SXSW: The Discussion About Metrics That Never Happened
by Brian Reich | 9 Mar 2008, 3:00am
(This is cross-posted at the EchoDitto SXSW blog)
The last panel discussion of the day promised a discussion of social marketing strategy and metrics. It featured some heavy hitters - Rohit Bhargava from Ogilvy, Brian Magierski from BSG — and others. The moderator said the discussion would be at the ‘intermediate’ level, meaning they were going to skip past the basic stuff. The room was packed and buzzing about the possibility of solving this vexing challenge once and for all.
Big let down. Same old discussion. No new ground broken.
I won’t quote from the panel, it really isn’t worth the effort. But I will share a few quick insights that I gained while listening from the back of the room.
1) People are looking for a simple solution. There isn’t one. One panelist suggested the problem was that we knew there was an ROI for social media but we couldn’t demonstrate it to our boss/client. Their solution? If someone could just create a tool, a piece of technology, that could measure all the different elements of social media conversation then we could demonstrate the value. Um, no, that’s not the right answer. A piece of technology will not solve this problem. We can measure most everything that happens online. But people haven’t spent the time to figure out what it means, how it relates to their goals and the work they are doing.
Why is that?
2) People are lazy. The benefit of the online world is that everything (or nearly everything) is measurable. The drawback of course, is the same thing - that everything (or nearly everything) is measurable. And when you measure everything, reams and reams of data are produced — data about every person on the web, what they are doing, the content they are promoting, and everything else. But nobody, it seems, reads all that data, they just look at the summaries. Nobody it seems, is asking the tough questions about what the data says, instead of just passing along the numbers and suggesting they represent the answer. Nobody, it seems, is wiling to take a stand on what something means, for fear that they will be wrong.
What is missing is analysis, opinion, perspective, insight. If we are so smart about how people use technology to communicate, how people use the web, what works and what doesn’t, and we truly understand the people we are talking with online (or are even representative of those people ourselves), then we should be able to look at the numbers and understand what they mean. We should be able to offer opinions and insights that inform real actions.
Why don’t we?
I think I do (and I demand that the people I work with do the same). I love numbers as much as anyone. I geek out over the crosstabs when I do polling; The summary memo isn’t nearly as interesting to me. I wade into the comments when my client has a blog or similar and listen to what people are saying; counting how many people are commenting is not enough.
So, I challenge my fellow marketers to embrace the data and spend the time learning what it means. I challenge my fellow marketers to provide their opinions, their informed insights drawn from years and years of experience communicating online, about what to do and how to do it. I challenge my fellow marketers to use their brain, to trust their gut, to take a stand, and to use the process of measuring and analyzing to try something every day until we feel good about what we know.
Then we can come back and have a better discussion about this issue and what we have all learned in the process.
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The Politics/Technology Discussion Is Going In The Wrong Direction
by Brian Reich | 9 Mar 2008, 3:00am
(This is cross posted on the EchoDitto SXSW blog)
I have been in politics all my life. For most of that time I have been very optimistic about the potential for politics to have a positive impact on the world. And that optimism increased as I saw the potential for using technology to educate, engage, and mobilize audiences increase and become more integrated. It’s a fairly simple equation in my mind. Better politics help better people get elected and better people do a better job running the country (at whatever level they were elected - local, state, federal, etc.). And technology can help facilitate that on many different levels.
Of late, however, I have been down on politics — I am frustrated that the media and various other people talk about all the innovation and evolution in our political process, but the reality is far from that. I am saddened by the fact that our government fails to serve most of our population well, and some people not at all - and that tools are available to help expand the reach of government, but those in power don’t seem interested in using them in any meaningful way. I’m cranky about the fact that so many people look at technology as the solution, when there are obviously so many more more important factors.
Politics is exciting to watch and occasionally fun to participate in, but its not fulfilling its role in our society right now. Worse than that, our democracy is broken. And the rate at which change is occurring so that technology can play a meaningful role in fixing these problems is painfully slow.
What made me so frustrated today?
I was at a panel discussion this morning with a group of very smart political operatives from the internet space (several of whom are friends of mine). They were talking all about Facebook (one of the panelists was from Facebook) and user-generated videos that appeared on YouTube, list building and GOTV. Frankly, there wasn’t any new ground broken in the discussion.
