The Burning Question: Traditional or New Media?

There are many perks to "new media," or the term that we used to use in reference to social media sites such as Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, blogs, video sharing, interactive marketing, etc. According to Nielsen's "State of the Media: the Social Media Report" for the end of 2011 (1), 4 out of 5 active internet users visit social networks and blogs -- and most do so from their mobile device/phone (40%).

What is even more interesting is that internet users over the age of 55 (many of the baby boomer generation) are driving the growth of social networking through the Mobile internet. Although new technology can present a challenge for older generations, baby boomers are often associated with a tendency to redefine traditional values, so this makes perfect sense to me. Many adults are now using social sites for online dating, scheduling and administrative needs, cloud apps for storage, and social media sites like Facebook as a way to stay connected to family and communicate to children and grandchildren. Social media is no longer a "young person's" activity. The phenomenon is growing and becoming a very tangible aspect of every day life.

One reality remains: as our society becomes more reliant on social media, are we subconsciously replacing older, traditional media such as newspapers, magazines, and TV news? Recently, many news outlets have focused on this exact topic. Bill Moyers posted an interesting infographic (2) that supports this argument that new media is, indeed, replacing the traditional and this is the year that it becomes official. Many current media efforts are now geared towards the method of dissemination -- mainly, social media. We use the title of our press release as the subject line for our email, our tweet, and our FB post that links to the press release, living on our website. According to the Moyers article, 50% of Americans have learned of a breaking news story from social sites, rather than from TV or the newspaper. About 46% of Americans get their news online at least 3 times per week. Finally, this year online revenue surpassed that of print newspaper revenue in 2012.

I think that this is a phenomenal development; I say that as an engaged user who manages a social media platform for my brand, as well as my own personal accounts. I am on social networking sites on average 5 times per day -- for monitoring purposes and for pleasure in my free time at night. I do not see this as a negative for my personal life (I maintain strong face to face relationships, am an avid reader, and an athletic runner). However, some people do find that social media has a negative effect on our society -- making our "friendships" and communication too dependent on online relationships.

Another negative (listed in the above infographic) is the drawbacks that social media sites have when they act as a place to share important news stories. Often, inaccuracies lead to misinformation (that is shared quickly through networks to reach thousands of people in a few seconds time); amateur reporters can compromise integrity or exploit subject in a story; and length restrictions can some times take away from the depth of a piece. However, all of these arguments against social media can be true of any news outlet (traditional or new) and I don't find that they make for a compelling case. I also disagree with the argument that social media detracts from personal relationships (para above) as I find that it connects me to many more friends and acquaintances than before, and enables me to communicate with them to set up an "in-person" time to meet.

Social media has the potential to do wonders for a marketing platform, as it can be a tool for sharing info and also the glue that connects campaigns within an overall marketing strategy. As a media relations professional, I can share content via social that send traffic back to a website where I have hosted a Youtube video that can, subsequently, link people back to the brand Youtube channel. All of these efforts can happen organically, without investing budget dollars, yielding a huge return on investment. In the field of healthcare, the Mayo Clinic has proven that social media can be an effective, low-cost mechanism for recruiting patients for clinical trials (3). Social media helped recruit larger, demographically diverse populations (ideal to reduce biases)for specific studies. This is something that we are currently doing at Home Base to help recruit for our studies focused on post traumatic stress (PTS) and traumatic brain injury (TBI) research. I will post research content to social media once a week, linking back to the section of our website that explains Research at Home Base http://www.homebaseprogram.org/general-information/research.aspx. All language is pre-approved by the IRB and carefully crafted to ensure clarity and comprehension.

The challenge with social media is to keep a professional legitimacy for your brand, as there is a distinct difference between personal and professional use. For many, the social sphere is still unknown territory and people are still figuring out how to best utilize the tool to reach a targeted audience. See this article today from Boston Magazine (4) on a study that the Boston Globe did looking at Bostonians and their use of Twitter. In my mind, it is all about content. Follow people who provide good, quality links, comments, and posts. If they don't make the cut, you can remove them with one fast click of the mouse.

