The old adage that a picture is worth a thousand words has ever-greater resonance as time goes on. And when visuals come up against text – it’s really no contest at all.
“Processing print isn’t something the human brain was built for. The printed word is a human artifact. It’s very convenient and it’s worked very well for us for 5,000 years, but it’s an invention of human beings.
By contrast, Mother Nature has built into our brain our ability to see the visual world and interpret it. Even the spoken language is much more a ‘given’ biologically than reading written language.”
So it’s fundamental that photos, other pictorial graphics and videos are effective with audiences across the board – not just with certain demographics. This universality makes the visual world so much more universal than the world as seen through an “education level” or a “language” prism.
3M Company has done research to attempt to measure this impact quantitatively. It has found that ~90% of all information transmitted to the brain is visual. And now, the growth of digital communications has provided all sorts of ways to gauge the effectiveness of those visual communications.
Consider these points:
Visual content is processed 60,000 times faster than text.
Humans retain only about 20% of what they read … just ~10% of what they hear … but ~80% of what they see.
~80% of the text on most pages of content doesn’t get read.
Twitter tweets containing images generate ~20 more clickthroughs … ~90% more “favorites” … and ~150% more re-tweets.
Social media posts including video clips do dramatically better – outstripping text-only posts by a factor of ten times.
The implications for advertisers couldn’t be clearer. The explosion in digital content only makes it that much more important to catch the audience’s attention, because typically advertisers have only seconds to do so.
And that attention-getting content is going to be visual.
Press reports have been pretty consistent over the past year or so about the underwhelming financial performance of Twitter. Here’s the trend line for Twitter shares of stock since the beginning of 2014:
While Twitter undoubtedly has its place in the social realm — its place in “breaking news” is a biggie — it remains a frustrating platform for advertisers, which is one reason Twitter’s business model has turned out to be less effective than Facebook’s.
Recent stats from eMarketer reveal that over 50 million Internet users in the United States are accessing their Twitter accounts via any device at least monthly.
That equates to about fifth of U.S. Internet users — and nearly three in ten people active on social networks.
So … this means that many people are seeing ads on Twitter. And that’s confirmed through an evaluation conducted by Cowen & Company which finds that well over half of U.S. adult Twitter users are e encountering ads on their Twitter feed at least every 10 or 20 tweets.
Predictably, most of the advertising pertains to retail, app installations and travel. Those are pretty relevant as broad advertising categories.
It’s just … many Twitter users aren’t finding the ads effective. Here’s what Cowen’s findings show in terms of user feelings about Twitter advertising:
Ads on Twitter are relevant and/or insightful: ~3%
Ads are OK: ~26%
Ads are not really relevant: ~45%
Ads are usually a poor fit: ~14%
These results suggest that advertisers need to improve their targeting capabilities significantly if they wish to reach the right audience segments with relevant messages.
More fundamentally, current attitudes about Twitter advertising pose continuing challenges for Twitter as it attempts to further-monetize its platform. The tepid performance of Twitter shares since the beginning of 2014 underscores how the company continues to cast about for answers to that fundamental challenge. I wonder when (or if) the company will ever figure it all out.
A few weeks ago, the Boston Globestubbed its toe in major fashion when it changed the company it uses to deliver ~115,000 hard-copy versions of the daily paper in the Boston metro area.
No doubt, the decision to switch home delivery services was made out of a desire to save money rather than to improve service. And one can understand why management might have been looking for ways to cut production costs on the print version compared to the “go-go” online/digital realm.
But focusing on solely millennials and other younger customers can come back to “bite you on the bottom line” – which is exactly what happened in the case of the Globe.
Evidently, the new delivery service was untested – at least in terms of taking on a client with volumes as large as Boston’s leading newspaper.
As it turned out, tens of thousands of papers weren’t delivered, sparking a cataclysm of loud, negative feedback.
The pique of customers went well-beyond failing to receive something that had been paid for. In the case of the Globe’s extensive Baby Boomer subscriber base, missing home delivery struck at the heart of the time-honored rituals of how they receive and consume their news.
Consider this: The average subscriber to the Boston Globe pays around $700 per year for their home-delivery subscription.