So, I stepped up and asked the panel if they felt the shifting nature of politics, which increasingly recognizes the role of the community and gives some (though still not very much) voice to the grassroots community will spill over into better functioning of government, greater access for citizens, and an increased likelihood of real solutions being found for the problems facing our society. I think it was a good question.
The responses were not very good. Panelist answer ranged from “government doesn’t understand technology and has no interest in using it that way” to “the campaigns haven’t really achieved anything of significance, so there isn’t a model to transfer over to the operation of government anyway.” (Those aren’t direct quotes, FYI…)
So, I’m frustrated on a couple levels. First, I’m frustrated that the media (and people at a panel like the one this morning) obsess over the ‘paradigm shift’ happening in politics, when really very little, if anything, has changed at all. Second, I’m frustrated that nobody in the political space seems to look past the end of the campaign cycle to the job that ultimately their candidate/party will have to do when elected. I was in the political space for a long time (and am not that far outside of it now) so I understand the mentality, but I got into politics with the goal of helping improve our society and I feel as if the industry is just navel gazing far too much about this technology stuff. And lastly, I’m frustrated that you can get so many smart people together on a panel, or at a conference like SXSW for that matter, and not even begin to scratch the surface of the serious issues that need addressing.
I’ll keep hoping to find a panel, or a group of political professionals, who want to realize the true world changing opportunities that technology offers and how to actually improve our society.
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Can Science Deliver The Answer To the Measurement Challenge?
by Brian Reich | 9 Mar 2008, 3:00am
(This is cross-posted at the EchoDitto Blog and the SXSW EchoDitto Blog)
Ahhhh, science. The prospect of finding the answers to life’s most vexing challenges always seem to come from science (or faith, which in the case of online marketing and communications is important, but certainly not for everyone). So, this morning I sat in on a panel about the ’science of designing interactions’ in the hope of getting some additional clarity on this whole measurement debate.
The panel featured two folks, either professor types or PhDs, with thick accents — usually a good sign when you are talking about a complex subject (ok, totally unfair generalization, but tell me that you don’t agree with the statement at least in part) And, like so many other panels, this one promised metrics for determining the success of your social media/marketing efforts.
Sadly, like so many other panels, no metrics emerged. But, all was not lost. The moderator presented an interesting framework for ‘designing interactions,’ — seven patterns as he put it. Those patterns are:
1 Focus on designing interactions (the goal is to have people engage - with content, with each other, etc.)
2. Build experiment and measure (there is no single answer, no right answer, no way of knowing when you are done - so keep going)
3. Give user metrics of his standing (if you know that you are only 75% complete with a task, you will proceed through and complete the remaining 25%. If you don’t know, how do you know if you should go forward)?
4. Help the user decide actions (guide them, explain the meaning of what they are doing)
5. Frame interactions and costs, rewards risk (give the user an opportunity to understand the implications of his/her decisions, don’t decide for them)
6. Introduce currency for interactions (reward and incentivize people to take whatever action you want)
7. Create mechanism for discovery (collect data constantly, always be learning what your audience is doing and what it means to you)
What I learned?
Try not to tackle everything at once. Break down a big problem into many smaller problems and then look to various audiences/sources for help in solving those little problems. (The example of Amazon Turk was used to represent this concept). This seems to be a strategic blind spot for most people trying to communicate online — they try to create the ultimate experience, the ‘do everything’ technical solution, and inevitably they fall short somewhere. But, if you look at the individual attributes of various platforms (Twitter, Facebook, whatever) you will see lots of little successes.
There is a spectrum of activity that any user falls on — it stretches from interacting with just content (save, annotte for self, privately star, etc) moves to “mostly content” (comment, amazon review, share to audience) “some balance of both” (twitter, forward) and on the far right you get “interact with other people (wall, fan)”
And finally, focus metrics on users - at the end of the day, it is engagement we are interested in, not just activity. We want to know where the audience stands, how to improve, and how to contribute more. If you keep the focus narrow and deliver on the expectations of the user, you’ll discover your metrics in there somewhere.
Getting closer to the answer. I think.
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SXSW: What Teens Want Online & On Their Phone
by Brian Reich | 8 Mar 2008, 2:00am
(I am at the SXSW Interactive Conference in Austin, TX. I will be posting updates from here over the next few days. I will cross post to the EchoDitto SXSW Blog as well).
The first panel of the day was ‘What Teens Want Online and On Their Phones.” It was moderated/hosted by Anastasia Goodstein, editor of YPulse (a blog that tracks teen culture), and featured seven local Austin teenagers sharing their personal reflections on technology.
