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Kids have now become focus of attraction for almost all advertising – starting from Car to loans!
This is not just limited to family products on TV and main media, its escalated its way to virtual world too. There are many gaming sites/communities which attract kids who who spend hours a month playing games and socializing.

Though these may boast of successful experiments with marketing wherein preteens are driving virtual Toyota Scions on sites such as Whyville.net and Gaia Online, and they're wearing the latest digital fashions from DKNY at Stardoll.com. Nickelodeon also talked about coming plans to run "immersive" ads in its 3D environment for kids ages 7 to 14.

In India, the same is seen by bubblegum and other ads in which kids get so involved that each time my neice pops in a gum, she waits for Boomes to come and take her on a joyride!
In India and abroad, as of now kids gaming is a nascent industry with relatively no standards for advertising and media watchdogs.

With 3D worlds, lines between content and product marketing is blurring and kids start to believe all the fantacies they live in are for real. Such games change the equation for brand marketers because a child's interaction and emotional engagement is so high.
So far, the only regulations protecting kids online are through the Children's Online Privacy Protection Act (COPPA) of 1998. The legislation stipulates that sites targeting children under the age of 13 must post a detailed privacy policy and obtain permission from parents to collect any personal information about them. However, COPPA doesn't deal directly with advertising. With innocent minds and emotions at stake, advertisers and brand managers need think - Are kids really ready to live in such in virtual worlds?

Labels: Advertising in virtual world, online advertising, online gaming, online marketing

posted by Pallavi Bhardwaj  # 5:42 PM 0 Comments

Unlike Edelman Public Relations, who has been caught twice in unethical and fake Wal-Mart blog (flog) scandals and has been accused of bribing bloggers to write favorable reviews of Microsoft's new Vista operating system.

Though such moves do give an initial push and glorified PR, this definitely does not help in paradigm shift to customer involvement. What is needed are not “self glorified” comments and posts, rather a way to reach-out to the consumers and “Listen”, “respond” and “improve” to ensure you give what they want.

A good example of responding to customers is of Dell Blog - direct2dell.com, though they too took a long time to respond to criticisms and Bloggers. "No comment" is no answer for corporations that have a responsibility to shareholders, clients and consumers.

Even when Jeff Jarvis started blogging about being in "Dell Hell" because of problems with a Dell laptop, the company did not take any action. Eventually, when mainstream media and Wall Street took note of Dell's problems, which led to financial losses, Dell finally agreed to address customer service issues.

Labels: Bloggers, Brand association, Corporate Blog, online advertising, online marketing, Online PR

posted by Pallavi Bhardwaj  # 2:20 PM 2 Comments

Toyota has carried out an interesting blog marketing campaign in Greece.

For the launch of their new hatchback model, the Auris, Toyota Hellas carried out a digital campaign to actively engage consumers with the brand and to generate leads for "test-drive" requests.

To create a buzz Blogger community was involved and was invited to test-drive the car for a week. Their finding from respective blogs were collected into a central blog, at http://www.aurisblog.gr.

A banner campaign was also run inviting general public to request a test-drive, which could also win them a 4-star hotel weekend in Greece with of course the Auris at their disposal.

The Auris Blog campaign lasted for 10 weeks. There were 85 requests from Greek Bloggers and the car was given to 15 of them. The campaign highlights were:

· 55 different posts, most of them with photos and videos. (A digital camera was given as a gift to the bloggers).

· 175 comments to the posts.

· More than 52,000 visits by 41,000 unique visitors to the Auris Blog.

· Overall response rate of the banner campaign was at 4.75%.

· 2,000 test-drive requests were submitted from this campaign, accounting for 50% of the total test-drive requests received through all channels (phone, in-store, events or promotions).

In January 2006, IAMAI had taken views of few online experts on high usage of Internet as a marketing tool by carmakers - http://www.iamai.in/section.php3?secid=21&press_id=794&mon=1

Labels: Bloggers, Blogs, online marketing

posted by Pallavi Bhardwaj  # 10:48 AM 0 Comments

The most important question that comes to mind while planning on such UGC sites (Social networking and user generated content sites) is how ethical it is to put “sponsored” content on sites which are meant to share opinions, insights, experiences, and perspectives with each other.

I faced the same challenges while planning the campaign on blogs and other social networking sites for the first time.