That’s more than $80 million per year in income for the paper – before factoring in advertising revenue.
Of course, the costs of producing and delivering the print product exceeds that of digital. But this subscription base is more loyal than digital news consumers precisely because they value how the news is presented to them.
Let’s not forget that for people born before 1965, most are emotionally attached to print far more than those in other demographic groups. As Gordon Plutsky, a director of applied intelligence at IDG, writes about the Boston Globe snafu:
“[It’s] not just the physical paper, but the ritual of getting the paper off their driveway or front steps and starting their day spreading out the broadsheet and scanning the news. They missed curling up with coffee or tea and working the crossword puzzle or cutting coupons. It is easy to forget that until the mid-‘90s, this was the only way to read the news and, for Boomers, it is how they learned to read and interact with the world. Their brains are wired for print in the same way Gen Z is wired for mobile.”
Perhaps the Globe’s business and administrative staffers lost sight of that fact. Maybe they treated their “unsexy” print subscribers as an afterthought while forgetting that this segment of their customer base is critical to the very survival of their paper – and the industry – in a period of transition.
True, delivering the news to print customers is more expensive than doing so digitally. But these customers are more predictable and loyal, versus fickle and finicky.
… But only if the product is delivered. Fail in that fundamental function, and the gig is up.
The Boston Globe’s print readers are hardly unique. Recently, Pew Research Center surveyed consumers in three urban markets. Despite the differences in these markets (geographic, economic, social), a highly significant percentage of respondents in all three metro areas reported that they read only the print version of their local newspaper:
Denver, CO: ~46% read only the print version of their local newspaper
Macon, GA: ~48% read print only
Sioux City, IA-NE-SD: ~53% read print only
This isn’t to suggest that Boomer audiences are a bunch of rubes who aren’t connected to the digital world. Far from it: They tend to be better educated and more wealthy (with more disposable income) than other demographic segments. Their attachment to print isn’t in lieu of digital, but more in concert with their online habits.
Unlike other generations, they’re not single-channel as much as omni-channel consumers. The keys to newspaper publishers’ continued relevance are bound up in how they serve this older but critically important segment of their customer base.
Speaking personally, I can “take it or leave it” when it comes to print. I don’t subscribe to a daily print paper, and the bulk of my news comes to me from digital sources. But there’s something quite comfortable about sitting down with a quality daily paper and reading the news stories therein — including long-form journalism pieces that are difficult to find very many places these days.
There are millions more people across the country that are happy to continue paying for the privilege of consuming the news in just such a fashion. Indeed, they’re the newspaper industry’s most loyal readers.
But what difference will it make? Only time will tell …
It had to happen: After years of publications uploading native advertising content that’s barely labeled as such, the Federal Trade Commission has handed down new guidelines that leave very little wiggle room in what constitutes proper labeling of paid advertising material.
What it boils down to is the stipulation that any sponsored content must be clearly labeled as advertising – using wording that the vast majority of readers will understand instantly.
Here’s how the FTC guidelines describe it:
“Terms likely to be understood include ‘Ad,’ ‘Advertisement,’ ‘Paid Advertisement,’ ‘Sponsored Advertising Content,’ or some variation thereof. Advertisers should not use terms such as ‘Promoted’ or “Promoted Stories,’ which in this context are, at best, ambiguous and potentially could mislead consumers that advertising content is endorsed by a publisher site.”
Another key provision is warning against advertising content mimicking the look and feel of surrounding editorial content – things like the layout characteristics, headline design treatment, the use of fonts and photography.
And here’s another kicker: the FTC lumps offending advertisers in the same pile as the people who create the materials, in that its policy statement doesn’t apply just to advertisers. So ad agencies, MarComm companies and graphic designers, beware.
Quoting again from the FTC document:
“In appropriate circumstances the FTC has taken action against other parties who helped create deceptive advertising content – for example, ad agencies and operators of affiliate advertising networks. Everyone who participates directly or indirectly in creating or presenting native ads should make sure that ads don’t mislead consumers about their commercial nature.
