Along came ad exchanges which allowed publishers to provide agencies and advertisers with direct access to their inventory and more transparency than many ad networks had. Although auction-based models à la search were introduced, the target segments were often pre-set and companies had to work individually on an exchange by exchange basis.

What advertisers really wanted was the ability to bid on relevant people, across ad exchanges, at a price that was fair. And that’s what real-time-bidding (RTB) is offering.

Two things have happened to make this a reality:

1. Agency groups have launched their RTB / trading platforms to enable them to run campaigns across ad exchanges (via demand-side platforms), allowing them to control the targeting, maximum bid levels and frequency of exposure.
2. Targeting has been improved by plugging in data from the likes of Exelate and Weborama to be able to re-target relevant cookie pools, wherever they are online.

And this is as relevant to B2B advertisers as it is to B2C. To give a relevant B2B example: imagine a typical IT vendor looking to target SMB IT and business decision-makers. In the past, the only route to this audience online would have been the tech and business publishers. With real time bidding, advertisers will still continue to use those targeted sites, however they will complement it by:

1. Re-targeting customers off their own site on the networks / exchanges – either to cross / up-sell with targeted messages or even exclude customers if repeat purchases weren’t likely.
2. Re-targeting prospects off the back of the advertising they are already running on targeted sites by building cookie pools and re-messaging them when they are encountered on the networks / exchanges.
3. Even re-targeting from social profiles on Twitter / Facebook in the same fashion as above.
4. Targeting prospects that have been identified by data companies as SMBs and or are IT/business decision-makers.

Although some of the re-targeting options were available already before, RTB means that the agency / advertiser is in charge of who you are bidding for (as opposed to the ad network) and what price you are willing to pay in an auction environment.

Data was previously a missing piece as well, and it’s still not brilliant for B2B / technology. We need publishers to get on board, selling their cookie pools for one off, re-targeting use in order to get sufficient audience volumes. Some publishers like Future have already done this, and more will follow as they recognise the additional revenue stream they can earn from their premium audiences.

To give an example, 100,000 people on a site may generate 1.5 million impressions; however on the rest of the Internet, the same audience will generate perhaps 30 million impressions, most likely more. Selling the data will provide publishers with an opportunity to monetise their audience many times over.

The implications of real-time bidding are vast:

1. It’s changing the face of the online ad industry: demand and supply-side companies have been forming all over the place and ad networks are being squeezed as budgets shift to exchanges, leading to consolidation in the market.
2. Online media buying decisions are being done within the auction environment more and more, with less focus on relationships and the speed of decisions and optimisations are accelerating, à la search.
3. Advertisers will be paying closer to the true value of audiences, cutting out the waste and providing more targeted (and sequential) messaging along the purchase consideration cycle and focusing on optimising against their ROI goals.
4. Power is being taken back to the agency and advertiser from the ad networks.
5. Percentage share of display advertising will increase.

Real-time bidding is transforming the digital advertising landscape as we speak. WPP has been investing heavily in the MIG to capitalise on the opportunity, strongly believing that technology and data combined will transform the industry.

Here’s a helpful, if somewhat confusing, overview of the change that’s taking place in online advertising industry:

The reality is that mobile is fast becoming the primary screen and communications tool for business people*. But many marketers are under the false impression that their prospects won’t be receptive to business messages when they’re in a mobile frame of mind. They think they’re more interested in catching up with the news, consuming entertainment and updating their status on multiple social networks. This means there’s no opportunity for commercial messages and that nobody wants a relationship with a company through their most personal of devices. Or, do they?

