalisation so we can better target customers and cut the waste. For example, if we can get to a point where data can be provided so we can run an ad targeted at someone when their car insurance is due for renewal, then online display will be at its most powerful for us. Data is key for this innovation.
complements both the creative look and the reach of the outdoor and press elements of the campaign. MW: What other experimental marketing are you carrying out using online display? NF: Oxfam was one of the first advertisers to use Facebooks engagement ad units this October and we have been continuing to see a strong improvement with the changes we make using Facebook polls. Another experimental success story that we used this year was when we did a Yahoo! Mail takeover where click-throughs exceeded the target five-fold. PM: Earlier this year, we ran an ad on YouTube that played like a mini movie and it helped us to get half a million views of our More Than Freeman ad. I think its a learning process and you have to keep experimenting to keep it fresh. Online advertising is wallpaper to a lot of people and you have to ensure that when you do display advertising, it is creative without being intrusive. Theres nothing worse than checking your emails and having an ad take over the page when all you want to do is read your emails. You have to be careful to not become annoying. MH: Display is still in its infancy in most marketing plans, so everything is always experimental. Test and learn; test and learn; test and learn. If it works, do it again; it if doesnt, change it or drop it and always be driven by the results rather than some agency theory on what should or shouldnt work. MW: What are your biggest frustrations with online display? MH: Honestly? Too many creative agencies peddling their homespun tales about how something works without any real basis in fact. Talking to some digital agencies is like talking to medieval soothsayers you might as well sacrifice a chicken! JC: There isnt a great deal that keeps me up at night, though its slightly frustrating when media owners dont undertake a partnership. A carefully put together media plan should include media partners to fulfil certain roles that play to their strengths. Media owners should take accountability for that and embrace it as a partnership; those are the ones that I prefer to work with, and generally they deliver better results. MW: What are the limitations of online display? GH: Achieving standout in cluttered environments is a challenge. The strict parameters within which financial advertising has to work means space and creative restraints have to be met. There are also budget constraints in using rich media, which limits the options available to produce engaging ads with standout. MW: Are you using real-time bidding (RTB) where you bid for ad impressions in real time? If so, how? NF: Were not using real-time bidding on the current campaign. The campaign plan is
Too many agencies peddle their homespun tales without any basis in fact. You may as well sacrifice a chicken
MW: How can you use online display to help you tell stories? NF: Online display offers us reach, impact and ultimately effectiveness. Take our Stop Land Grabs campaign. As land grabs will be a new issue for much of our audience, we want to communicate that land grabs are both real and happening right now. Land grabs mean people lose their homes, the land they grow their food on and for many, their futures. Online display allows us to get across that message and communicate the feeling of encroachment and intimidation through the advancing bulldozer as well as the sense of loss through the panning image of an evictee looking at his former land. The online advertising
More Than: Parent RSA is waiting for advances in personalisation so that it can reach people just in time for their insurance renewal user on the same exchange, and it also made those partners more accountable for the exchange they were allocated. MW: Are you making online advertising about more than the last click? PM: At the moment, theres a debate running within the company about measuring online and we havent found the magic answer. We are a results-driven company, so measuring the effectiveness of our marketing matters a lot to us. Measuring the last click does have its virtues but its not the whole answer. JC: This is a hot topic at the moment and there is definitely a desire to get at the very least an understanding of what roles different channels play beyond the last-click measurement. We have engaged with providers that can take a holistic view of our activity across all media platforms, and the next step is getting the data back to understand the correlation between the channels. That is easier said than done. There seems to be a distinct lack of understanding and insight across the market about how to achieve concrete learnings and translate them into a robust strategy. MW: It is predicted that more will get spent on online display than search by 2015 do you agree? JC: The latest Internet Advertising Bureau figures show theres a difference of about 721m to plug in four years. If you look at the type of companies making up the majority of that spend, its entertainment and media companies, finance companies and consumer goods manufacturers. These are companies that tend to have multiple products, sub-sectors or film releases, so would be turning to paid search due to its ability to segment and target niche audiences something thats difficult to do with display. However, with the advent of data buys on exchanges and plugging in accurate consumer data, this is becoming a real possibility. However, first the data buys need to be embraced; second, measurement needs to prove that this is a fruitful strategy; and, most importantly, there needs to be a willingness from brands to undertake this strategy in what is essentially a fragmented and complicated space. The smaller, more entrepreneurial brands will probably adopt a variation of this approach first, and then its up to media owners and agencies to demonstrate a clear success story to the larger brands, who will affect the spend shifts. If I had to make a call on whether it will over take search by 2015, I would say it would just miss out. NF: Considering that 83% of the UK use the internet, there is a discrepancy between the 58% of UK adults who shop online and the 7% of those who donate to charity online. So I think its fair to say that digital advertising is going to remain at the forefront of Oxfams advertising. While our expectation is that we will spend more on online display, well be led by effectiveness. G
VIEWPOINT
Phil Macauley, regional managing director, Quantcast Display advertising is undergoing a massive evolution with significant growth in the budgets being deployed online. The emergence of technology is also radically transforming how we buy advertising and our expectations of its performance. Central to this are innovations that enable marketers to make advertising decisions in real time. Were set to see significant advancement in the performance and effectiveness of display advertising, particularly through the use of real-time bidding (RTB). Historically, media buying decisions have taken weeks to plan and only encompassed a handful of ads and a few different media providers. Campaigns were planned at the macro level similar to that of traditional media, such as press and TV. Todays addressable media landscape, incorporating RTB, means that marketers can now reach the right person with the right ad at the right time, maximising their ad spend. This method works at the impression level, with hundreds of thousands of decisions made every second and offers new opportunities for relevance, but requires new solutions and approaches. The transformation of display advertising is just getting started and in the coming years we will see its performance rival that of search in terms of both ROI and scale. To gain the advantage that RTB offers means leveraging advanced targeting and building specific and unique audience models for each advertiser and even product, per campaign. This enables advertisers to find and reach a much larger audience that is similar to their best customers. Quantcast recently partnered with CW Jobs on a campaign where the goal was to acquire as many job seekers as possible in the IT industry. The company was using multiple providers to achieve this. Using Quantcast Lookalikes, a unique audience model of CW Jobs best job seekers, and our real-time targeting capabilities, it was able to achieve three times the volume of conversions of the next best performer on the plan, with a cost per acquisition that was 60% lower. Display advertising will benefit from realtime technology across the full-funnel, aligning with the business objectives of the advertiser. New technologies have also heralded advances for brand campaigns. Publishers now have better tools to help them measure, segment and package their audiences and layer targeting on to their content packages to create compelling results for advertisers.
specifically placement-driven [using a fixed placement strategy]. This is because of the tactical way we are delivering the campaign the best possible context for the environment, with the greatest impact positions which from a format and guaranteed-position point of view, you cannot achieve via RTB. RTB is great for awareness and direct response, as it is based on audience buying, not media buying something which despite the tactical strategy we are using for the Land Grab campaign, we do strongly believe in. The only network elements to the plan [those that could be bought via RTB] is the Google Display Network activity. This is currently bought via a cost-per-click auction model using a blend of managed placements, contextual targeting and retargeting. Maintaining it in this way enables us to be much more brand safe, which is vital, given the context of the message. JC: RTB is integral to our strategy. It enables us to be far more segmented and target particular audiences which are relevant to particular campaign strands. When we first looked at this, the possibilities were obvious: seeking out relevant ad impressions and bidding for them, better targeting, reduced wastage and better efficiency. Then it came to actually formulating a strategy for how we approach the space and test its worth. This was initially quite a daunting task. Once we had a view on the companies we wanted to partner with and trial, we needed to understand the space they were going to operate in. It soon became apparent that choosing partners for how you reach a given audience through the various exchanges is one thing, but without a strategy on who would be able to operate where, it would soon descend in to a free-for-all. We laid out the exchanges we were going to use and which partners could work within them this meant that we werent inflating our bids by having multiple partners bidding for the same