“Marketers who use native advertising have a particular interest in ensuring that anyone participating in the promotion of their products is familiar with the basic truth-in-advertising principle that an ad should be identifiable as an ad to consumers.”
Of course, these new guidelines are only going to make it harder for advertisers – and publishers – to be able to utilize advertising techniques that have, up to now, been far more effective than online display advertising.
Predictably, we’re hearing mealy-mouthed statements from the industry in response. A spokesperson for the Interactive Advertising Bureau had this to say:
“While guidance serves great benefit to the industry, it must also be technically feasible, creatively relevant, and not stifle innovation. To that end, we have reservations about some elements of the Commission’s guidance.”
What bothers the Interactive Advertising Bureau in particular is the “plain language” provisions in the FTC’s guidelines, which IAB considers “overly descriptive.”
Translation: there’s concern that publishers can no longer label advertising using such euphemisms as “partner content” or “promoted post.”
Others seem less concerned, however. Sites such as Mashable and Huffington Post appear to be onboard with the new guidelines.
Besides, as one spokesperson said, “When the FTC issues guidelines, you’re better off when you follow them than when you don’t.”
Here’s an interesting factoid: In 2014, more than 550 million blog posts were uploaded on WordPress alone.
Add in Tumblr, and there are another 250 million blogs.
Considering the sheer volume of blogging activity, it’s surprising how little intelligence on the “value” of a blog post has been available. But now a study has been published that sheds light on the question.
The evaluation, which was commissioned by branding agency IZEA and conducted by research firm The Halverson Group, has determined that the lifespan of a blog post is far greater than the accepted measurement of 30 days.
The lifespan is more than 20 times longer, it turns out.
Let’s break down the research findings a bit more. The IZEA/Halverson study determined that by Day 700 (about two years), the typical blog post will have received ~99% of its impressions.
That’s a pretty long annuity, and it provides strong ammo for marketers who advocate for blog posts as an important way to maximize the return on their marketing spend.
According to the study, the typical blog post goes through three distinct phases in its useful life:
Shout: The initial spike in impressions that happens within the first 7 to 10 days, typically resulting in half of the total impressions the post will ever receive.
Echo: The period ending at 30 days, by which time the typical blog post will have racked up ~70% of its total impressions.
Reverb: The third phase that stretches from approximately Day 30 all the way to Day 700. This long-tail phase will typically generate the final ~30% of impressions.
Of course, the performance of individual blog posts will depend on the subject matter, the timeliness of the information, and other factors. But as a general rule of thumb, the Halverson findings show the potential value of a blog post as far greater than many marketers may have surmised up until now.
The Halverson study also provides a good rule of thumb for the lifetime impression value of a blog post. It can be calculated by multiplying a blog post’s 30-day monthly pageview total by a factor of 1.4.
In other words, by Day 30, marketers can know with a good deal of confidence how the blog post will perform overall.
Using this formula, marketers will be able to demonstrate the “evergreen” effect of blogging as a marketing tactic.
Certainly, the residual benefits of a blog post look very strong — particularly in contrast to volume-based media such as display or search advertising, which stop performing the instant the campaign investment ends.
The bottom line: Companies should continue to blog away … and if they haven’t started or if they’ve allowed their blogging program to flag, it’s time to get things back in gear!
Suddenly, the conflict between Google and the European Union countries regarding the censoring of search results has taken on even wider worldwide proportions.
This past week, the courts have upheld the French government’s data protection office (CNIL) order for Google to broaden the “right to be forgotten” by censoring search results worldwide — not just in Europe.
Google had appealed the initial CNIL ruling.
The CNIL rejected Google’s argument that a worldwide implementation of the European standard of censoring search results would mean that the Internet would be only as free as the “least free place.” (Think Belarus or Syria.) But in its ruling, the CNIL noted that a country-by-country implementation of the “right to be forgotten” would mean that the right could be circumvented too easily.
While it’s true that more than 95% of Google searches in Europe are performed via European versions of the company’s search engine tool, such as google.fr and google.co.uk, identical searches can be performed easily using google.com, meaning that anyone trying to find “forgotten” information on an individual can do so easily, irrespective of the European standard.