Campaign performance (gauge by visits of companies on my website by clicking on the banner/link.) on publisher content sites was higher than on UGC. Though in money terms, lower cost of UGC media scored over publisher content site resulting in lower cost per visit.

To my mind, both the channels are imp - content sites for generating more visits from relevant target audience (depending on who they are; for me this works! J) and Blogs and networking sites for not just visits, but “word of mouth” and “buzz” about newer concepts.

Labels: advertising on blogs, Blogs, online advertising, online marketing, ROI, social media, Social network

posted by Pallavi Bhardwaj  # 8:32 PM 0 Comments

I was reading an interesting article in Forbes - “Can you hear me now” by Sherry Turkle. I was quite moved with the way article went about saying how people have now started sticking to their personal network so much that they have lost the art and enthusiasm of meeting in person.

What the article missed talking about was the opportunity provided by these networks to “meet” , “form friends” and “grow” – both in intellectual and personal space.

With every new technology, there are both benefits and flaws. I agree that life without cellphone/internet/blackberry seems dead, and yes with so much of exposure and media availability, contemporary world has a spilt and reduced attention span.

This brings a challenge and opportunity. Challenge to manage time, to give quality time to things which are important, automate things which are mundane/routine and find time to “think and do what is important” and “urgent”. Opportunity to know much much more in same time, to become faster in grasping things and super than super computer!

“Network effect is expanding the collective intelligence of the human race” (Its All in your Head by Robert M. Metcalfe)

I feel with more media, there is an opportunity of viewing/hearing/watching/reading/creating more information and challenge of choosing and segregate relevant piece from junk.

These are teething problems and this would invariably help us all Evolve, become smarter and most important to remain “connected” with information and world!

Labels: online marketing, Online PR, social media, Social network

posted by Pallavi Bhardwaj  # 8:10 PM 0 Comments

Creating an On-demand media environment

As a marketer, it sounds interesting and scary.. good to think that people might be interested in reading, knowing, bloging, podcasting about my “company” and scary to think what if they don’t.. what if they are just too busy and are considering ads as frills and turning them into blink spots!

As ipresssroom (http://www.ipressroom.com) mentions in its white paper, blog-powered media rooms allow companies to think beyond the press release and social networking elements like participatory surveys, interactive forums, streaming media, media on-demand, blogs, podcasts, high-resolution image galleries and other online marketing communications elements can help leverage a company’s existing intellectual capital via the web.

I agree and am very happy to see where the next-gen media is moving… but still its difficult at times to sell this concept internally to own PR teams..!

Some Interesting figures regarding Online News readership

Source: comScore Media Metrix, Dec. 2006

So how do we ensure that the concept is sold within the organization?

1. Understand benchmarks and create realistic SOV estimates.
2. Pitch online story/press release to bloggers; wire them to new search engines
3. Measure the Impact

More in my tomorrow’s post!

Labels: ePR, online advertising, online marketing, Online PR

posted by Pallavi Bhardwaj  # 10:20 PM 0 Comments

I was going thru a webcast of Digital marketing conference on iamai.in.

Very interesting things were being discussed and most important being ROI.. something that internet has to show and prove again and again.. and I feel its perfectly fine. This is what distinguishes this medium from others and to helps companies invest money “to start with”.

Mahesh Murthy, Founder & CEO, Pinstorm Technologies Ltd made an interesting comment on ROI.. something which I feel should be open for discussions..

What is ROI? Return on investment or relevance, originality and innovation! Which of the two would help companies win in long run? It is a medium for quick acquisition and reducing operations costs, as mentioned by Tina Singh : Head corporate marketing, ICICI Bank Ltd (http://www.24framesdigital.com/iamai/160307/session1_tina_singh.htm) in her wonderful presentation, or it is much more than that and should be considered as a channel which provides customer experience?

Srinivasan Rajagopal, Head eBiz Special Initiatives, Citibank made an interesting remark of whether internet is a Medium or an Experience. To my mind, it’s BOTH!

It’s a medium for acquisitions; for distribution as well as a channel which can deliver customer experience, depending on what is the end objective!

With so much of options available in the market, Customer has truly emerged as a king and in most cases a King Maker! With social networking, collaboration and experience sharing tools, like I can define target group to choose the customer; the customer can choose me amongst his list of favorites!

Labels: digital marketing, iamai.in, Internet marketing, online advertising, online marketing, ROI

posted by Pallavi Bhardwaj  # 9:31 PM 0 Comments