Well the answer is a resounding “YES”. Mobile is all-pervasive and the de facto way people communicate, do tasks, socialise and conduct business. So it is the obvious channel to reach the people that matter. But before you run headlong into developing a shiny new mobile app, here are are few pointers to ensure you don’t fall at the first hurdle:

1. Don’t treat mobile like traditional online communications. Driving your prospects to downloading a whitepaper just isn’t going to work. So, consider the screen real estate that you have to work with and the way people consume content. Attention spans aren’t what they used to be, so a series of 5 minute podcasts will probably work better than a 50 page Forrester report.
2. If you thought privacy was important on the desktop, with mobile you ain’t seen nothing yet. It’s as personal as the computer is ever going to get. So pushing out uninvited marketing messages and SMS just won’t work. Ensure you use a phased approach to engage with the prospects at an intrinsic level – appeal to their intellectual side, their need for relationship and provide entertainment. Only once you’ve established this can you mix in a layer of commercial promotion.
3. Think about how you’re going to get them engaging via their mobiles. So consider how you’ll convert from email to mobile, off the printed page with QR codes and through social networks. After all, you can build a clever app but it doesn’t mean that people will use it (most apps are only used once).
4. If you can’t make doing business with your company over mobile devices better, faster and easier, don’t even bother. Don’t try to squeeze your company website onto a mobile device. Instead think what people need from you when they’re on the move and prioritise that content and functionality. So, stuff that’s location specific, support oriented and socially shareable should come to the fore.

The above are just a few pointers. If you’d like to discuss how mobile can be used to enhance your media strategies or extend your marketing communications, drop me a line at michael@b1.com

And finally, if you want to find out more about mobile marketing and how you should be using it today, we’ll be hosting the Banner Mobile Webinar on 1st June at 3pm GMT. If you haven’t already, you can register for this free event here. I’ll be joined by Christina Carstensen, Director of Mobile Strategy at IDG Global Solutions, for this quick-fire session as we explore:

• Key mobile stats and trends
• Future technologies you need to plan for
• How mobile strategy can be incorporated alongside your marketing strategy
• How to maximise social elements
• Practical examples from real-world case studies
• And, the all important measurement and ROI

To join us for what’s sure to be an informative and stimulating discussion, simply click here to register.

* Mobile as “first screen” for all web usage by 2013 – Gartner, 2010

We held another successful Huddle over at the Banner offices yesterday. The subject was all things mobile. And, over the course of the next few blog posts, I’ll be taking you through some of the insights from the various speakers who generously gave their time to make the afternoon such a success:

• Simon Silvester – EVP Head of Planning, Y&R EMEA
• Christina Carstensen – Director of Mobile Strategy, IDG
• Matt Findel-Hawkins – Sales Director, Nikkei BP Europe
• Mark Challinor – Director of Mobile, Telegraph Media Group

Here are a few initial out takes and general trends from the sessions:

• QR codes – they’re on every flat surface in Japan and will become a core component to bridge the gap between print and mobile marketing
• Near Field Communication (NFC) is coming, you already use it in your Oyster cards. And, once built into your mobile devices, it will be used for payment, couponing, events, etc.
• Don’t ignore SMS, it’s still a powerful medium and can be the best first step to get your audience engaging via their mobile devices
• Augmented Reality – as more phones are enabled with the software, marketers will need to seize the opportunity to market in this new view of the real world
• Location-based services will become ever-more important. Where content and experience must be relevant to the person’s location.
• When developing a mobile strategy, don’t start by thinking “What do I want to say?” instead think about how mobile can enhance your service or extend your proposition.
• Mobile CRM – marketers will need to think of new ways to engage with their audience over the whole customer life cycle.
• Mobile should be used to help your customers and prospects. Reality is that many people will prefer support through their mobile rather than face-to-face interaction.
• Mobile will be the primary screen for social media. But be aware that people’s mindsets are different when in “socialising” mode compared to “buying” mode. So you’ll need to engage through these channels rather than push your message.
• When advertising on mobile, response rates and engagement rates are much higher than computer-based interaction. So, make sure you take advantage of the “newness” of the medium. And, video engagement is six times more effective on the small screen.
• But, just don’t do any mobile advertising until you’ve sorted out an optimised mobile destination. And, make sure you don’t just make your website suitable for the smaller screen, think about the content and functionality people actually need when they’re on the move.
• If you haven’t integrated mobile into your event and trade show strategies, then you’re really missing an opportunity to engage with your prospects.

