December 05, 2007 | Wednesday

Online Brand Engagement: Something in the air

By Simon Whittick  in In The Press |Latitude Publications |White Papers

There is a big hairy gorilla in the room and it is called internet advertising. No, I don’t mean an elephant. The video of the drumming, Phil Collins-loving gorilla, part of Cadbury’s ad campaign for Dairy Milk, attracted more than half a million YouTube viewings in its first week on the site.

Online is growing faster than any other form of advertising. In 2006, online adspend exceeded £2bn with a year-on-year growth rate of 40%, and is set to grow by another £500m in 2007. Nearly 60% of this growth was attributed to search marketing, predominantly via Google, but in 2008, keep a close eye on Yahoo!, Microsoft and Ask.com.

Display and classified also showed strong growth, while there is yet more potential in video, internet TV and, perhaps most intriguingly, in-game advertising, which is predicted to have a global market value of $1.8bn by 2010.

But the reason you shouldn’t ignore that gorilla is not just because of its growth and size. The increasing sophistication of online media is enabling brands to engage with consumers on a level beyond mere transaction.

Targeting is the first step to engagement. Demographic data is of value, but some wariness is wise. A recent survey of social network users, for example, found that one-third had given false information about themselves when signing up to protect their identities; no one can be too surprised that Caroline from Georgia might turn out to be George from Carolina. In the context of networks such as MySpace and Second Life, the ability to be who we want to be in the virtual world, and not who we are in the real one, has been hailed as liberating. That is where behavioural targeting comes in.

Adam Bain, chief technology officer at Fox Interactive, says MySpace’s targeted advertising works on ‘a balance of what users say, what they do and what they say they do’. Behavioural targeting goes beyond gender, location and interests. Tracking users’ behaviour via computer cookies includes capturing what searches they do and when, what web pages they read and for how long, what banners they click, and so on. All combine to paint a picture of what users are currently interested in, and where they are in the purchase cycle.

Armed with this information, the next step for the advertiser is engagement. Do not forget that now, more then ever, the user calls the shots. Take a pay-per-click ad. A brand typically has 1.8 seconds and limited text to convey its message, and then 13.2 seconds for the landing page to fulfil the promise. An alternative is to place ads dynamically in video games, but brands should be aware that users play these regularly, so it had better be relevant, or it will annoy the hell out of them.

The real sweet spots are in the combination of media online. Integration is an overused word, but on the web it really does make a difference. Search ads and display ads, when shown together, produce a 22% lift in conversion rates. Search engine optimisation (SEO) of a brand’s website, combined with pay-per-click ads, improves the click-through rate by 51%.

Now, with blended search, such as Google Universal, where results in the natural listings include video, maps and images, there is potential for pay-perclick ads to complement results and achieve heightened brand communication.

Exposure of a brand, via links back to its website on hightraffic websites and collaborative services such as Digg, can work wonders for its SEO. Another overused word, but I’m going to use it: synergy. In some ways, the best news for certain brands is that if they get the initial promotions and the product right, they can actually start seeing their customers doing the marketing for them.

Some will forward widgets and videos across social networks. Better still, others will write blogs, create ‘mash-ups’ and form groups on Facebook. They will lose some control, sure, but provide the ingredients, and the consumer will be engaged and promote further engagement. Brands can’t really ask much more than that of a medium.

Online engagement? I’m with the gorilla, I can feel it coming in the air tonight.

Matt Brocklehurst, Head of Marketing, Latitude Group, 5th December 2007, Marketing