adage
This is what happens when 99% of the inefficiencies are cut out of a system (advertising industry)
Update: Including Q3 09 numbers
Source: http://adage.com/agencynews/article?article_id=140125
While no holding company’s results are pretty these days, Interpublic Group of Cos. last week posted particularly poor numbers, swinging to a net loss of over $35 million for the first nine months of 2009 from almost $60 million in profit during the same period in 2008. IPG’s third-quarter revenue fell 18% compared to declines of 14.4% at rival Omnicom Group, 8.7% at WPP (factoring out the effect of acquisitions and currency shifts) and 5.3% at Publicis Groupe. WPP’s reported revenue, including revenue from its big Taylor Nelson Sofres acquisition, rose 16.7%. In the same quarter, net income attributable to IPG tumbled 47.3%, more than double the drop of Omnicom (down 22.5%).
Google changed the game by changing the business model from paying for impressions to paying only when the advertiser gets the click. This helped to cut out the 99% of waste and inefficiency which existed in the industry.
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WPP Profit Dropped 47% in Second Quarter More Than Half of Company’s Revenue Came From Nontraditional Advertising |
NEW YORK (AdAge.com) — Using words such as “severe” and “surprise” to describe the recession’s impact on its business, WPP, the world’s largest advertising conglomerate, today said its profit was down 47% for the second quarter. And WPP Chief Executive Martin Sorrell said it will be a while before marketing executives begin to spend and take chances the way they did just a few years back.
FULL ARTICLE – Source: http://adage.com/article?article_id=138673
______________________________________________________________________
In a first half earnings statement released this morning, WPP Group announced that digital and direct marketing-related services now comprise 25% of its body.
WPP Group owns labels like 24/7 Real Media, Mediaedge:cia, MediaCom, Mindshare, GroupM and Outrider.
Digital and direct garnered $1.7 billion in revenues in the first half of ‘09, with a projected annual run rate of nearly $3.5 billion total. But it is digital media and advertising that appear to be dominating the segment.
Overall, first half revenues fell 2.9% to $6.4 billion in the first half on a reported basis, MediaPost reports. Like-for-like, however, total revenues slid 8.3% against the first half of 2008.
According to WPP, traditional advertising and “media investment management” have been the hardest-hit amidst the economic downturn.
“On a constant currency basis, advertising and media investment management revenues fell by 7.5%, with like-for-like revenues down 7.8%,” it stated.
Branding and identity, healthcare and specialist communications — which includes direct, internet and interactive — were least affected.
The media conglomerate committed to prioritizing the growth of digital communications, customer insights and strong geographic markets.
Related topics: Online Advertisers, Data Updates,
Source: http://www.marketingcharts.com/updates/digitaldirect-marketing-now-25-of-wpp-group-10211/?utm_campaign=rssfeed&utm_source=mc&utm_medium=textlink
Samsung 52 inch HDTV $9.99 at BestBuy – purchase receipt below (6:21a eastern time August 12, 2009)
Buy Link at the bottom of the post
Click for product page: Samsung – 52″ Class / 1080p / 120Hz / LCD HDTV LN52A650 SKU: 8749287
Order is still good as of 12:23 pm EST August 12, 2009.
BestBuy knows digital and social media. CMO Barry Judge tells it like it is.
Related:
http://abcnews.go.com/Business/story?id=8311580&page=1
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/08/12/AR2009081202660.html
http://adage.com/article?article_id=138469
http://www.nbcwashington.com/around-town/shopping/Best-Buy-Bummer-999-HDTVs-an-Error-53043522.html
http://blogs.zdnet.com/gadgetreviews/?p=6697
http://www.cnn.com/2009/US/08/13/bestbuy.mistake/index.html
http://www.myfoxdc.com/dpp/news/081209_best_buy_offers_999_hdtv_by_mistake
http://www.kktv.com/home/headlines/53067682.html
http://www.wftv.com/countybycounty/20371068/detail.html
http://www.shoppingblog.com/blog/8120912
http://www.cepro.com/article/best_buy_accidentally_lists_1700_hdtv_for_10/
The JKWeddingDance video was real; the viral effect was MANUFACTURED – Post 1 of 2
originally investigated and reported on Friday July 31, 2009 by Augustine Fou, with Tugce Esener @tesener
Several friends and colleagues had the same reaction when they found out about this video — that it was at such a high view count already and we were late to the party of finding out. Then we did some more digging — digital forensics :-) And this is a case where a viral hit was indeed successfully manufactured. There’s something to be learned from all this – how to successfully manufacture a viral video sensation and make viral profits.