Admittedly, whitepaper programmes work well when you’re trying to generate a list of names. But, sometimes that’s all they are – a list of names who are often unreceptive when followed-up by telemarketing. Surely all of these “names” are active on the publisher’s website – they’ve been visiting, reviewing content, contributing in forums, etc. But all of this information isn’t captured when they fill-in a form and the data is passed on to the client.

Surely publishers should be able to provide something that looks more like a lead than a name. Yes, they’ve registered for a piece of high value content, but there’s also so much more information that can be appended to their profile e.g. how many times they’ve been on the website, areas of interest, levels of interaction and contribution, etc.

So, give me a score for each person that shows a combination of “Profile Fit” and “Interest/Activity Fit”. And, as time is of the essence when handing over leads (think of it as an atomic half-life of opportunity), don’t give me a list of names once a week. Find out how to automatically pass leads to our CRM system in near real-time. That’s why open APIs were invented.

In my humble opinion, if publishers can’t provide this speed of service and level of information, then guaranteed lead programmes will become obsolete.

B1.com QR Code

There is a headlong stampede at moment for publishers to do an app. All we hear is ‘must do an app’, ‘can we show you our app?’ Even my daughter says she wants an app!

But whilst this appears to be a symptom of an all-consuming desire to go ‘digital’, in most sectors print still has a major part to play.

There is no way that even a rich-media app can replace the “Tatler” experience, or really be read in the bath (or on the toilet) with any form of dignity.

So the question is: if print still has a role to play, and we accept that we are moving inexorably towards a predominantly digital world, is there a better way to tie print and digital together?

Enter the QR Code

There has long been a debate over QR Codes; are they relevant? Do they work outside of Japan?*

Basically, are they worth messing with?

Probably, yes. The world is changing; smart phone penetration is growing exponentially, and QR Code readers available for almost every device, with BeeTag, Upcode and Quickmark capturing most of the market share.

Meanwhile, the OS battle royal in the smartphone market between Apple, Android and Symbian (see ‘Share of the smartphone market — IDC, 2010′ below) is playing out with overall volume sales of smartphones increasing by over 85% in a year. However, the figures for QR code uptake tell a different story.

Share of the smartphone market — IDC, 2010

Interestingly, if we look at the stats from MSKYNET — one of the largest US developer of 2D bar codes — we see that the QR scans for Apple devices are disproportionately higher than their market penetration (by almost 200%), and Nokia, whilst having 32% of smart phone sales have only 3% of QR code scans globally.

The higher propensity of Apple users to use QR Codes may be because they are typically ‘early adopters’. Time (and technology) will tell whether or not users of other platforms catch up.

QR code scans by OS — MSKYNET Q1 2010

We are moving into a world where global qwerty-keyboard-free smartphone penetration is growing; as that happens — and it will very quickly — QR code and reader usage should grow as it’s an easy way to access online data from offline sources.

QR codes are already being used by advertisers, though whichever creative agency decided to put them on a black background – moody as it is — FAIL… Believe me it doesn’t work.

This usage will surely grow, but the big question for publishers — and by that I mean anyone producing content (isn’t content generator a better term in the world we now inhabit than publisher?) — is: can QR codes be used in editorial to tie online  and offline together?

It just takes a leap of faith

Axel Springer in Germany have already shown with Welt Kompakt how QR codes (at the end of short editorial pieces) can link to longer editorial content online. This is helped by the growth of connectivity within transport environments.

Could other publishers — again I am loath to use that term — also look at QR in more traditional environments, especially those of a more ‘visual’ nature, such as aspirational/lifestyle and fashion/design publications?

As an example, an editorial spread on fashion could include a QR code linking back to the publisher website. The landing page could contain more information on the featured designers/dresses, or for more e-commerce-oriented publishers, it could link internally to their own e-store or externally to a commercial vendor – a smart (pun intended) way to do advertorials.

And, as more and more platform-independent apps (e.g. mobile microsites) are being built, these QR Codes could link straight into the ‘apps’ on the fashionsita’s iPads…

Pipe dream or reality?

The technology is all here, but editors just need to be convinced of the benefits, and surely we need to defend the role of print in our society?