As I blogged back in May, The European Court of Justice’s 2014 ruling meant that Google is required to allow residents of EU countries to delete links to certain harmful or embarrassing information that may appear about themselves in Google search results.
The directive has turned into a real thicket of challenges for Google.
What the definition of “harmed and embarrassing” is is somewhat amorphous, as the court’s ruling encompassed links to information ranging from excessive and harmful on one end of the scale all the way down to links that are merely outdated, inadequate or irrelevant.
Since the ruling went into effect, Google has had to field requests to remove more than one million links from European search results.
Link removal isn’t accomplished via some sort of “bot” procedure. Instead, each request is considered on a case-by-case basis by a panel of arbiters made up of attorneys, paralegals and search engineers.
Approximately one-third of the links in question have been removed following panel review, while about half have remained in search results.
The rest – the real toughies – are still under review, and their status as yet unresolved.
Obviously, for this activity to spread from covering just European search engines to include potentially the entire world isn’t what Google has in mind at all. (If Google could have its way, doubtless the whole notion of “the right to be forgotten” would be off the table.)
But the situation is getting pretty hot now. French authorities imposed a 15-day compliance deadline, after which Google could be fined nearly US$350,000.
Of course, the amount of that penalty pales in comparison to the cost Google would incur to comply with the directive.
But that fine is just the opening salvo; there’s no telling what the full degree of financial penalties might turn out to be for continued non-compliance.
I wrote before that it’s difficult to know where the world will eventually end up on the issue of censoring search engine results. Today, I don’t think we’re anywhere closer to knowing.
It’s human nature for people to strive for the most flattering public persona … while confining the “true reality” only to those who have the opportunity (or misfortune) to see them in their most private moments.
It goes far beyond just the closed doors of a family’s household. I know a recording producer who speaks about having to “wipe the bottoms” of music stars — an unpleasant thought if ever there was one.
In today’s world of interactivity and social platforms, things are amplified even more — and it’s a lot more public.
Accordingly, there are more granular data than ever about people, their interests and their proclivities.
The opportunities for marketers seem almost endless. At last we’re able to go beyond basic demographics and other conventional classifications, to now pinpoint and target marketing messages based on psychographics.
And to do so using the very terms and phrases people are using in their own social interactions.
The problem is … a good deal of social media is one giant head-fake.
Don’t just take my word for it. Consider remarks made recently by Rudi Anggono, one of Google’s senior creative staff leaders. He refers to data collected in the social media space as “a two-faced, insincere, duplicitous, lying sack of sh*t.”
Anggono is talking about information he dubs “declared data.” It isn’t information that’s factual and vetted, but rather data that’s influenced by people’s moods, insecurities, social agenda … and any other set of factors that shape someone’s carefully crafted public image.
In other words, it’s information that’s made up of half-truths.
This is nothing new, actually. It’s been going on forever. Cultural anthropologist Genevieve Bell put her finger on it years ago when she observed that people lie because they want to tell better stories and to project better versions of themselves.
What’s changed in the past decade is social media, of course. What better way to “tell better stories and project better versions of ourselves” than through social media platforms?
Instead of the once-a-year Holiday Letter of yore, any of us can now provide an endless parade of breathless superlatives about our great, wonderful lives and the equally fabulous experiences of our families, children, parents, A-list friends, and whoever else we wish to associate with our excellent selves.
Between Facebook, Instagram, Pinterest and even LinkedIn, reams of granular data are being collected on individuals — data which these platforms then seek to monetize by selling access to advertisers.
In theory, it’s a whole lot better-targeted than the frumpy, old fashioned demographic selects like location, age, income level and ethnicity.
But in reality, the information extracted from social is suspect data.
This has set up a big debate between Google — which promotes its search engine marketing and advertising programs based on the “intent” of people searching for information online — and Facebook and others who are promoting their robust repositories of psychographic and attitudinal data.
There are clear signs that some of the social platforms recognize the drawbacks of the ad programs they’re promoting — to the extent that they’re now trying to convince advertisers that they deserve consideration for search advertising dollars, not just social.