Related: How to manufacture a viral video sensation and make viral profits – Post 2 of 2
Chris Brown is successfully tapping into the viral halo of a funny video that coincidentally used his song.
ReadWriteWeb article on how rights owners (Sony, Chris Brown) can make viral profits on other people using their work instead of suing them - http://bit.ly/KA3HI
The video was real. But promotional activities (possibly/likely paid) created the initial viral effect (led to the tipping point of the viral effect) which then got carried a further by people thinking they were simply late to the party, including myself (e.g. 440k bit.ly clicks and 3k detectable retweets out of the 13M views). The numbers don’t jive.
The viral halo has added 1 million more views to the video from August 1 – August 2. (13.1 M to 14.5 M)
Ten ELEVEN TWELVE THIRTEEN proof points to follow, each with screen shot to illustrate.
1a. anyone notice that the “Forever” soundtrack is remarkably consistent throughout the video as if it were dubbed or added in after the original footage was shot. The sound is too consistent in volume and loudness to have come from a built-in, on-camera microphone. At the very end of the video, once it cuts back to the couple at the altar the sound quality goes back to the echo-y, tinny sound of an on-camera mic.
1b. The “TheKHeinz” user on YouTube was registered on July 19, 2009, the day the video was posted. We usually look for clues like this to detect “plants” by PR agencies. This is an issue of trust — a user “CmdrTaco” on Slashdot has been around the forums for years, made hundreds of posts, and was rated by the community very highly. PR agencies trying to seed stories have to create new user accounts during the PR campaign (recent registration date) and have made no other posts or uploads before (no history).
2. The social intensity detected in all of the top social venues like Technorai, Delicious, Reddit, Digg, etc. indicate there was not enough organic sharing to support a view count of 13 million views in 11 days (updated: 14.6 million today August 2, 2009).
a) Bit.ly shows only 447k clicks on the shortened URL
“At Fortune’s Brainstorm:Tech conference Ashton Kutcher effectively took credit for boosting the views from – in his words – 12,500 views before he tweeted the link – to some 1.2 million views 12 hours later…”
Well, unfortunately he used a bit.ly link which provides public analytics on how many people clicked. Most tweets result in immediate traffic, which then tails off immediately after the tweet falls off the first page. In his case, look at the following bit.ly stats URL and click “past month” to see the peak clicks on July 23. All he can actually claim is that his tweet drove a peak of about 100,000 clicks on that day not 1.2 million 
http://bit.ly/info/Z7vMw
too bad Ashton. next time you make a BMOC claim, be sure to use a non trackable method, so analytics won’t “out” you so easily.
after only 3.5 days of retweets the twitter intensity died off to next-to-nothing; if this were a truly viral video, carried forth by real people (and not by paid PR support and paid media) the retweet intensity would remain high. As of August 21, there are over 21M views on the video and the 505k retweets does not show actual organic support for that number.
b) Twitturly shows only 3 thousand retweets on the YouTube URL itself
c) Delicious shows only 447 bookmarks of the video itself
d) Reddit only shows 673 thumbs up for the video itself
e) Technorati shows only 277 blog mentions of the video itself — this could be undercounting if blogs used URL shorteners. But if you look at the blog intensity results (below) sorted by blogs with most authority the blogs have very little authority (i.e. influence or size of audience).
– these are real indications of interest by real people. The social intensity of the passalong for this video does not substantiate the huge number of views in 11 days.
