Notes and Thoughts on Grocery 2.0

The new Whopper advertising campaign has caught the attention of many.  Television advertisements stating “what if we had a taste test between the Whopper and Big Mac with people who have never experienced either”…who would win?  The “Whopper Virgins” campaign leads people to the website with a fun video of their experiment.  However, what Burger King failed to do is register their keywords for their campaign efficiently.  When “Whopper Virgins” is “googled” it is in top rank and leads the online user to the correct video and page.  When “Whopper Virgin” is “googled”…..zilch,zero, nada….until three google pages later.

As stated by Advertising Age, “This is a major missed opportunity. Google Trends shows that recently, the volume of searches for the singular and plural versions have been nearly equal. ‘Whopper virgin’ searchers must either go to an intermediary site or refine their search. Why can’t consumers ‘have it their way’ and get to Burger King’s site even if they’re off by a letter? This multimillion-dollar branding campaign could have covered all its bases with a $10,000 search marketing investment. As it stands now, Burger King risks frustrating consumers instead of serving up one whopper of a video.” read the whole story here

from Burger Kings Whopper Virgins campaign

The lesson?  Test your keywords.  You’re paying for them so you might as well make sure they work.  The “Ad Preview Tool” in Google AdWords is quite a helpful.  It shows you where you ad will appear and in most cases, where it is missing with certain keywords.  From there you can decide to place bids on these keywords….which in the end is what Burger King should have done.

Cheers!

Courtney

Just over a year ago, a new website called Hulu.com started showing television episodes from popular series like “The Office”, “Prison Break” and “House M.D.”. The NBC Universal and Fox TV venture was the first to show full episodes on a massive, consistent scale. Currently, the site is hugely popular, ranking as the 6th most watched video site this past September, with more than 142 million streams. That’s more than ESPN (128 million streams), CNN (118 million streams) and MTV Networks (97 million streams), according to Nielsen Online’s VideoCensus. But while online TV viewership continues to soar, traditional TV viewership has tanked.

This past Sunday’s premiere of “24: Redemption” failed to attract former loyal “24” viewers, indexing at 85 when compared to the last full season of “24”, which aired back in 2007. That’s a 15 point drop in loyal viewership. Even more telling is that “24”’s performance propelled Fox to finish first among the top networks.

When Senator John McCain cancelled an appearance on The Late Show With David Letterman in September, Letterman’s disappointed remarks drew a web audience of 2 million page views across sites that reported them in the days following the show. The actual show drew a meager 4.25 million viewers.

But this trend is not new. Television viewership has been eroding for years, while scores of people have become even more dependent on the internet for content, entertainment and information. For the first four weeks of the new season, each of the five major broadcast networks was down in total audience, and across the five the decline averaged 11 percent. What’s new is that TV Networks are finally realizing that there’s a lot to learn from the web’s success, and it works both ways.

Television Networks need to combine TV’s branding power with the Web’s targeting and measurability capabilities. Already, cable companies have created a national platform to bring Web advertising techniques to mainstream TV.

Ironically, the device that will help TV become more like the web has been a significant contributor to the derailing of the traditional TV model: the DVR, now in about 28 percent of the nation’s homes. Research shows that people who have DVRs skip through 60 percent to 70 percent of the commercials to which they’re exposed. However, DVR has the ability to store targeted ads aimed at individual households and pause programs while viewers go to an interactive ad and then return to the program, allowing more engagement than traditional television.

TV has a chance to look a lot like the web, with near-limitless content choice and targeted advertising made possible by a digital backbone. That’s why the web, in turn, will become to look more like TV. And it already has. Google and Microsoft are making credible bets on TV as a major new revenue source. Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer has committed the company to getting 25 percent of its revenue from advertising in a few years, which will require growing the largest video ad channels.

Both Google and Microsoft executives agree that major tenets of the online world will make their way to TV. Advertisers will be able to segment audiences, measure performance in near real time, target specific audiences by demographics and behavior, and, crucially for them, manage inventory by allowing third parties to sell some space. Yet TV’s evolution will not inevitably look like the Web’s.

“One of the greatest enablers of the online world is its open architecture,” says Scott Howe, General Manager at Microsoft’s Advertiser and Publisher Solutions Unit. “In the case of TV, it’s a series of proprietary technologies” making it more akin to the hodgepodge of standards and gatekeepers in the mobile world.

Regardless, TV’s growing acknowledgement of the superiority of internet advertising as it now exists is an industry turning point that will greatly affect media planning and buying. The question for advertisers is, when digital can provide all the benefits of telelvision, with greater measurability and targeting, less turn around and waste, at a fraction of the cost, why are you still running 30 second spots?

Rachel

When it comes to the search results page, anything in the top 3 positions encourages clicks, the ads in the side panel can have great click through too - as long as they’re above the fold. The ads that drop below, well, let’s hope your competitor’s ads are less targeted than yours.

When someone is browsing a blog, or shopping, does it make a difference to the CTR if the ad is at the top of the page, a skyscraper on the side or that big ol’ 300 x 250 rectangle right in the middle of the page? Yes. Yes it does.

According to Gord Hotchkiss of Enquiro, that top of the page placement can make a difference.

“There is brand lift that comes from dominating the top of page. The biggest question for our first study was, how valuable are those top-of-page slots? If you own the organic position, do you need to buy the top sponsored spot? Is there lift by owning both spots? The answer is yes, to both. The lift we saw in most metrics was well into double digits, significant for marketers. You gain a bigger share of mind when you own more top-of-page real estate.”

