Mad 4 Blog

So here is the hot topic on the lips of everyone: how big is online video? Is it so trendy it is sitting at the cool kids table at lunch and having cute girls bring it pudding? Or is it the neglected nerd at the back of the cafeteria eating a bagged lunch all alone?

Measuring the success rate of online video is an increasing necessity for today’s marketers. Should dollars that are currently bracketed for virtual banner ads or television commercials be reassigned to the multipurpose web video format? If so, which website is currently making the biggest splash—Yahoo, Hulu, YouTube, AOL? Despite the clamor of investors, programmers, distributors and marketing specialists, no one has yet been able to conduct a conclusive, standardized study that proves exactly how popular online video has become, or how popular it’s expected to get.

One of the main reasons the task of measuring video views is so tricky is because every site has its own way of measuring video plays. Some trackers count plays per video unit (but don’t offer site-wide stats) and some merit partial plays of video (rather than only counting full plays from start to finish). Some sites only count one play per IP address, while others do not count embedded video content on third-party hosts. Even when a web video distributor or host guarantees advertisers a certain number of impressions, it’s hard to gauge when and if this quota is reached.

When it comes to measuring online video plays, the two main number crunchers are Nielsen and comScore. While their methods are similar (the random survey of web browsers’ video watching habits), variables remain–for example, Nielsen does not count paid distribution ad units, which may significantly alter video counts on certain sites. Between the two surveys last year, a shocking interval of approximately 7 billion views remained–enough of a difference that one service reported a 16.5% increase of online video viewership, while the other reported a 2.3% decrease

Many have suggested that the only reliable way to collect data would be a widespread, live assessment of usage on the largest video websites. However, the current expense of such an endeavor has kept survey companies at bay. Under certain conditions, comScore has expressed interest in the implementation of such an endeavor, while Nielsen has expressed that it would only be able to perform such an intricate study if the participatory sites were able to cover their respective surveillance costs.

One thing on which all analysts seem to agree is that video viewership is on the rise. The percentage of Americans partaking of online video is estimated somewhere between 70-80%, according to BusinessWeek.com. Top sites like YouTube and Hulu are consistently if not increasingly patronized—and this trend is predicted to remain steady.

For the time being, the most dependable way to market remains a cocktail of resources. Television ads are not to be quit quite yet, and web banner ads are not completely out of fashion. But it might behoove curious marketing companies to launch their own mini-study by putting video ads on the web to see how it impacts their overall project and connects with the masses. That is, if your target audience is the young, hip crowd, it might make a bigger splash if a campaign is launched via viral video, in forms such as midstream ad placement or in-video product placement. Then again, a recent study concluded that 99% of video viewing still occurs on a television screen. As if to underscore that point, internet phenomenon Hulu finally made its debut into the mainstream with—that’s right—a well-placed and well-timed Superbowl commercial.

So it seems that the online video ad craze should be taken with a grain of salt–but stay on top of the numbers. Don’t be afraid to verge into the world of internet video marketing, or conduct your own trials. Depending on your audience, timing and placement, video ads may do wonders for your upcoming campaign. After all, it is the next big thing. Probably.

When we first learned we would be working with Baptist Outpatient Services marketing team on their new Breast Center campaign, we were extremely excited. The center was to be the very first Baptist Health facility of its kind and was eagerly awaited. We had the utmost belief that our client would create an exceptional center and we were privileged to help in its branding and promotion.

This was a chance to help those with suspected or diagnosed breast cancer to, as the tagline suggests, get treated better at a place that would provide the respect and compassion they and their families deserve. We needed to create a look and feel that would separate itself from the competition, provoke an emotional response from the target audience and encompass the center as a whole.

Creative concepts began by a review of the facility’s interior swatches. The center’s bamboo floors stood out from the start as something to bring to the foreground. We started to see the center as a place to go for healing and soothing during a very difficult time and we wanted to reflect this in the creative.

Once the campaign’s ‘zen’ look and feel was established, a double page spread was created for placement in high-end lifestyle magazines. This was intended to resemble magazine editorial. Its title was ‘5 Reasons Why Not All Breast Centers Are Created Equal’, and we saw it as something our audience would read while relaxing on the sofa on a Sunday afternoon.

Elements such as white orchids, sage green bamboo leaves and the tagline treatment with a pink ribbon, a recognizable symbol of breast cancer awareness, all worked in conjunction to communicate the peacefulness of the center while also appealing to our target market.

The team at Mad 4 Marketing worked hard to make this a campaign of which to be proud. Spanish and English materials included a direct mail postcard, VIP invitation, physician preview reception invitation, mall signage, event banners, print ads for various community and regional publications, and collateral such as a breast health brochure, scheduling cards, thank you cards and a breast cancer information binder cover, as well as a landing page with banner ads on various geo-targeted websites.