The discussion started with the obvious things:
- What are your favorite sites (A: MySpace, various music sites, etc.)?
- Why do you like them (A: because I can build my own lists, I can see what’s cool)?
- Do you still use email (A: “I created my email so I could get on MySpace”)?
- What kind of cell phone do you have (A: LG, Blackberry Pearl, Sony Excursion - slide phone, Verizon LG Camera Phone)?
- What do you do with your phone (A: play Tetris and PacMan or other ‘emergency games’ if I get really bored, get ‘official SAT question of the day’, ringtones, send/receive text messages, take pictures, ‘just slide my phone - when I am bored or nervous’, listen to music)?
- Do you hang out on virtual worlds (A: Zwiki, Gaia, various MMOs, but overall not too much)
Then we got into audience questions.
Here are my observations/insights.
First of all, this was a good panel By having a group of actual users talk about what they want/expect from the internet and mobile phones, we got an honest assessment of whether the web, mobile, and other related industries actually do a good job. The consensus seems to be - sort of. There is a lot more understanding the people who create technology, and content, geared towards teens could do to attract greater interest and participation.
- Money is clearly an issue. These kids did not seem to be rich or poor, so probably pretty middle of the road in terms of the money they have (or the money their families have). With limited funds, they have to make choices. They don’t want ‘pay to play’ (with games for example). Only some of the kids have phones, and those who do have limitations on their text messaging and none use the internet (”because its too expensive”)
- Content and News. There is some tracking of news (the war in Iraq, presidential elections) but its not universal. For those who are tracking news, they aren’t using mainstream sources — instead, focusing on Digg, YouTube political news, Wikipedia, the Onion (which they know is a spoof newspaper), etc. There is a desire for opinion and perspective - just reporting what is going on, not providing anything but basic facts is considered boring, even depressing.
- Causes: While involvement in causes wasn’t high, there was definitely some awareness. One of the kids is signed up for the Human Rights Campaign Fund — she said “I’m not gay, and I’m not saying its bad — just that if you can get over people being gay, people being a different color, you can get over anything” - so HRC is an important group. One participated in the Grain of Rice game (because you hid the cause in a game), another is doing a project at school that benefits Heifer. Interestingly, none wanted to take real offline action - instead, one said that she thought her friends wanted to feel like they were having an impact without having to actually do anything (”they are looking for the easy out”).
- TV and Movies: There is plenty of TV and movie watching — those who do watch regular TV use a DVR. There is also a lot of watching online, through Veoh or directly to a something like the Disney Channel online (which hosts special episodes of Hannah Montana for example). There are a few shows that they have to watch in real-time — mostly the shows that if you miss something by not watching on time, you’ll be totally out of the discussion. One added that she ‘has to watch wrestling when it is actually on.”
- Advertising: Someone asked if the kids would participate in an anti-marketing effort, to try and keep ads away from kids. Nobody seemed all that interested. They seem resigned to the fact that advertising was a part of the online experience. More importantly, they want better advertising… stuff that relates to the content on the site. And, advertising should stay on the sites where you are trying to buy things (and not be on the entertainment sites, or the social networks - when it distracts from the experience).
- Games. They like games — play on AddictiveGames.com, NewGrounds, BlackSheep, for example, but don’t really play the advertising-driven flash games. There is some mobile game playing as well (see above). Flash (or flash games) seem to be blocked at school, so they either look for the games that aren’t blocked or they figure out how to get around it (set up proxies, etc)
- Other activities: A teen stepped up and asked everyone, including the panel, if anyone goes outside — experiences real stuff, puts their laptop down. One of the kids is on a basketball team. One has a job at Sonic (”which is a carhop, so I have to go outside.’) Another was surprised that they weren’t obese (because they love to play on the computer. In terms of making plans to go out with friends, most of it is done via text message (though they meet up in real life) and they talk to each other. Nobody uses Facebook or MySpace because its not direct or personal enough.
- Marketing: What don’t marketers get about the web? And if you could have a greater say in how marketers appear on the web, what would you want? The kids don’t seem to like advertisements, mostly because they aren’t in context, aren’t directed enough. They don’t like ‘free’ offers that require you to fill out lots of forms and such.
Good discussion, very interesting..
