von Roland Hachmann | Aug. 12, 2007 | Blog, Digital Culture, Digital Marketing, Digital News, Marketing, Marketing Trends, Social Media Marketing
This seems so obvious, yet it took some time to realize it. According to this Reuters article, Blue Note records (one of the most famous brands for Jazz Music) has dived into offering a digital experience:
The label is in the process of revamping the site to become a social network and digital music store for fans of jazz and blues — the staples of the Blue Note catalog — rather than a simple promotional Web site for its artists.
They are targetting the age group of the 35 to 55 year olds. It’s not the typical target group for downloading music and/or getting heavily involved in social networks, you might think.
But it is indeed a target group
- with more money available than the teens (and apparently more willing to spend it on music, too)
- looking for specialised music – think about the long tail effects of digital music!
There seems to be a trend, as Blue Note is not the first:
Blue Note’s pending Web site is just the latest. Universal Music Group opened a digital jazz and classical music service in the United Kingdom in January, and last December a social networking site aimed at the 35-and-up crowd called Urban Boomer (UBTunes) went live.
von Roland Hachmann | Aug. 9, 2007 | Ad News, Blog, Digital Marketing, Digital News, Marketing, Mobile Marketing, Online Advertising, Social Media Marketing
von Roland Hachmann | Aug. 7, 2007 | Ad News, Blog, Digital Culture, Digital Marketing, Online Advertising, SEO / SEA, Social Media Marketing
Some more ramblings on advertising on social networks, as I have written about it lately already: Sean Carton also thinks that advertising on social networks won’t work properly using regular ads. His point of why widgets might be the better solution (and I agree):
This is why widgets have been getting so much play lately: they don’t intrude on the user experience. Yeah, they’re branded. Yeah, they’re obviously a product of crass commercialism, but when done well they enhance rather than detract from the experience. They can become part of the conversation you’re having with friends and acquaintances, not an interruption of that conversation. Are widgets the answer to how advertising can work in social networking?
Not at all, but they’re a beginning. The answer will become apparent when we think outside of the ol‘ display advertising box and start to imagine ways we can work with the essential nature of social networking, rather than against it.
How can we join communities of interest in an authentically helpful way? How can we give consumers the tools to facilitate their conversations about our products or services (conversations they’re going to have anyway, with our without our help)? How can we help connect them to get help, advice, or suggestions from others (Dave Evans has a few good ideas)? How can we make it easier for true believers and brand fans to do the selling for us (or help recruit new fans)? How can we work with what’s going on rather than against it?
The question is, whether this is really a solution for all advertisers. Also, these considerations, same as the debate about the effectiveness of contextual ads only focus on the click rate as the only measure of success. I know, I know, we’re in the interactive space, so why go back to the old ad measurement models?
But then again, an eyeball is an eyeball and nobody can deny the value of attention of these eyeballs. Even if the click rate suggests failure, the message might have stuck. Don’t you think? Otherwise you would reduce the awareness and brand building capabilities of the online space to a story of how many people clicked, not how many people saw and remembered the message. That can’t be right, can it?*
But, going back to Seans point: yes, let’s rather entice the consumers with something of value. Something that provides this value at a point in time and (web-)space, where the consumer will most likely associate the best positive times with your brand because of your contribution to their needs and preferences. If it can be done best on social networks providing widgets (at least for now), then think of a good idea and go do it!
(*I am not oblivious at all to the fact, that interaction with the ads (i.e. clicking and interacting with the subsequent pages) will reinforce the message, make the whole awareness campaign x-times more successful!)
von Roland Hachmann | Aug. 6, 2007 | Ad News, Blog, Digital Marketing, Marketing, Online Advertising, Social Media Marketing
Apparently, some advertisers in the UK were cancelling their adspaces on Facebook, because they were appearing next to dubious content – in this case a page of the British National Party – as I found in this post at Techcrunch.
It seems that Facebook (and probably most other social networking sites) are not able to book campaigns on specific pages (or filter out unwanted pages). But, as Techcrunch rightly writes:
It seems a little strange in 2007 that advertisers would have been naive enough to believe that a run of site style advertising campaign on a site as large as Facebook would not have resulted in advertisements appearing next to dubious content to start with.
This problem is not only Facebooks‘ problem. Any social network – may be even many of the other sites with user generated sites with run-of-site advertising – will have the same problem. These sites will need context sensitive filters to deliver the right ads to the right user generated content pages. And while this works fine for text based pages (Google is offering that already for their AdSence ad placements), I am not sure how you would do the same with images, Sound and video?
von Roland Hachmann | Juli 31, 2007 | Ad News, Blog, Digital Marketing, Online Advertising
The post is a little older, but nevertheless interesting. Thomas Baekdal lists 7 tipps for successful viral marketing. Since we were just talking about this in the agency, this reminds me of a certain serendipity effect. (Accidentally finding something when you’re in the right mindset.)
The 7 tipps are as follows:
1: Make people feel something
2: Do something unexpected
3: Do not try to make advertisements (that sucks)
4: Make sequels
5: Allow Sharing, downloading and embedding
6: Connect with comments
7: Never restrict access!
Of course there is explanations and examples to each one of these, so click yourself through here and take a look. Summarising, he writes:
There is a common message in all of these tricks. It is that you need to make it right – or not do it at all. Only the best viral marketing campaigns make it – the rest literally sucks.
This is very true and it is most likely the point which is the most difficult to sell to clients…
(hat tip to Todd)
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