Residents of the South Miami area were invited to tour the beautifully appointed facility at the grand opening, held on Saturday, June 27. People received free health screenings and witnessed a dedication ceremony with a live butterfly release, as well as dance performances from a local high school. They also enjoyed tea stations from around the world and snacked on dainty finger sandwiches.

The campaign was, and continues to be, a great success and we are glad to be involved in the creation of such an excellent resource for breast health. For more information about the center and to view the campaign’s landing page, visit www.BaptistHealthBreastCenter.com.

With so many new trends leaning towards online advertising, and the explosion of social networking sites onto our computer screens, we must be cautious not to forget our good old friend, the print ad (or postcard or brochure, for that matter).

Of course, it’s 2009. Mad 4 Marketing’s own interactive department is growing like mad, and if your company doesn’t have an online presence, it might as well not exist, but rather than throwing every last cent of your marketing budget into a one dimensional campaign, try employing a 360 degree marketing approach. Set some money aside for tangible materials that enhance your marketing efforts and drive traffic to a website or landing page to work in conjunction with an online campaign.

Success in blending traditional with non-traditional media very much depends on the strategy, creative and its placement or production. But if done correctly, this multi-layered approach allows you to target potential customers from every which way. Talk about a full-on, full-frontal advertising assault. Your potential customers won’t know what’s hit them.

At Mad 4 Marketing, we believe that traditional media in today’s increasingly untraditional world needs to stand out from the crowd and requires some out-of-the-box thinking. We recently worked on a campaign for Baptist Health and its first location in Broward County in which a series of teaser ads were created and placed in corners of newspapers in sequence, heightening the reader’s curiosity with every turn of the page. This was not only a ‘page-turner’ but also cost-effective in comparison to a full page ad on the back cover.

Price breaks are a blessing in today’s economy, which allows advertisers to take advantage of lowered rates as well as occasional added value in the form of editorial. Another cost effective way to target specific neighborhoods in a fast and efficient manner is the direct mailing of brochures, postcards or flyers – things consumers can touch, feel and hold. After all, humans are tactile creatures, and computers are great and all, but sometimes don’t you just want to reach out and touch print? Plus, with so many companies focusing all of their marketing efforts online, your company has an opportunity to stand out from the crowd.

This method also acts as a shortcut for driving traffic to your site. Consumers glance at the URL on your postcard or print ad and are able to go straight there.

Some say print is dead but we at Mad 4 Marketing say it lives, and we must never underestimate its power when used in a 360 degree campaign.

According to a recent study conducted by McCann Erikson UK, 86% of marketers lack the ability to implement social media programs. And two-thirds of those surveyed said that they didn’t know how to apply social media effectively in marketing. Because these same marketers claimed that they do understand the importance of social media marketing, it seems they’re just short on exposure and skills.

Lack of experience is fairly common among marketers because social media isn’t only a newfangled trend, it’s also one that’s still emerging and constantly redefining itself. For almost any marketing company, it’s hard to juggle pre-existing areas of specialty while keeping up-to-the-minute with the latest shifting social media trends.

What’s really startling are the results of a 2009 MarketingSherpa study which reports that two-thirds of marketers who have no experience in social media marketing claim that they feel knowledgeable—if not very knowledgeable—of how social media works. While in fact most marketers are inexperienced with social media, they tend to have a sense of overconfidence—a devastating trait in the world of business.

Troy Janisch of Social Meteor blames this sense of overconfidence on the disconnect between how an individual uses social media tools in their personal life, and how it can be used in marketing. Marketers’ relative ease with such systems and tools socially leads them to believe their experience will translate to professional prowess.

However, this overconfidence doesn’t mean that you have to go to expensive specialists just to create a social media campaign that parallels your current marketing strategy. Janisch actually believes that marketing companies are more than able to incorporate their given understanding of social media to a larger campaign by identifying goals and then creating a staggered strategy to achieve them. This can be done by breaking up an ultimate goal (the overall social media objective) into small-term steps which build to meet the long-term objective. Janisch suggests 30-45 days per interval as a realistic timeframe that will keep the ball rolling. In each interval, one small-term goal (such as researching trends, collecting feedback or engaging users) can be met.

The overall idea is to avoid creating short-term, simple projects that may find brief success, but fail to accomplish the greater ROI that is easily achievable through social media conduits. Long-term programs are especially beneficial to marketing companies with limited experience in social media, because it allows them to test ideas, incorporate new technologies and adjust their project as needed throughout the course of the staggered project. It’s a learn-as-you-go gambit without the perils of naïveté or overconfidence, which means added security and benefits for the client.

At Mad 4 Marketing, we don’t pretend to know it all. We’ll be the first to admit that we’re always learning and growing, merging innovative approaches with the latest technology to get results. Let us demonstrate our ever-improving social media acumen with a long-term program proposal that uniquely addresses your audience and objectives.