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SRI In the Rockies: The Big Picture
by Brian Reich | 30 Oct 2006, 2:00am
I spent the weekend in Colorado Springs, CO attending SRI in the Rockies, the annual gathering of the socially responsible investment industry in the United States. I was there to participate in a panel about online marketing and host a topic table at lunch on the same topic. I also had an opportunity to attend some of the speeches and sessions — and learned some new things about climate change its impact on disease, micro-finance and, perhaps most interestingly, the future of the internet.
Bob Veres, an author, speaker, and one of the most influential people in the financial services industry (socially responsible or otherwise) gave a talk entitled ”The Next Society.’ The focus of his talk was how the world of sustainable investments has changed, and continues to evolve, and how the world is now following the lead of SRI - for the better. He noted that a decade ago, social screens were seen as a depressant on fund performance while today, social screens are the very best way to evaluate corporate character and avoid surprises in your portfolio.
Then he launched into a commentary on the changing nature of communications and how it relates to the tough work of changing the world. Here are my (rough) notes:
- The media industry is in crisis. Stories are covered and then disappear. Stories are covered by people who don’t know much about the subject and who have a very short attention span. The future of news will be an environment where you can access a lot more information, a lot better information, from people who know a lot more than reporters. And it will make everything more focused, more meaningful, and more actionable.
- The web has created a hostile world for advertising. As we move towards the web as a content delivery vehicle, corporate america will not be able to artificially create demand for their products and services. It is harder and harder for advertisers to gain interest and traction. That is why TV advertising is suffering and that is why the future of communications will be information/content-centric, and not marketer driven.
- We are experiencing the death of the consumer economic system. Why? It doesn’t relate to the issues that people actually care about most. That has also given rise to the concept of “Life Planning.” People are finding they don’t want more stuff. They want more fulfillment from their lives. How do they know?
Ask yourself, if you had one day left to live, what would be your biggest regret? Write down 30 goals you want to achieve this year (the first ten will be easy, the second ten more difficult, the third ten will make you did deep). If you had all the money in the world, what would you want to do?
- How can we change the world? He offered two directives:
1) Operate in your zone of personal genius. Imagine a circle, with a circle inside that, and a circle in side that. At the center of that innermost circle is a blue dot that represents your greatest energy, focus, and passion. That is where we must all operate - get rid of the distractions and just work within our blue dot.
2) Hire a coach to help you get there. They will help you put aside all of the work you do for others and help you focus on just what you need. The coach will nag you because they will present your own goals back to you in such a compelling way that you will do for them what you can’t seem to find a way to do for yourself.
- The way we work is changing. You are going to see most of the world’s work being done by ad hoc teams who are experts in their field and who are operating within their blue dot. You will see corporations (who right now have office buildings filled with generalists and inefficient information flow based in hierarchy not expertise) “melt like sugar cubes in the rain.” The people who own the assets will control them - you won’t need marketers, etc.
- The internet will become the superconductor of human and financial capital.
The speech made me think. Not sure quite yet what it all means, but rarely does a conference speech make me think like this one did, so that must mean something.
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: Advertising Citizen Journalism Citizen Marketing Conferences/Events Event Coverage From the Trenches Journalism Marketing News
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At the Public Radio Development & Marketing Conference
by Brian Reich | 27 Jul 2006, 2:00am
I am in New Orleans today speaking at the Public Radio Development & Marketing Conference. The panel I am on, entitled “New Media: Making Sense/Making Cents” will focus on the ways public radio stations can leverage interactive and other tools to raise funds and expand their offering. Here is the session description:
RSS Feeds, Podcasting, IM, flickr, blogs, etc … etc … What is all this stuff and how can we use it for fundraising? First a thoughtful, accessible overview of new media tools and terms for the non-techies amongst us, then it’s off to the races! Join us for roll-up-your-sleeves brainstorming about new media and how we might market it to our audiences and use it to build revenue, whether directly through outright membership solicitation, business sponsorship or e-commerce, or indirectly by capturing user contact information for later cultivation. Enough talking about what the future may hold — let’s start putting this darned stuff to use!
I will provide an overview/analysis of how other media organizations are using interactive tools — from HBO offering mobile games and MySpace pages to promote Entourage to the American Cancer Society’s virtual charity walk in Second Life – and offer some thoughts on how to apply these to public radio stations.
I will let you know how it goes.