What we are seeing now is the additional viral halo, as the momentum is sustained by large media outlets reporting on the story — even Google Blog blogged about it (boasting about the success of YouTube advertising in driving revenues). Of course TechCrunch is right that viral videos can be monetized: http://www.techcrunch.com/2009/07/30/youtube-viral-wedding-videos-are-great-for-advertising/ )
3. Twitter shows nothing in the top “trending topics” related to this video – indicating few people are actually tweeting about it — if this video is SO viral (13M views in 11 days) then it has GOT to show up on a scan of social intensity. (see screen capture below)
July 31 (Friday) August 2 (Sunday)
4. The original video was posted July 19, 2009. The people from the video appeared on NBC’s Today Show and danced around Rockerfeller Center on July 25th (6 calendar days after posting). Today Show staff may be great at spotting news, but to get all the wedding party from the wedding to re-enact the dance on the Today Show in 6 calendar days — too good to be true? Hmm…
5. Out of all the wedding videos on YouTube, how did Chris Brown detect this particular one that used his song. @glenngabe noted that there are song detection mechanisms - ContentID - which detect the pattern of the copyrighted song and report that to the rights owners. We know there are hundreds, if not thousaands, or really funny wedding home videos — America’s Funniest Videos has been running for years and years on TV showing funny wedding blooper videos that people submitted to them.
6. ALL TEN of the top viral videos on AdAge’s Viral Video Chart took around 3 – 6 months to achieve full viral effect — not 6 days. See all 10 videos’ stats, as reported by YouTube at the following link. This video has not shown up at all on the list of Adage viral videos.
AdAge Top Viral Videos all take 3 – 6 months to reach full viral effect
7. From @RedW0rm – YouTube Declares Wedding Video a Financial Success – http://bit.ly/9ZUtu
8. also check the velocity of this http://twitter.com/#search?q=jkwedding or this http://twitter.com/#search?q=jkweddingdance notice the tweets are not seconds apart but hours apart. Something that achieved 13M views in the 11 days since posting would show far higher velocity or twitter intensity.
9. For a top-trending topic on twitter, there is usually correspondingly high search volume that is detectable. At first glance, terms related to this viral video like “jkwedding” or “jk wedding dance” all seem to spike. But if you put it against even “Corazon Aquino” (one of the top trending topics NOW on Twitter) those JK wedding search volumes are dwarfed. (see chart below).
10. Google only reports 366 links to the video and most of them are not even important websites (see Alexa blue bar)
11. The video itself has no honors and no stats (yet); YouTube stats are conveniently turned off. Other videos have their stats graphs publicly available.
12. see the fine print in the YouTube description — For more information or to make a donation towards violence prevention please visit our website: http://www.jkweddingdance.com/ – why would a normal wedding video ask people to make a donation towards violence prevention? (see screen capture below), the WHOIS record shows the domain jkweddingdance.com was created 29-Jul-09 — today is 31-Jul-09
Updated: This was circumstantial evidence. A source confirmed that Jill is studying patterns of violence propagation for her PhD. Their choice of charity was their own choice. And the site was set up to help that cause.
Conclusion? The video itself is real, made by those nice people in the wedding. They may not even realize why or how their wedding video went viral (and the tens of thousands of other wedding videos on YouTube did not). On the Today Show, “The couple told Lauer they were surprised at the video’s popularity” (also see NY Daily News article – http://bit.ly/OA3iG )
Related articles:
ReadWriteWeb – Build Profit Not DMCA Suits
WSJ – YouTube Declares Wedding Video a Financial Success
PSFK – Co-opting Viral Hits to Sell More Music
TechCrunch – YouTube: Viral Wedding Videos Are Great For Advertising
Huffington Post – Viral Wedding on YouTube Drives Buyers to Chris Brown Music
Despite massive increases in advertising, the biggest beer brands see massive drops in sales
Beer is yet another commodity and category that is being decimated by better quality alternatives. The means of production and distribution are no longer controlled by a very small number of big companies. Consumers find attractive alternatives in micro-brew beers or local beers. They have the means to access them (online) and have the product shipped directly to their homes. So no matter how much advertising the big companies do, if their product is just not that great, they will continue to lose customers to alternatives. The “lime” version of Bud Light was said to cannibalize sales of regular Bud Light. And rightly so, consumers are looking for a better product.