Owning the top spots in organic and paid search is great. I am a bit wary against the click cannibalism (do you want to pay for a click when you could get it for free?) But that’s another other discussion…

“You lose brand awareness when you’re not there. For generic keywords, even if you have a strong brand in a category, if you’re not in a result set and your competitors are, your position of dominance will start to erode. In fact, we’ve seen people looking for dominant brands in a result set when they weren’t present, and their confidence in both the quality of the search results and the brand position started to erode. Often, it’s the biggest and strongest brands that are the least concerned about their search visibility. This arrogance could wipe them from the consideration set of many prospective buyers.”

Don’t lose your mindshare. Yes, you may have become the generic name for a category, such as Kleenex, but if you’re not owning that top position people are going to notice and wonder why someone else is in your place. Maybe the other brand is better? The consumer doesn’t know, or really much care, but they do know that you’re not where they expected you to be and have now turned their attention to the brand who is.

“Competition on the results page is a good thing. If domination of a results page is good, total domination must be better, right? Well, no, actually. We found more engagement with the top-of-page results when there were a couple of well-known competitors, and engagement led to an overall lift in brand awareness for the test brand. The reason has to do with the intent of the user. If a user is launching a search looking for alternatives to consider in a purchase decision, a results set with only one brand isn’t a very good match to that intent. The user will spend less time considering it, because their confidence is lower. But a results set that brings back two or three well-known brands is a better match, resulting in more engagement. Of course, you’re now competing with those brands, so effective messaging, positioning and landing page strategies become more important. But you already knew that, right?”

Competition is fabulous. We all know this but like to believe that total domination will result in all clicks going to you. It’s possible, but chances are people will search harder to find your competition. Level the playing field and position yourself next to them, just make sure your marketing is on target.

Brand awareness and mindshare have always been a top priority for marketing; but make sure that you position yourself not only in the consumer’s mind, but on their screens as well. With everyone spending more and more time on the internet it is essential that your brand be online too. Improving your online visibility will only prove to be more beneficial as users become technologically savvy.

As people are searching it’s important that they can find you - on Google, Yahoo! or MSN, on blogs and Shopping Applications.

Elise

** Read the full article “Brands On Search: Connecting During Consideration” by Gord Hotchkiss at Search Insider

Have you ever noticed that certain search results display category links under the description of the website? These links are reflect the navigation of the website and let you jump to the page you’re looking for just a bit faster than you would if you landed on the homepage first.  These links are Google’s way of displaying more relevant results and trying to make your life easier. Well how do you get those links to display under your listing? It isn’t so simple.

If you’re using Google’s Webmaster Tools than you’ve probably noticed the area called “Sitelinks”. This is where you can see which navigation links the Googlebot has indexed and is showing with your site deescription. After a little poking around I discovered that while you can tell Google which links you do not want displayed, you can’t tell it which ones you do. The Googlebot has to find your sitelinks on it’s own. Bummer.

Sitelinks display under the search result

So how do you tell Google which sitelinks are important for your website - and ultimately, your user (because Google is ALL about the end user). In your html code. Here are a few tips from Kerry Dean of Range Online Media on how to let Google know which links to display:

The main site’s overall popularity, domain authority and brand popularity. If your site ranks No. 1 for a search term, you have better chances of having Sitelinks listed in the first place.

Optimized internal link structure. Tell Google which pages are important through optimized internal linking.
Optimal anchor text in all links on the site. Reinforce keywords in all links, and place very important links toward the top of the page.

Solid SEO implementation for all pages and on-page factors. Implement solid SEO strategies for every page on the site. This helps tie everything together for relevancy and authority.

Competition of the vertical. The tougher the competition in the vertical, the tougher it will be to rank No. 1 for certain terms. It’s easier to gain Sitelinks for searches with less competition.

Read the entire article at MediaPost.com

Happy Optimizing!

Elise

Consumers depend on the internet for information. That is a fact. If they didn’t, Google wouldn’t be processing over 3 billion searches per day. The Web provides businesses and brands with cheap, unlimited space to provide what their consumers want and need, which includes information. But while many have embraced the web and all it offers, far too many businesses underestimate the power of the internet to connect with consumers.

“The reason Google is so valuable is because it’s the linchpin of the expansive, information-driven age. It links seekers of information to providers of information in the most accurate and efficient way. It proves that there’s a marketplace for information unlike any we have ever known. And modern brands must compete in that marketplace,” says Barry Wacksman of AdWeek.

Websites, at the very least, should be loyalty driving vehicles, where goal oriented consumers can connect with brands, make purchasing decisions and seek product related information. In addition, consumer dependence on the internet provides great potential for Internet-based directional advertising, for both retailers and brands.

A recent OMD study that tested consumer perceptions about advertising found that 81% of consumers said advertisers need to continue to communicate about their products, especially during a recession. Consumers said they would be more receptive to cost-savings messages and products that are positioned as investments. For low involvement products, marketers need to communicate brand benefits.

“The task for marketers therefore is to explore more efficient ways to connect and listen to their consumers in order to reduce costs, while still maintaining a presence in the marketplace and connection to their consumers,” says Joe Marchese, President of Socialvibe. “It’s possible that this economy will force marketers to innovate, and finally begin the shift of massive, high-waste, traditional media budgets into more engaging, measurable interactive marketing initiatives.”

When your consumers go online, will you be there?

Rachel