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Cause Marketing and Millennials
by Brian Reich | 27 Jun 2006, 2:00am
A couple of weeks back (yes, I am that far behind on posting thoughts), I attended the Cause Marketing Forum in New York. Carol Cone, one the leading branding experts in the nation, presented the results of a new survey about the expectations of the Millennials when it comes to cause and cause marketing. Here is the quick outline from my notes:
Who are the Millennials?
Born between 78 and 1994
30% of US population (70 million)
- 21 million €˜Tweens’
- 33 million Teens
- 16.5 young adults
1 in 3 non-Caucasian
Common Characteristics
78% web access from home
92% cell phones, (35% teens have mobile phones)
See 400-600 ads per day
Demand customization, immediate benefits/response
What are they looking for?
86% agree companies a responsibility to support social/environmental causes
61% agrees they are personally responsible to make a difference
17% volunteer weekly
20% volunteer ½ hour a month
44% volunteer a few times a year
Habits
79% recommend company involved in a cause to other people
68% consider switching to another company based on cause
45% refuse to buy products if company is not socially responsible
Top Issues
47% education
39% environment
38% poverty
33% health & disease
Reaching Millennials
Television - 64%
Internet - 62%
Word of Mouth - 34%
Business Practices to Build Trust
95% quality/fair priced products or service
94% following the laws
93% communication openly and honestly
93% guaranteeing fair wages
87% donating money to support charity
8%7 protecting the environment
Companies Supporting Causes
75% agree that when a company has a deep commitment to a cause, they are more likely to pay attention to its messages, but 73% believe that most companies are NOT doing enough to support the cause they care about
How do you reach them?
Pay attention and understand generation
Cause is a “have to do”
Provide spectrum of engagement
Customization
Fast, quick and multiple elements
Celebrity involvement
Online and local events
We Media Global Forum
by Brian Reich | 2 May 2006, 2:00am
I am in London this week for the We Media Global Forum, a two-day conference (May 3 - May 4) exploring the impact of technology and the internet on media and society. The event is co-sponsored by the BBC and Reuters and hosted by The Media Center.
I will be moderating the online conversation at the Forum – helping to make sure the opinions and insights of the media, organizations, bloggers, and others who are watching and participating from near and far are heard as a part of the conference. I will also be helping to lead a wiki-storm, the outcome of which will be a call-to-action for conference participants, and others who are interested, to support bottom-up media. More on that later.
More information about the conference - and a link to the online chat - are available online at http://www.mediacenterblog.org/events/06/wemedialondon/home/.
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iMedia Panel: Gaming Creating & Execution
by Brian Reich | 29 Mar 2006, 2:00am
The afternoon focus at the iMedia Breakhrough Summit Panel was gaming. The title of this panel: “Gaming Creating & Execution.”
Moderater
- Julie Schumaker, National Director of Sales, Video Advertising - EA
Participants
- Gerard LaFond, Partner - Persuasive Games (also President of Red Tangent)
- Claire Lipnicki Ekizian, Account Director - MarketSource IMS
- Gordon Paddison, Executive Vice President, Integrated Marketing - New Line Cinema
Our topic is dynamics and challenges in the process of advertising in video games. We all want to know methodologies and what is the ROI. What isn’t as often covered is the actual execution - which can be quite challenging. This panel should help people understand what is the A to Z of being part of game. Focus on Video Game Integration (aka branded entertainment/product placement) and Advergaming (where the brand is actually the entertainment).
Q: What challenges have you faced in putting Castrol Syntec to a game?
Claire: It was a very long process - over 18 months. Long decision making process, very long on integration.
Q: Timing. How does advergaming create a better solution from timing?
Gerard: The timeline to create an advergame is only 2-3 months. You can typically get something up in about the time it would take to film a tv spot. You can also re-skin a popular arcade game, which can happen very fast. That is the entry level. But the challenge is creating a custom advergaming.
Q: How does a non-entertaining brand make entertainment out of games?
Gerard: I don’t think every brand is right for advergaming. There is an opportunity in advergaming that is similar to the opportunity in the game space as a whole. But, that creates challenges for advertisers. They have to tell good stories.
Q: Is it building a game experience, or just building media?
