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In reading the October 23rd issue of Advertising Age, it was a letter to the editor that really made an impact on me. Greg Wilson, CEO for San Francisco company Red Ball Tiger was responding to a Rance Crain article about consumer control. My key takeaway from this piece is what Greg believes is the future measurement of online advertising, time spent.

Today, we measure clicks, opens, links, conversions and more. None of these are bad measures, and they can, either in groups or individually, be incredibly valuable. But Mr. Wilson contends that the key to time spent with a particular advertisement, or in our case, time spent with a custom magazine, newsletter or branded content site, is more than anything else, time NOT SPENT with the competition. Now, that's value.

We have talked about the value of this for years with our readership studies. In most readership studies, there is a portion of the survey that asks the question, "How much time do you spend reading this publication?" From the results, that number is a measure of readership, loyalty and value...but ALSO a measure of time NOT SPENT with something else (competitor or not).

Mr. Wilson contends that advertisers will find great value in that measurement. I tend to agree with him. And since this can be measured, only time will tell how long it will take for marketers to get on this bandwagon.

Labels: ROI

The Online Publishers Association (OPA) recently released a research study that states in the opening paragraph that "...branded original content sites – make for a more valuable advertising environment."

Although the entire study involves their member sites such as cnn.com, abc.com, and discovery.com, the results again confirm why corporations are getting into the "branded content" game. If b2b and b2c consumers prefer (as the research suggests) branded original content, and, according to OPA, they are in "decision-making mode," compared to sites without a robust content offering, the opportunities to corporations are a-plenty.

It's no wonder why corporations are getting into the game. I'm sure we have all heard that, in the next few years, a massive majority of content produced on the Internet will not be produced by traditional content providers. Yes, this includes the myspace and YouTube users, but it also includes corporations and associations. These groups, such as Ford and their Ford Bold Moves campaign, have only just begun to make an impact.

Labels: branded content

In the Monday (October 23) issue of the Wall Street Journal, there was a short article in the Media & Marketing section about interactive jobs in media. Overall, the average salaries for interactive jobs in the advertising industry are soaring. The article sites that jobs such as creative director, client services director, project manager, designer, copywriter and media planner are up by an average of 30 to 60%, just from 2005.

The article also mentions that the problem with eMedia right now isn't the technology or that companies don't have budgets (both are pretty strong right now). The problem is the lack of talent and expertise, in both sales and production, when it comes to digital media.

The problem grows increasingly worse when you look at companies like Google picking off people left and right (and they don't necessarily have to pay higher to get those people). This leaves smaller media companies at a severe disadvantage to find good talent (especially with Google's price looking to soar over $500 per share).

To combat this, you will most likely see smaller firms invest heavily in eMedia training.

For any people in college or looking for a career change - get into eMedia now. You will have a home for quite a while.

Labels: eMedia, marketing jobs

Kudos to Ford and it's "Bold Moves" online documentary series, available at www.fordboldmoves.com. In a truly scary time to be a Ford stakeholder, Ford, in their own words, "pulls back the curtain," to show how the company is trying to overcome their loss of market share (including a 3Q loss of 5.8 billion). Excellent move to combat the growing pessimism that is revolving around Ford (my father worked over 25 years at Ford...I hear it all the time).

Interested to see how Ford evaluates its effectiveness. Stay tuned!

Labels: branded content, eMedia

I was bouncing around my usual financial web sites last night (thestreet.com, fool.com, Yahoo! Finance) reviewing a few articles on Google (YouTube buy, the recent earnings report) and started to notice the type of advertising I was seeing on those sites.

First, it was a block ad from Cisco promoting their podcast series - one of their SVPs discussing the latest innovations in technology.

Second, it was American Century. By simply clicking on their ad, I could unveil the secrets to rolling over my 401k with ease and simplicity (white paper)

Third, it was Charles Schwab. "Chuck" was offering, if you clicked, to detail their customers most common investing problems and how Chuck solved them (white paper).

You guessed it. All these examples have branded content in common. The smartest marketers are offering their customers and prospects highly valuable content to start or continue a relationship with them. This type of content creates a change within the prospective buyer that may and often does ultimately lead to a buying decision (to buy new or stay).

If you troll through b2b web site advertising, you still find mostly product pitches that offer some sort of differentiation. But watch out. The next wave of branded content is coming, and you'll see much of it on the b2b side.

Labels: branded content, custom publishing, podcasts, white papers

We recently did a survey for our publication, B2B Marketing Trends, about how marketers define custom, branded communications. There were four choices, custom publishing, custom media, branded content, and branded editorial content. I was interested to see the results, since the industry itself is struggling at what the words or phrases used will ultimately be.

How's this for results...there was a three-way tie...do you believe it? Custom Publishing, Custom Media and Branded Content all finished with exactly the same number.

My take - marketers don't know how to define this industry either. It's going to be an interesting ride over the next few years to see how this growing industry begins to define itself.

Labels: branded content, content marketing, custom media, custom publishing