This article is the part of a series of posts that I will make throughout my graduate studies in Marketing and Communications. With a focus on both healthcare and interactive marketing, I hope to gain a better understanding for effective health messaging--which I think plays a key role in a happy, healthy society. Please leave your comments or write to me: camorous@gmail.com.

Sources:
1.) http://www.nielsen.com/us/en/insights/reports-downloads/2011/social-media-report-q3.html
2.) http://billmoyers.com/2012/04/23/how-social-media-is-replacing-traditional-journalism-for-breaking-news/
3.) http://blog.pharmexec.com/2012/02/13/patient-recruitment-via-social-media-lessons-learned/
4.) http://blogs.bostonmagazine.com/boston_daily/2012/09/17/boston-intellectual-twitter/

Rich Media Ads Bring Home the Bacon

Rich media ads are a popular trend in the world of online advertising. Over the past couple of years, online advertising has moved away from the more conventional, static textual ads and now leans more towards interactive, dynamic content that can be highly customized for the brand and user experience.

Although they may not look like anything special upon first glance, rich media ads often come to life the moment that you move your mouse over the image. Each ad is different and created for a unique purpose, but many have similar characteristics. They expand up or expand down; they have a short animation that loops to repeat itself; or the entire homepage will become customized for the user in what is known as a "homepage skin." These rich media ads can include everything from video to online games and they can also include content from Youtube, Twitter, and Facebook streams, according to Evelyn Rusli on Tech Crunch. (1) They are defined as those with which users can interact as opposed to solely animation, and they include such formats as transitionals and various over-the-page units such as floating ads, page take-overs and tear-backs. (2)

These ads are regulated by the Internet Advisory Board (IAB) is a committee charged with overseeing all internet marketing activity and upholding established industry standards. The IAB plays the role of "sheriff" in the wild west of the world of Internet marketing. With recent growth of rich media advertising over the past several years, the IAB has amended its guidelines to better suit this growing trend.

In general, the IAB guidelines provide clarity for online advertising and many of the major stakeholders in the online ad industry, such as AOL, Walk Disney, Condenast, and Google, have joined the IAB as project partners in the effort to regulate a fair industry. Guidelines include: ad definitions, acceptable counting methods, and guidelines for filtration, cacheing, auditing, and disclosure. These guidelines are “intended to cover on-line browser or browser-equivalent based Internet activity." (3) They do not cover wireless, off-line cached media and Interactive-based television because of differences in infrastructure and/or delivery method. Another important thing to keep in mind is that the metrics continue to change with the industry; therefore, these guidelines will probably continue to evolve over time.

Ad formatting allowances for host sites often varies. The easiest way to better understand the IAB guidelines is to compare ad specs for popular web publishing companies. I looked at Media Kits for Martha Stewart Weddings and the New Yorker. Both companies accept rich media ads; however, the New Yorker is more specific in their ad specs.

The New Yorker accepts interstitial (full-page ads that appear before the actual webpage), push down ads, and video. Ads must less than 30 seconds in length, if video or animation is used (the price of the ad varies depending on the length and features used). Video ads can loop up to 3 times, but they can never rollover to replay. Interstitial ads are limited to 640x480 dimensions, whereas push downs can expand up to 970x418, but they must collapse to 970x66. Push down ads are set by the vendor, but must push content down and cannot expand over preexisting content. All ads must be hosted by an approved rich media vendor, which I assume helps the New Yorker (and really Condenast at large) maintain a standard of quality and legality. (4)

At Martha Stewart Weddings site, rich media ads must be hosted by a third party vendor, as well. Martha Stewart sets some standard sizing limitations, but is less stringent on exact sizing for each combined advertising option. Instead, this company stresses that all ads must be user initiated –including audio. The X button must be visible at all times, enabling the viewer to exit out of the ad at any time.  Any in-banner ads must be hosted on the homepage; videos can only loop once and must not be longer than 30 seconds. Ads cannot solicit funds or deem the viewer a “winner” for a particular contest. Any click through feature must open the URL in a new window, so that the viewer can return to the host site more easily and does not feel as if he/she has left the page. (5)

The above sites illustrate the industry guidelines established by IAB, and also the individual allowances that each company has made for their online media marketing. In general, the goal is to protect the consumer and to make online advertising a helpful, enjoyable feature – not something that creates frustration. If that were the case, it would prove to do more harm than good and would sabotage any campaign whose goal was to make a profit.

