OBSESSED WITH RESULTS

There are so many different types of “new media”.  The question is “Where’s this all going?”  Well, there are lots of probabilities, but all of them add up to another revision of the Internet called “Web 3.0″.

The nerds call it the “Semantic Web”.  Business analysts call it the “Personalized Web”.  This article from “How Stuff Works” suggests that “Many of these experts believe that the Web 3.0 browser will act like a personal assistant.”  An article in PC Mag from 2007, recalls “To many, Web 3.0 is something called the Semantic Web, a term coined by Tim Berners-Lee, the man who invented the (first) World Wide Web. In essence, the Semantic Web is a place where machines can read Web pages much as we humans read them, a place where search engines and software agents can better troll the Net and find what we’re looking for. “It’s a set of standards that turns the Web into one big database,” says Nova Spivack, CEO of Radar Networks, one of the leading voices of this new-age Internet.”

So you know what?  Its already happened.  Web 3.0 is building 10X faster than Web 1.0 and Web 2.0.  The telltale signs are the number of APIs out there from a site that just got acquired called Programmableweb.com.  The crux of Web 3.0?  A simple conversation between companies that goes a little something like “We love your application.  I’m just wondering….Do you have an API?”.

What will rule with Web 3.0 for you and your company if you are an advertiser?  The rule will be how helpful you can be to your customers with providing them with convenient data.  I guess old fashioned customer service and care will become new again.  Maybe Web 3.0 should be nicknamed “Back to the Future”!

Marie Smith
Social Media Manager
Ionic Media Group

The most interesting opportunity and challenge in today’s advertising environment is where agency services end and software development begins.

In digital advertising, the key to success is making sure that your clients see tangible results.

In order for an agency to provide marketing results for its clients, it inevitably has to have some type of development experience or have a good source of developers to combine digital advertising systems with reporting systems that are client-friendly.

How many different types of reporting are available?  The answer: tons.  So then there’s a deeper discussion.  At what point does an agency decide to adopt a tool or work with another agency or developer with tools to determine marketing results?

The truth?  It’s up to an agency to develop its own secret sauce.  Here, at Ionic Media, we have in-house developers that work on MediaFusion and the Valence Technology platform, as well as the ability to develop cross-platform optimization.  We are constantly looking at optimizing our in-house system, as well as evaluating new tools in the ever-evolving marketplace.

How does your brand or agency manage this issue? In-house developers? Outsourced vendors? Out of the box tools? Comments?

Marie Smith
Social Media Manager
Ionic Media

Background:
Research indicates the longer you keep a viewer engaged with your ad, the higher the likelihood of converting the viewer to a customer. We tested this theory with a direct response client that offers a free trial certificate by incorporating the interactive capabilities of TiVo into the media mix. The ads are called interactive because they ask the viewer to do something such as press a button on the remote to request more information.

Solution:
A TiVo sponsorship best met the brand’s ITV needs. For a couple of weeks a TiVo owner was able to interact with the screen via their remote to learn more about the brand via a product demonstration video, watch the commercial and request the free trial coupon. The certificate was emailed to the viewer using the TiVo’s subscriber’s on-file address.

Results:
The test was successful; TiVo subscribers showed that they were intrigued and actively engaged in the campaign by responding to the interactive tags, requesting the trial offer and taking the time to watch the video content. We were pleasantly surprised that the campaign beat the TiVo category benchmarks. Total free trial requests were 8,000+ at a CPA lower than what we were seeing from other media channels.

Follow-up:
Six months later the brand repeated the campaign and was a hit on all fronts again. Viewers were engaged, responsive to the video content and 12,000+ free trial coupons were requested. The CPA was under $7.

Client Feedback:
A Unilever brand person said it best – “…the remote control and DVRs have been a marketer’s worst nightmare [and] what we’re doing with ITV is we’re actually making the remote control our friend.”

Catherine Hahn
Media Director
Ionic Media