Let’s Discuss: An article by Advertising Age, Male Call: Marketers Jump On Men’s Grooming Trend

EMG 30-Second Rundown: The men’s personal-care category is steadily growing (up 1% while the rest of the category is down over 5%) and marketers are taking every opportunity to capture share with one of the biggest array of product launches for men in nearly a decade. Brands which have prevoiusly skewed towards women are even vying for a piece of the pie as seen with Unilever launching its new Dove Men’s + Care line.

Key Quote: Marketing actually has a long history of gender-bending brands that have added, changed or developed gender identities long after they were well-established.

The EMG Takeaway: There are major opportunities for brands to develop products that market to genders in which their brand typically does not appeal.  Personal-care has been a category that has seen more of this than most others over the past decade and now with successes and lessons learned from failures, is poised to jump in with both feet.  With all of the brands now clamoring for attention in the personal-care category with new products and marketing messaging that suggests men need to “smell like a man” and “embrace being a man”, success for these brands could mean big changes for other CPG categories and industries.  With the influx of all this targeted messaging to men around these products working together to create the perception in men that all products they use should be this way and convey this message, its only a matter of time before we start to see laundry detergent, suntan lotion, air fresheners or other products start to have men’s lines.

Final Words: Men like to be reminded that they are men and use products that make them feel more manly, especially when gender lines are blurring more and more each passing year. Marketers and brands have proven to be able to cash in on this time and again when they come

Three Questions from EMG to Continue the Discussion:

1. What brands could benefit the most from launching a male or female line of their products?

2. What is the most effective marketing message the men’s personal-care products are using?

A. Using this product will make women want you (example: Axe Body Spray)

B.  Using this product will make you feel like a man (example: Dove Mens + Care)

C. Your girlfriend wants you to use this product (example: Old Spice Body Wash)

3. Do you think more brands will start marketing to men or will it just be a short fad within only the personal-care line.

Let’s Discuss:
MicroHoo, YahSoft… whichever way you mash it up; it’s official! The Microsoft/ Yahoo deal proposed last summer has finally received clearance from U.S. and E.U. regulators.

EMG 30-Second Rundown:
What does this mean aside from some serious fist pumping from Yahoo CEO Carol Bartz and Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer?

We’re entering a new era of search with an alliance that aims to challenge Google’s market dominance. Yahoo and Microsoft shadow Google with recent comScore reports ranking Google’s share of searches at 65.7%, followed by Yahoo and Microsoft at 17.3% and 10.7% respectively.

Combining search from Yahoo and Microsoft will expand the collective data pool from which Microsoft can further develop, test and tweak platforms, search-related features and algorithms. The enhanced performance will boost both companies’ ability to compete against Google by improving search results, as well as amplifying appeal to search advertisers.

Taking over Yahoo’s search functionality will grant Microsoft access to nearly three times the search queries it’s receiving independently. The increased search volume will enable accelerated algorithmic innovation resulting in more relevant results for a larger pool of search queries.

Delegating search duties to Microsoft frees up Yahoo to focus investment on areas in which they excel including building their portfolio of destination web properties and display advertising capabilities.

So what will this new alliance look like? In a nutshell, Microsoft (Bing) will power Yahoo’s organic and paid search platforms while Yahoo will handle premium search advertising sales for the combined unit.

Celebrations for overcoming this regulatory milestone will be short-lived as the companies’ goal will is to have U.S. implementation completed by the end of 2010. Further details can be found on the official Search Alliance site.

EMG Takeaway:
Attention advertisers, marketers, shareholders and general search enthusiasts (i.e. everyone)… prepare yourselves because the real battle for search market dominance is about to begin!

We’re going to see more performance improvements, more product innovation and better integration from all players as Google’s monopolistic advantages wane under increased competitive pressure.

Google may be forced to up the ante on traditional media buys (e.g. “Search Stories” Super Bowl spot) to defend against Bing’s mass media quest for search mind share as the “Decision Engine.”

Ultimately, this deal is going to mean different things to different groups of people. However, we will all benefit from stronger competition in the search marketplace as it forces companies to work harder for our loyalty.

Final Words:
There will be big changes in the search market landscape with the Microsoft/ Yahoo search alliance rapidly coming to fruition. Maintaining and acquiring search share will demand that key players (and challengers) diversify product offerings without diluting the meaning behind their brand promise.

While search is as much a societal mainstay as the internet, the business of search is still very much in its infancy. Whether the search engine on top will be Google, MicroHoo or a new challenger, one thing is certain; the biggest winner will be the engine able to monetize search services beyond “10 Blue Links” and banner inundation in a manner that benefits searchers, advertisers and publishers.

Three Questions to Continue the Discussion:
1.)    How is this going to affect SEM campaign management?
2.)    What efforts will Google take to maintain search dominance?
3.)    Preferred mashup; MicroHoo or YahSoft?