These options are popular with advertisers because they are popular with consumers. As long as it is not annoying, the interaction between the user and the ad feature can be a very positive experience; one might argue that it is reflective of the culture of the current "social graph" on the web. Simply put, people are more inclined to pay attention to a product that demands their attention, versus one that lies flat on the page. The ad directs more traffic to the landing page, which subsequently results in a higher conversion rates and sales/revenue.

Rich media online advertising is not only more effective, but it provides the marketing brand with a much richer data set on its user demographic than the average static ad with text only. Tech Crunch says that the real value of a rich media ad is hidden in a store of valuable user data. Not only can you capture the number of impressions, but the brand can discover how a user is interacting with the ad and which tabs/services are most popular. It’s a window into the consumer, his/her online habits and a way to gauge the success of a social media strategy. (6) This insight allows that brand to refine overall strategy, messaging, and target audience.

All of these things will allow for a more cost-effective and successful marketing campaign. Adding video to a rich media ad is something akin to inserting the "special sauce" ingredient to a dish. Rich media drives purchase intent, brand awareness, brand flavorability, balance, and helps better craft overall messaging for the campaign. When a brand chooses to invest more dollars into video, aligning this format with the proper target audience (with evidence based research back it up), it is bound to see an increase in performance rate across the board. 

A Double Click research report released in 2009 says that exposing audiences to a single rich media with video ad results in an average 1.16% increase in purchase intent among exposed groups compared to the control group. Using rich media without video results in an average 0.50% increase over the control group. Simple Flash shows the poorest results at driving purchase intent. When your goal is to sell, use rich media formats. (7)

Although it seems obvious that rich media advertising is the best choice, it is also the most expensive and is not always an option for a brand, due to budgetary or scheduling limitations. The price of customizing the ad creative and the cost of advertising a rich media ad with a host site is much greater than when using a static ad. For this reason, it is important to carefully choose the ad format that you use -- and do this on a case to case basis. What works for one campaign, may not work for another. The most important thing is to plan ahead and remember that first impressions count. (8) Start by delivering a rich media ad with video to expose your audience to the best possible snapshot of your brand. However, if cost is an issue, keep it simple. The ad doesn't have to be interactive; use static messaging to drive the campaign, but choose video when possible. Most important, put the message front and center. Don't rely on people to click on the ad, in order to get the message.

This article is the part of a series of posts that I will make throughout my graduate studies in Marketing and Communications. With a focus on both healthcare and interactive marketing, I hope to gain a better understanding for effective health messaging--which I think plays a key role in a happy, healthy society. Please leave your comments or write to me: camorous@gmail.com.

Resources

(1,6) Rusli, Evelyn (2010). ClickTurn: Build Rich Media Ads In Half An Hour. Retrieved from http://techcrunch.com/2010/03/24/clickturn-build-rich-media-ads-in-half-an-hour/

(2, 3) IAB - Rich Media Creative Guidelines. Retrieved from http://www.iab.net/guidelines/508676/guidelines/Rich_Media_Measurement, http://www.iab.net/media/file/IAB_Rich_Media_Measurement_11_12_07.pdf and  http://www.iab.net/guidelines/508676/508767/Rich_Media

(4)The New Yorker - Rich Media Ad Specifications. Retrieved from http://www.condenast.com/brands/new-yorker/media-kit/web/ad-specifications

(5) Martha Stewart Weddings- 2012 Media Kit. Retrieved from http://www.marthastewartweddings.com/sites/files/marthastewartweddings.com/MSW_2012_Media_Kit.pdf

(7,8) Cole, Spaulding, and Fayer (2009). The Brand Value of Rich Media and Video Ads. Retrieved from http://static.googleusercontent.com/external_content/untrusted_dlcp/www.google.com/en/us/doubleclick/pdfs/DoubleClick-06-2009-The-Brand-Value-of-Rich-Media-and-Video-Ads.pdf

Washington Post - Media Kit Ad Specs. Retrieved from http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-adv/media_kit/adspecs/index.html

New York Times Ad Intro. Retrieved from http://www.nytimes.com/ads/Intro.html