It is a long way from being dead, and there are ways to enhance, integrate and modernise the content we produce, making it more relevant to the digital generation, whilst retaining the underlying values and ‘moments’ that make print special.

*One of the main reasons that QR Codes have a huge penetration in Japan is that many Japanese phones did not have a qwerty keyboard, so manufacturers pre-loaded QR readers, thus making this a simple way to access the web.

In the US and EMEA, phones had a qwerty keyboard (of sorts) and mobile networks were less developed meaning WAP was the main mobile web delivery mechanism.

But, at what cost?

When talking to marketers, their approach to creating a new campaign is often to replicate a program, swap out the header graphics and change the calls to action.  Really, is that what’s going to engage their target audience? Surely one lead generation program can’t simply be re-purposed. What about audience insight and understanding? Who are they, where are they in the buying cycle, what are their needs from your content and what’s your unique proposition that’s going to excite them?

We need to get back to the fundamentals of defining the creative and business requirements of a campaign. Only then do we develop creative concepts that will support these requirements and deliver the best piece of marketing communication possible, whilst at the same time defining the optimal contact strategy for implementation through marketing automation. It’s my belief that effective campaign execution can only be realised through a combination of left– and right-brain thinking.

So, if you find your automated campaigns are delivering less value for you over time, maybe it’s time to take a step back and breath some creativity back into your campaigns. You never know, it might just work…

I also used to enjoy getting stuck into long articles and curling up with an 800 page novel. Truth is, these days I find it challenging to read a lengthy online article without following the multiple links embedded within the page, the lure of checking Twitter, my netvibes news feeds and my multiple email accounts. Apparently, I’m not alone – there is a perception out there that the internet is changing our brains (and not always positively), how we consume information and retain knowledge. In effect, Google is becoming a replacement for our long-term memory and almost as quick at retrieving information (take a look at the new Google Instant).

Pancake People

Back in 2005, the playwright Richard Foreman wrote a piece about ‘Pancake People’, and it’s even more pertinent today than when he wrote it:

“I see within us all (myself included) the replacement of complex inner density with a new kind of self – evolving under the pressure of information overload and the technology of the ‘instantly available’. A new self that needs to contain less and less of an inner repertory of dense cultural inheritance – as we all become “pancake people” – spread wide and thin as we connect with that vast network of information accessed by the mere touch of a button.“

Earlier this year, a client told me that people don’t read web pages anymore and that much of the beautifully crafted copy that we had produced was a waste of time. Instinctively, I fought back against this statement and zealously defended our work. After all, producing content and publishing web pages is one of the reasons we’re in business. However, there have been a number of articles lately that have re-ignited the discussions and changed my mind as to how the internet is altering the way our brains work and, therefore, the way we consume information.

Have we reached a point predicted back in 1985 by Max Headroom where blipverts will be the most effective way of getting our marketing messages across to our target audience; where high-speed, concentrated, high-intensity commercials lasting about three seconds are used to subliminally brainwash the masses?

We may not have reached that point yet, but changing trends in media consumption must have some real implications for marketers. Is the long copy ad dead? Will technology decision-makers no longer have the time or inclination to value whitepapers? Do we need to fundamentally address the taxonomy and content hierarchy of our websites? And, do we need to establish new measures of audience engagement? After all, a page view doesn’t mean a page has actually been read…

Bite-sized payloads of marketing gold

If the answer to any of the above is “Yes”, then we need to ensure that we’re producing concise marketing messages that are laser-targeted at our audiences. Let’s not create reams of written content that languish on our corporate websites. Instead, let’s embrace the notion of creating more engaging formats of content and distributing it in bite-sized payloads to the platforms where our audiences are spending their time. So that means featuring content on services like Scribd and Slideshare and finding new ways to feature content on publisher websites. It also means making your blog one of the primary destinations for your marketing messages. After all, the content changes regularly and is generally mercifully short.

Thank you for reading to the end of this post. It must have been difficult not to follow any of the embedded links or checking the status on your social universe… I’d be interested to hear your thoughts.