This past week I had the pleasure of attending the Day Ignite 2009 Customer Summit in Chicago (10/28 - 10/29) as a Day Partner, care of Earthbound Media Group (my employer and Day Partner).  Topics covered ranged from the upcoming Communiqué (CQ5) 5.3 preview (which I’ll comment on momentarily) to running CQ5 in a Cloud environment to the new Microsoft Sharepoint Connector - and much much more!  At the conclusion of the conference, we were treated to dinner and a show at the Chicago House of Blues - Foreigner! It was pretty neat!

The first thing that I want to share is the David Nuescheler’s Top 10 list of new features in CQ 5.3:

Read the rest of this entry »

I recently received an ‘IT Insights’ mailer from a placement company I once worked for.  Included in that letter was a section on Developer Skills and what to focus on over the next 5 years.  I thought I’d take this opportunity to point out, comment on, and add my own two cents to the topics in this article.

The main topics of this article were:

• The big three languages
• People/soft skills
• Web development and services
• RIA (Rich Internet Applications)
• Mobile

Let me review these topics, but in a slightly different order…

Read the rest of this entry »

For any salesperson, regardless of what they are selling, there’s a fine line that must be walked between being overly aggressive and annoying, and out-of-sight, out-of-mind. With new technologies out there to give salespeople more access to potential customers and insight into what their potential customers are doing it should be easier to walk this line right? Not necessarily.  Here are a few examples of how technology, used incorrectly, can actually work against a salesperson and turn off a potential client faster than ever before.

Social Networks

Social networks can be a salespersons best friend, when used correctly. Following clients on Twitter can give you insight into what is going on in your prospective client’s professional and personal lives and can help you mold your sales pitch or follow-up meeting appropriately. LinkedIn is also a great site where you can reach out directly to potential clients who may share a common contact, group, company or interest with you, turning a cold call, lukewarm.

Social networks can also quickly kill any chance you might have a landing a deal with a potential client. Trying to add a prospect as a friend on Facebook or MySpace, two sites that are known more for networking between friends and family and are used for personal rather than professional interaction, can been seen as an invasion of privacy almost as bad as a salesperson showing up at your home during dinner.  Also, using the information you find on social networks is another fine line that must be walked. Commented to your potential client on a Twitter post they made 15 minutes ago and how they changed their profile picture on LinkedIn can come across as “stalkerish”.

Analytics

Analytics can be a great tool to give you insight into where you potential client is going on your website or where they are clicking on your email messages and if they are opening them. Knowing that they checked out a particular link, service line or spent significant time looking at a client case study can give you the 1-2 punch to mold your messaging to fit exactly what your prospect is looking for to land a deal. Adversely, letting your potential client know that YOU KNOW that they spent 10 minutes looking at that case study, clicked 3 links in your email, and checked out your pricing and services lines can give them that “big brother is watching…” feeling and contacting them minutes after they do these actions can quickly scare them away, especially if they are just doing some preliminary research and aren’t ready for the heavy selling just yet.

Access

Salespeople today have unprecedented access to their potential clients. We can send a fax, letter, email, text message, instant message, call their office, call their cell phone, leave voicemails and send messages on LinkedIn and other social networks. Using this prospect access with responsibility is yet another fine line that a salesperson must walk.  Maybe your prospect was stuck in an all day meeting and missed your call. Once they finally return to their desk and see that not only did you call and leave a voicemail, and thanks to caller ID saw that you called 7 times, but you also sent 2 emails and an instant message can quickly turn your relationship sour.

So to wrap things up, no matter what new technologies may come, salespeople will still have to continue using good judgment and walking that very fine line to be successful.  With every potential client responding differently to your outreach messaging and methods, that line is getting narrower every day.

There are two ways to set up your campaigns on Google Content Network: using placement targeting and keyword targeting. As I discussed in my previous blog post, both methods have their own advantages and disadvantages. In this post we will uncover the secret of getting the most out of Google Content Network using both methods at the same time.

Start with creating placement targeting campaign. First of all you need to answer the question: what websites does your audience likes to visit? Here are a couple tools that will help you to answer this question and carefully target your audience:

AdWords Placement Tool: Within the AdWords account, you can click the Placements tab of any given ad group and then select “Find and Add Placements.”  The Placement Tool will then allow you to search for placements based on URL, subject category, demographic, or topics. 

Use Google Ad Planner to get more insight info about your users and websites you are targeting. Ad Planner has over the Placement Tool inside the AdWords interface is that it allows you to search for sites using multiple dimensions (Education level, household income, and whether there are children in the household) https://www.google.com/adplanner/

Additional Tips:

• Some placements only allow certain ad formats or sizes, so be sure you keep in mind the type of ads you plan on running.

• Remember that although image and video ads have higher CTRs than text ads, text ads might receive more impressions because this is the most popular format. So don’t forget to write a couple text ads.

• Use PPC model for your placement campaigns. CTRs and CPCs on the content network are usually a lot lower than on the Search Network. PPC model allows you to make sure that you only pay for “Qualified” audience that is interested in your products/secrecies, while CPM model only allows you to be sure that these visitors are “Pre-Qualified”. Using PPC model also assures that you don’t have to worry as much about the placement of your ads on the selected pages, since if it didn’t get a click – you were not charged and your ROI was not affected.