The New Frontier: How Mobile and Apps Are Moving Into Unknown Territory

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MAKING SENSE OF INTERACTIVE MARKETING

The new frontier

Justin Pearse Theres no excuse for being digital wallpaper

Cover Story Mobile Brands taking an educational route

Ian Carrington Google mobile advertising sales director

Make your brand mobile friendly

36 | Digital Strategy | November 2011 | marketingweek.co.uk

case study Kiddicare

marketingweek.co.uk | November 2011 | Digital Strategy | 37

digital strategy cover story mobile

The rise of the mobile pioneers

38 | Digital Strategy | November 2011 | marketingweek.co.uk

digital strategy cover story

marketingweek.co.uk | November 2011 | Digital Strategy | 39

Making the digital connection

40 | Digital Strategy | November 2011 | marketingweek.co.uk

marketingweek.co.uk | November 2011 | Digital Strategy | 41

strategic play french connection

casestudy FOR YOUR EYES ONLY

42 | Digital Strategy | November 2011 | marketingweek.co.uk

One platform to power Real [targeted] marketing through

Introducing the Interactive Marketing Hub

Now thats Real [smart marketing].

To learn more visit www.ExactTarget.com/h u b

EMAIL. MOBILE. SOCIAL. SITES.

innovation update social graph

Sharing data among friends

innovation update social graph

case study visitbritain

VisitBritain: Taking a Facebook-centric approach to marketing

46 | Digital Strategy | November 2011 | marketingweek.co.uk

innovation update social graph

marketingweek.co.uk | November 2011 | Digital Strategy | 47

innovation update online video

The brand as broadcaster

marketingweek.co.uk | November 2011 | Digital Strategy | 49

innovation update online video

casestudy the perfume shop

marketingweek.co.uk | November 2011 | Digital Strategy | 51

innovation update online video

52 | Digital Strategy | November 2011 | marketingweek.co.uk

Discover the Future of Multi-Platform Apps

Stacey Seltzer Smart TV, LG Electronics

Miles Ross Head of Mobile, IPC Media

Peter Vesterbacka CEO, Rovio (Angry Birds)

Thibaut Roufneau VP Developer Partnerships, Wireless Industry Partnership (WIP)

Manfred Bortenschlager Platform Evangelist, Samsung

Evan Krauss EVP, Shazam Entertainment

26 JANUARY 2012 | LONDON

Does your strategy measure up?

innovation update analytics

Making sense of all that traffic

innovation update analytics

Sales lift by asking what works?

56 | Digital Strategy | November 2011 | marketingweek.co.uk

innovation update analytics

Patrick Hoffstetter Chief digital officer Renault

Measuring social engagement

Steve Howells Senior marketing manager McDonalds

Sharing analytics boosts trust

The power of recommendation

Picking best performers