Its the ad you remember not necessarily in what spot break or on what channel. But, if we had not created the perfect mix of reach and frequency, if  media planners didn’t know your media habits and you preferred media consumption times; if I had not plugged the creative in front of your eyes just so, then you would never see that spot that made you laugh or run out and buy the product. According to this ad in Redscout’s ‘Spur’ series we are the smart ones.

Found via

Must resist urge to order…stop looking up discount codes…put credit card away….soooo hard…damn you Heels.com.

I love them and hate Heels.com all in one. Don’t they know I’m trying to be good? A little window shopping to quench my shoe lust and they have me tagged with cookies with a re-targeting display buy for the exact shoes I’ve been lusting over.

At first glance its easy to assume that this means that internet banner ads are most ignored and television ads are the most effective. But the study fails to take into account several important factors.

1) Most people fail to recognize what is actually advertising online. When I teach clients and co-workers about search engine marketing, most people are surprised to learn that the sponsored links section at the top and right hand sidebar on search ads are paid ads. There are countless studies about visitors not realizing when they’re on a blog vs. a website. I’m sure a lot of people in this survey couldn’t accurately pick out all the ads on a website, but I’m sure they all recognize commercials on TV and radio.

2) ROI is king right now. Most people might say TV is an effective way to reach them, but who really watches a TV spot and immediately goes out to buy that item. On the advertiser side TV is an excellent reach medium but you can’t really measure and you can’t really target.

3) Mass reach and online ads serve different functions. TV and radio are to get the message out to everyone, if sales occur because of it, fantastic. But these days most people go online to find out more information and shop competitors. TV, radio and newspaper are step 1; online advertising is closer to the end of the funnel (even for offline channels).

I hate reports that just spew out numbers and stats without context.  You can read more here.

An explanation for any non-media readers out there – typically when you place a buy at both the local and national level, you will be granted category exclusivity for the spot breaks you purchase and any good media buyer will demand it. Meaning that within the a two minute and thirty second commercial break those other four :30 spots you’re running with will not be one of your competitors.

Your competitors could be in the next spot break, they could be in every one after yours, but they should not run in your break and certainly not after your spot in the same break. Sometimes it happens, rotators get stuffed in any avails and when inventory is tight mix ups are bound to happen. But these days it seems as though category exclusivity is totally done with.

MTV seems to do this the most – a two minute break just aired three direct skin care competitors, one after the other.

Local news ran a competitor car spot in the same break they announced a program feature was sponsored by another local dealership of the same make. (Car dealerships are a bit more flexible in that two makes can run in the same break as long as they don’t directly compete – BMW and Chevy can share a spot break because people shopping for a Chevy would not then turn around and buy a BMW).

I’m surprised with the amount of inventory that this is even happening, but media companies and reps are too focused on making money to stay afloat. Unfortunately, its hard for a media buyer to track what other spots are running in the spot break as invoices only contain the date, time and rate of your own spots. Unless you (or god forbid) the client happens to catch it, you’ll never know.

Do you think exclusivity is a thing of the past or will it come back when stations don’t have to whore themselves out to stay afloat?

While these ads annoy me to no end, I would kill to work on this account. This is one of the few accounts that has increased their spend recently and they are just blanketing the web. 

Not sure if their on a behavioral buy (although I don’t look up diet information), could be demographic (because all 25 year old women are obsessed with their weight) or maybe they’re just buying remanent ad space by zip or DMA.

The website (yes I clicked, I was curious) is positioned as a San Diego woman’s blog. Anyone else click through on these and have a website targeting their DMA?

As a media buyer I get inspired for new ideas from a variety of sources.  Here are some of my most recent inspirations. 

Super cool, simple and unique music video. Reminds me that simple is really all it takes to be effective. 

A website full of a ton of unique visuals, ads, art and whatnot. Innovative takes on common ideas and objects on Inspire Me Now.

And this blog by John the architect, Everything you ever needed to know (shoutout to @allisonyochim). His post on how building materials are meant for certain tasks through his in depth look at a brick is beautiful. 

“…Because we know brick has feelings and needs, we should feel bad for brick, not too bad however, because in time, the faux wall will fail and brick will show it was meant for something else.”

Overall, Hyundai was the clear winner of the super bowl. They presented a clear and cohesive message through memorable (if a little boring) ads. Hyundai is going after market share in the recession through a very well thought out and beautifully executed campaign. While their ads might not be the ones everyone discussed today, they’re keeping the brand alive and in a positive light through messages that will outlast the Superbowl spotlight. 

Other stand outs include: 

1) Doritos Crystal Ball – The only spot that made me really laugh out loud. While it was a little strange and incredibly funny, the spot didn’t deviate from the brand image or try to hard. Yes, people are hating on Doritos for doing a user submitted contest for their creative (which is soooo 2007), but I say excellent work!

2) CareerBuilder.com – I hated this and almost muted it until they kola was punched. Then I was giggling fool. Punching a kola that’s wearing glasses and drinking coffee = WIN. I liked the Monster.com spot, but this spot was waaay better. It was repetitive and annoying but so are some jobs, right? So they were pretty much spot on in what they were try to sell. Side Note: In the spot break that ran the Monster.com spot, a voice over did a name mention for CareerBuilder.com while going back into the game. I don’t know how CareerBuilder did it and as a media planner I would be asking for a partial refund if I was Monster.com. If a station is not going to bother with category exclusivity within a spot break for a $3M spot, then they are clearly just whoring out ad time.