• Add keyword targeting to your placement campaign. This Simple.  For example you are promoting a CD of the new Rock Band and want your ad to show up on MySpace, but only on pages that mention the keyword “rock band” or “rock concert” or something similar.  Now you can simply start a placement targeted campaign, choose MySpace as your target placement, and start entering keywords and ads that complement your landing page.  Instead of showing up on all the placements across MySpace at random, you’ll only show up on those pages that are likely to convert a target market.

As cost per click across almost all the industries is continuously going up as a consequence of the growing online competition, advertisers need to be more careful when choosing their online marketing strategies. These days advertisers not only have to be more creative about the ways they communicate and reach their audience, but also make sure that their online marketing strategy is cost effective and the audience they target is right.

Google is most famous for its unarguably efficient and measurable Google Search Network model, where ads appear on Google and Google Network sites based on searches people make. However, we shouldn’t forget that advertisers also have the option of running their ads on Google Content Network that includes millions of websites all over the world and according to Google is able to reach 76% of US internet users.

Content Network shows AdWords ads based on website content in relation to the ads, versus search network that shows ads based on search queries. There are 2 ways to target Content Network: Using Keyword Targeting and Placement Targeting.  So which one is better and what kind of model should you use – CPC or CPM?

Keyword Targeting

Advantages:

• Easy to setup: keyword targeting for content network uses contextual matching algorithms that align your ad exposure with keyword themes inside your ad group. You just need to create an ad group with a tightly focused set of keywords. Then let Google find relevant sites to show your ad on.

Disadvantages:

• Keyword targeting for content network doesn’t give advertisers 100% control over the sites where ads are going to appear. Google’s contextual matching algorithms select websites that it considers relevant to your business, but unfortunately these algorithms are not that good and it’s very likely to show your ads on less relevant sites too.

• You need to constantly use Placement Reports to find the not-so related sites and exclude them using site exclusions, and in the big campaign where ads are showing up on the thousands sites, it can be too much work.

Placement Targeting

Advantages:

• Placement Targeting allows you to target particular websites and sub domains

• Allows a lot more transparency about where exactly your ads are going to show up before you start the campaign

• It’s very easy to keep track of your ad performance on each website and adjust your bids for each site based on it.

• You can specify which areas of the site you want your ads to appear at. This is especially important if you use the CPM model because in this case you pay for impressions and you really what to make sure that you avoid sites that show Google Ads in the footer, or below 600 pixels. 

Disadvantages:

• Placement targeting doesn’t allow specifying the themes sometimes of the pages within the website you selected as your placement, so for example if you selected MySpace as placement, you what to make sure that only those who are interested in your services/products will see your ads.

So how can you combine the advantages of both types of campaigns and avoid disadvantages? Here is your answer: now you can set up keyword targeting within your placement targeted campaigns!

For more info on how to get the best out of your content network check out our blog next week!

I took a class at UC Irvine called New Technologies during Spring quarter, which greatly changed my thoughts on the Web 2.0 craze.  In my last blog I talked about how Social Media and Web 2.0 are two very misconceived terms. I stated that I tend to agree with Sir Tim Berners-Lee, in that since the beginning of the World Wide Web his intention was to create a new level of interactivity on the internet, so there really is nothing new about Web 2.0. I also argued that it is not a business revolution, because PPC ads are still the back bone of online marketing, and they have existed since the dotcom bubble. But, now I see other aspects of Social Media that are a business revolution.
Read the rest of this entry »

General Motors, the All-American car company, has had its financial woes played out all over the media and are currently in bankruptcy while the government waits on their “reinvention.”  Filled with images of growth, American icons, and new fuel efficient visions, the “New GM” commercial is a prime example of reputation management. (See bottom for commercial)

The internet does not necessarily pages by time, and articles and postings about the troubles of GM will continue to plague the company who is trying to create a new image.  With the high levels of media attention, and the tendency of technology to hit the web, reputation management much reach further than the past memories of GM’s target audience.

How can GM begin to utilize online reputation management to create a new, stronger brand image and regain the confidence of their American customers?  SEO of course!

It’s not all pretty
Reputation management involves understanding the current impression a company has on the public.  Obviously for a company such as GM, a majority of internet talk out there most likely has a skeptical air that focuses much on their financial troubles.  Online areas to consider include not only news articles, but also blog postings, forum postings and other social media tags (which are becoming increasingly important to optimization!).

Read the rest of this entry »

Google is introducing another beta (in development status) tool to make the search engine marketing game even more intriguing. The Google Video Plusbox is a new feature that enables search engine marketers to display an expandable video player right at the bottom of the text ad copies.

The Google Video Plusbox can be a great solution in outperforming the competition in the fragmented search arena and get the immediate attention of the searcher right on the Google search results page by providing a sound and motion based user experience.

As Google Video Plusbox is in Beta, it is only available to a limited number of advertisers for testing-purposes …Earthbound Media Group is one of the early players in the market given the chance to participate in this beta program with the 20^th Century Fox Film  I Love You Beth Cooper

Read the rest of this entry »