Gordon: Advergaming is content. We created a game in 18 days for a film, Running Scared, which was a good example of both advergaming and in-game advertising. Every element of the game was preceded by a video clip. We had an age gate (to make sure people were 17+). It got picked up by the blogs, and then the mainstream media - it got a lot of attention then. The game followed the character development and that worked really well. There were in-game placements, such as a movie theater actually in the game (with a reference to the movie) and buildings/billboards that featured information about the film. They were funny, irreverent enough (didn’t take themselves too seriously) - the goal was to make the audience laugh, and drive them to the movie. The question is — what level of gaming engagement do you require for your brand? In some cases, all we need are people to sample. If they are going to the site they already have awareness, so just a little bit of conversion is good.
Claire: We want to associate our brand with the game. We want more than just a quick hit. We had bonus packs, a cheat code (available on the Castrol Syntac website) that tied back involvement to the brand. We really wanted people to immerse themsleves in it.
Q: Viral marketing has to be a big part of video games. How do you create that?
Gerard: The games can’t live in a silo by themselves. It has to be a part of an overall communications and marketing effort - with online and offline partners. But if the game isn’t any good, isn’t controversial (doesn’t have sex, isn’t funny or irreverent) - then it will languish. There are ways to get around that. You can go to a game portal and find a built in audience. You can partner with larger game portals (Yahoo! Games, etc.). And 99% of the time we are giving away an advergame, so we don’t care who has it, just that its out there.
Gordon: There are a lot of grassroots and offline initiatives you could try. But you have to remember the game is trying to sell the brand, the product - so you need the game to do its job and promote the product, and not rely on the existing packaging for the product to promote the game.
Q: How do you become a part of the story?
Gordon: You give a creative brief to a bunch of crazy game developers, they come back with someone insane, and you say go for it. If its safe enough, you put it out in the light of day If its not safe, you put it out in the middle of the night and then promote the heck out of it. Remember, we aren’t trying to reach consumers, they are malcontents. There are certain brands that are natural for this space (Red Bull) and make sense in the environment. They are also consumed while people are playing games. So its about finding the audience and going after them appropriately.
Q: Isn’t it an oxymoron that endemic brands need to be in games?
Gordon: How many energy drinks are out thre? How do you differentiate Red Bull from another drink? That’s when the lead time can benefit - someone can say they have a movie coming out in March ‘07 or a new drink in Summer of ‘08 and they can fit.
Claire: That’s why it made sense for Castrol to be in a game. Selling motor oil in the context of a racing game s something we will also want to do. So we had the time to get it right. Now we can do even more of it.
Gerard: If you are dealing with game product you have to be dealing with gamers. Often we are selling to an agency or a brand manager who may not be a gamer. What we often end up doing is buying a console and some games and tell them to play. Then we will talk to them about why it makese sense. Its really important to be deadling with gamers.
Q: Can you name a really Bad Game?
Gerard: Go to the WD40 website - there is a game where things start squeaking and you spray them. That’s just silly. There is the potential for a backlash if you make a bad game.
Q: Can you give an example of bad In Game Integration?
Gerard: I don’t like in-game advertising, because I am a gamer and I am really concerned about my favorite games becoming filled with advertising. There is an opportunity for something like an oil brand in a racing game. Or a handheld device that is integral to the story. But there is constantly a tension in sports game - there are some things that are ok (you expect billboards in a stadium) but don’t overdo it.
Gordon: I agree 100%, except sports games, anything that mirrors the real world - if you could stream live ads to extend the broadcast opportunity into the game, that is the reality of the situation. That’s the normal experience. They expect that.
Q: What is over the top?
Gerard: A lot of the automoative brands we work with are worried about doing something bad, going too far.
Claire: Castrol Syntec wouldn’t do anything that crazy.
Final Comment: If game are going to become an ad medium, they have to be more scalable than they are currently.
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: Advertising Conferences/Events Event Coverage Games Marketing Movies
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iMedia Panel: Gaming Impact & Measurement
by Brian Reich | 29 Mar 2006, 2:00am
The last panel of the iMedia Breakthrough Summit was entitled: “Gaming Impact & Measurement”
Moderator:
Andy Fessel, Consultant, IAB
Participants:
- Michael Dowling, Senior Vice President, Nielsen Entertainment
- Amy Shea, Research Director, Ameritest
- Joshua Larson, Director of Industry Products, GameSpot, CNET Networks
Gaming has actually been around longer than the web. The fact that advertising is joining the medium when its in a fairly mature phase is interesting. But the space has much more room to grow and develop. All we really know about the game sector right now is how many games are sold. There is no robust measurement for how much is played or how.