3) Hulu.com was the unexpected awesomeness. Hulu is a great service and a cool brand, but I’m pretty sure its relatively unknown amongst the non tech people. The ad was memorable, funny and pretty honest. Side Note: My favorite tweets regarding the hulu spot were ones like this from Allen. I’m sorry guy but I think you missed the point of your favorite ad, Hulu is a place you can go to see videos online. Its like youtube but with a higher quality…so maybe you could try going to hulu to view the ads? 

4) Audi (yes I know I just said Hyundai was the overall winner) but Audi had a fantastic spot that was visually stunning  and a brilliant depiction of their brand. Classy, powerful and sexy. I want an Audi A4. 

Despite the hype, the Cash4Gold spot wasn’t all that great. Ed McMahon looked so old and feeble. Plus its sad because we all know he’s really in need of money. McHammer was funny, but funny is not going to get me to do business with the scam that is Cash4Gold. Meh.

1) RESTAURANT/NIGHTCLUB – Use Twitter to tweet daily specials, twit pic pictures of cool dishes and customers, allow customer to @reply to place a to-go order, request a song from the DJ or make reservations. There are thousands of tweets about eating, so twitter search those local tweets and send them an @reply with specials, twitpics of meals and twitter discounts. 

2) BRICK and MORTAR – Advertise within Google street view. Find out when the camera vehicles will be out and about and have a flash mob create a scene with client’s product, move an adtruck in, or create special signage. Its basically free advertising to people who are looking for directions on your street. Plus the image stays up for a while, so the ad will have a long life. 

3) ANY INDUSTRY – (Based off of the Converse Search Engine Spelling Bee).  Ask site visitors to type very specific (and thus cheap) words and phrases into search engines and have clients ads pop up in the results. Make it fun and interactive, you can track it all through Google AdWords (impressions, clicks, etc) and guage the effectiveness of the campaign. 

4) REAL ESTATE – Create social network for new condo development. Businesses can off special offers to the young crowd while the tennats will be able to easily make friends. The social network can be used  to schedule parties (or reserve the clubroom), ask for restaurant recommendations and leave notes for your neighbors. I would love to live in a building that had its own social space. It would make a great sales point for the cool 25-34 year olds. 

5) HOSPITALITY –  Q2 tags are just not used enough. I’d love to see a hotel applying tags around their property as speacial messages to guests, recommendations of places to go and things to do  and the occasional special deal. You could add Q2 tags on the items in the room that tell the story of the items selected or information on how to buy them. Or hang pictures in the room taken locally that have Q2 tags, when guests snap the tags they recieve information on how to get to the place the picture was taken. And then create Q2 tags that are hidden on site that offer guests a free extra night, a free spa treatment, etc. The location of these tags can change, but you can be sure guests will talk about them, post them on review sites and pay special attention to the property.

But don’t worry is isn’t some haughty predictions list, but merely a top 10 list of my hopes for marketing and technology in 2009. 

1. MySpace will die. Enough of the glitter backgrounds, 10 mintue page downloads and endless random friend requests from half naked teenagers. Most of the cool kids have left anyways. 

2. Everyone will stop hating on Twitter. You know you want to, like that one time in college. Get drunk and blame your experimental tweets on the booze. In four years if you’re not into it anymore you can just say you were going through a phase. Then you can follow me here. 

3. Spammers will learn correct grammar and proper English. Maybe more people would respond if they could read your spam emails or they contained plausable stories. Really I won the lottery in Nigeria, I didn’t even buy a lottery ticket?!

4. Mobile marketing will finally take off. The last few years have been predicted as The Year for mobile, please finally get big so the masses will figure out what the next big thing will be.

5. People will realize that it is not necessary to sign their names to posts on Facebook becasue FB shows your name and picture next to the comment. You are not drafting a letter when you post on someone’s wall so you really don’t need to sign it. 

6. Companies will realize that traditional marketing needs to be combined with new media and technologies just to stay relevant. Society is shifting and if you don’t change your business practices starting with how you interact with your consumer you will die out.  

7. Education Connection will hire a new agency. I can’t take their commercials any more. They are the absolute worst thing to have come out in 2008. And you will finally learn to integrate your TV spots with your online activites. Please stop using a different vanity URL in each spot and then  fail to buy any related keywords to those URLs (try buying class in PJS for ClassInMyPjs.com). Only bidding on “Education Connection” when it’s only mentioned once in each spot, is foolish. 

8. Online media distribution hubs will really take off. Rev3, Hulu and the like have grown in popularity this year and 2009 will be their year. Really I’d just love to save money on my monthly cable/internet bill.  

9. Music companies will have an epiphany and realize if their artists put out good music and put on a good show, they’ll make more money on concerts and shwag then they ever did on album sales. I hate the regret after you purchased an album, listen to it once and realize that  besides the one catchy single all the other tracks totally blow. Follow the consumers, stop suing your target audience and do something great again.  

10. Online advertisers will create a uniform system to buy and sell online placements. Start by creating a trusted leader in analytics for buyers to plan and buy off of and then websites should create creative standards for ads to be displayed (lower the clutter and make sure all creative is not going to annoy the hell out of your visitors). I don’t trust a good percentage of my online vendors stats, no one provides me with the same type of information and too many sites are concerned with quanity rather than quality. I want to spend my clients money, but you’re not making it easy.

Whats on your marketing/technology/media wish list for 2009? 

Oh and I want a robot and a time card that can fill in itself. Or maybe a robot to fill in my time card. And a helper monkey, I’ve always wanted a helper moneky, with a little green hat…. 

Happy New Year!

Funny video on the disconnect between the modern consumer and traditional advertising. Is this stuff funny if you don’t work in the industry?  

There is another video in the series which leads to GetInspiredHere 

Enjoy.