Source: http://adage.com/article?article_id=138141
Fourth of July Holiday: Bargain Brands Gain, but Big Spenders Bud, Miller Lite and Corona Tap Out
By Jeremy Mullman
Published: July 27, 2009
Despite a flurry of new and improved ad pushes for the country’s leading brews, the days leading up to Independence Day, usually the biggest-selling period of the year for the category, led to gruesome sales declines vs. the same period last year. Sales for Anheuser-Busch’s Bud Light and Budweiser plunged 7% and 14%, respectively, in grocery, convenience and drug stores during the two-week period ending July 5, according to scanner data from Information Resources Inc. Miller Lite suffered a 9% drop. The big importers were hurt badly too: Corona marketer Crown Imports watched sales decline 6% to 8%, while Heineken and Diageo each saw double-digit drops.
The Ads Won Awards for Crispin; But Did Nothing for Client BurgerKing – Whoa! Big Surprise
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What Crispin’s Lauded BK Work Doesn’t Do: Gain Ground On McD’s
Since Hiring the Agency, King Earned Ad Plaudits but Hasn’t Closed the Gap |
CHICAGO (AdAge.com) — For all of Burger King’s marketing triumphs with its ad agency, Crispin Porter & Bogusky, it has lost — and continues to lose — ground to its largest and most significant rival, McDonald’s.
lift in search due to paid TV advertising
List of 2009 Superbowl spots on AdAge.com
http://adage.com/superbowl09/article?article_id=134136
Lift in search is a great indicator of interest. Modern consumers may be inspired by TV ads, but they usually go online to do more research for themselves, to inform their own purchase decision. The following examples show the lift in search after Superbowl commercials or for launch of products like Subway Footlongs. The use of unique, made-up words makes it easier to detect lift in search (see related post: made up words are great for tracking buzz and search volume ). There is now a correlation between offline paid advertising and online behaviors of modern consumers that can be tracked and ultimately related to sales.
What is harder to do is track lift in search from smaller TV media buys or from terms which are generic — e.g. American Express OPEN, Proctor & Gamble’s TAG (men’s deoorant), etc. And furthermore, people may or may not remember the brand name itself and may type in a more general search query — e.g. “talking baby” instead of” e-Trade” or “dancing lizards” instead of “SoBe LifeWater.” And most people usually forget to type in special URLs specified in the ads. So the opportunity is to 1) use made-up words which can be used to detect lift in search and 2) search-optimize around other more generic terms that people may search for if they remembered the ad, but did not remember the brand name itself.
key learnings include:
1. only the superbowl TV ads generates enough awareness to drive lift in search volume detectable above the noise or normal levels
2. made up words are useful in correlating paid advertising and subsequent online actions (e.g. search) because most users forget or are too lazy to type special URLs
3. is is always better to have real analytics from the site to see when paid campaigns hit; site analytics will also reveal more information about users including demographic information, what they are looking for, and even whether they “convert” to a sale or a desired action — like print off a coupon, etc.
Notice the January spikes for several of the examples below — these are their Superbowl ads in action. But also notice how sharp the spikes are — most of them go back to prior levels within 1 – 3 days (see related post: the ephemerality of the Superbowl halo )
Source: Google Insights for Search
Spend polarization
Spend polarization – in this economy, people will try to save every last penny so they will spend more at Wal-mart (low prices). But when they do treat themselves, they will spend on even higher end items like $40 balsamic vinegar, or high end chocolate (high prices).
Jacques Torres was packed before Valentines this year
low end
1. people buying private label, generics, or store brands (quality of which are pretty comparable to name brands)
Private Labels winning the battle of the brands
http://adage.com/article?article_id=134791
high end
2.we were at Williams Sonoma yesterday and I watched 3 families buy Shun knives (super expensive) and Shun has just released an even higher end series of knives by Michel Bras
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