Types of in-game advertising
Big time product placement
Static billboards
Dynamic Ads
Unlockables/Extras
Mode/Level Sponsorship
Q: With gaming, we have an opportunity to measure around immersion. What do we want to measure?
Joshua: We know gamers are a highly desirable demographic and they are playing. We need to know if putting your brand in a game will impact it in a measurable way. We need to look at effectiveness measures, as well as impression based measures to allow it to compare it across mediums.
Amy: What strikes me is how much the gaming community is re-teaching the advertising community about what they should have known all along. Emotion and engagement and relevance all made good branded entertainment (aka 30 second ads). They got away from that with the concept that you could push a whole lot of ads at someone. And they failed. Whenever you talk about what’s effective for brands - relevance, fit, emotional involvement. Cognitive and attention pattern is important, but also emotional engagement will drive results (persuasion, purchase intent, etc.).
We did a study - looked at the MTV Video Music Awards to see if ad integration worked. Some ads worked, some didn’t. Was the audience engaged or not engaged?
Q: Everything that is right about a game is wrong about television. You have frequency, duration, immersion, a hard to reach audience. What else do we want to measure?
Joshua: We really have no idea just how big gaming really is. How much is spent with all these games. Game play metrics. How much time is spent doing all these activities is just really key. It might take a few years, but soon a majority of consoles will be online - broadband connection - because then we can track real numbers. Not self reported or diagramming, real numbers. Not just for marketers, but I think the push can come from brand marketers. The industry needs that info as well.
Michael: We do have new sales figures, but we don’t have numbers on rentals or pass around, borrowing games, etc. Nor do we have info about the halo effect, the social impact of games. Very different to see the reach of new sales vs. lifetime reach. We need a stronger metric. Even when we get 100% of the online universe we won’t have 100% of the universe online, so we will need some other ways.
Q: What does it do for my brand? Brand impact and measurability.
Amy: When you think about brand integration and film, having the real values of the brand integrated into the story are key. That is true for games as well.
Q: The gamer is elusive in terms of measurement
Josh: I’m happy to be the voice of the angry malcontents. What we have done to date is just observe behavior. Get out of their way, see what they are clicking on. Message and brand is important. Need the measurement ot get out of the way - can’t get in the way of their experience.
Study: Gamers are reception to in game advertising (sort of)
- 5 in 10 recall seeing ads in games
- 4 in 10 are likely to remember an ad they see in a game
- 3 in 10 learned about or became aware of a new product or service
- 8 in 10 are irritated by ads that get in the way of gameplay or aren’t a good fit for the game
- 7 in 10 would rather see ads in a game than have to pay more for the game
- Half say its really hard to see or pay attention to some ads
- 23% avoid particular games because of advertising.
We can’t just throw ads at them - there has to be some perceived benefit. We receive advertising (gamers receive advertising) because it is free. It has to add something to experience.
Question (from the audience): How do you measure different types of brand integration (skiing through gates branded with ads, vs being surrounded by ads)?
Michael: Its as expected - if they don’t see the ad for a consistent period of time they won’t feel it.
Q: Will there ever be a way to measure in-console games that are not online?
Michael: Yes, through panels. In the future, with online hookups, you will have enough of a census level measurement to project to the population at large. And the big point is that we can have a much bigger sample that we have now.
Q: Community. There is a new and enahced way to get a message out. How do we address that?
Amy: We saw a lift in measures (in the Video Music Awards study) when people watched the VMAs with others. It made a big different in the length of the program - how much they watched - and whether they watched it with others. The more social experience they were having. If they were going online at the same time as watching. That increased the awareness of the ads.
Michael: Did a study of 18-34 year old gamers. 50% played a game with someone in the room. The halo effect of the social effects of game play are real, significant.
Josh: There are two forms of activity we can get — around the game (user profiles, chats, etc.) is captured well now. In the game, the mult-player aspect, what are they chatting about, what is coming up - fascinating insight that we don’t have yet.
Question (from the audience): What are the thresholds for an ad being highly pervasive? How many times do I have to see a game in an ad for it to work? How many impressions do we need to have to know we are going to get enough.
Michael: We believe anything above a .3 is signifant. We need to do more testing. Test in the home. See what the impact of 20, 30, 40 hours of game play over a few months will have. Haven’t yet looked at frequency caps and such. Don’t really have the answer just yet.
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: Advertising Citizen Marketing Conferences/Events Event Coverage Games Marketing Technology
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