In an article published this week in The Wall Street Journal’s CMO Today blog, Tim Kendall, Pinterest’s head of monetization, contends that far from being merely a place where people connect with friends and family, Pinterest is more like a “catalogue of ideas,” where people “go through the catalogue and do searches.”
Pinterest has every monetary reason to present itself in this manner, of course. According to eMarketer, in 2014 search advertising accounted for more than 45% of all digital ad spending — far more than ad spending on social media.
This year, the projections are for more than $26 billion to be spent on U.S. search ads, compared to only about $10 billion in the social sphere.
The sweet spot, of course, is being able to use declared data in concert with intent and behavior. And that’s why there’s so much effort and energy going into developing improved algorithms for generating data-driven predictive information than can accomplish those twin goals.
Rudi Anggono
In the meantime, Anggono’s admonition about data mined from social media is worth repeating:
“You have to prod, extrapolate, look for the intent, play good-cop/bad-cop, get the full story, get the context, get the real insights. Use all the available analytical tools at your disposal. Or if not, get access to those tools. Only then can you trust this data.”
What are your thoughts? Do you agree with Anggono’s position? Please share your perspectives with other readers here.
In my line of work, I receive many magazines and other publications covering not only the marketing and advertising field, but also the industries and markets of our corporate clients.
Every time one of these subscriptions comes up for renewal, I’m strongly urged to choose the online/electronic offering instead of the print edition.
I know why, of course. Between the printing, postage and shipping considerations, magazines and other printed media represent the most involved (and the most costly) form of delivery.
And there’s also the issue of “currency” and “recency,” with breaking news being covered much quicker and more efficiently online.
Still, I generally opt for print for the simple reason that a physical magazine, newspaper or newsletter is easier to browse and to read. I like the “linearity” of a print magazine and find magazine reading less satisfactory online.
Don’t get me wrong — I’m very happy digital versions of the print editions exist. I love the fact that I can go online and access an article of particular interest that I may wish to archive in electronic form, or pass along to friends and colleagues.
So, consider me an “all of the above” sort of person. Still, there are times when I think that I represent a more traditional way of thinking about consuming news articles — one that’s decidedly losing popularity.
But then … we see the results of a new digital magazine market study, published by Mequoda Group, a media consulting firm.
The survey, which was conducted in July 2015 among ~3,650 Americans adults age 18 or higher who have access to the Internet, found that digital magazine consumption has now reached ~43% of print magazine consumption.
So digital is rising.
But the Mequoda research also finds that ~70% of American adults who have access to the Internet have read an average of three print magazine issues in the past 30 days. (2.91 print magazine issues, to be precise.)
Here are the findings for print magazines read over the previous month:
Read one print magazine: ~18%
Read two: ~19%
Read three: ~13%
Read four: ~8%
Read five or more: ~13%
At the same time, ~37% of American adults who have access to the Internet have read an average of 2.37 digital magazine issues over the past month. Here’s how that breakdown looks:
Read one digital/online magazine: ~14%
Read two: ~8%
Read three: ~5%
Read four: ~3%
Read five or more: ~7%
What this means is that in 2015, print magazine readership activity outnumbers digital by a 2-to-1 margin.
The Mequoda research tested five reasons why people might prefer reading digital versions over printed versions of magazines. Of those who read digital magazines, here are the percentages who deemed those reasons “very important”:
Offers immediate delivery: ~42% consider very important
Portability / easy to carry: ~40%
Environmentally friendly: ~40%
Cheaper than print: ~39%
Thousands of titles: ~35%
The bottom line on this topic appears to be that the demand for print delivery of periodicals remains significant … and that publishers who elect to shift to “all-digital” delivery stand to lose at least some of their reader engagement.
Even so, I have no doubt that publishers will continue to push electronic delivery in the hopes that print can eventually fall completely by the wayside.
The full report is available free of charge from Mequoda here.
Facebook “grows up great” to challenge YouTube for video supremacy online.
Only few years ago, YouTube was pretty much the only game in town when it came to online video. And Facebook wasn’t even in the picture.
Today, the online video landscape looks far different.
In fact, Facebook is on track to deliver more than two-thirds as many video views as YouTube this year. And both services have a comparable number of monthly users overall.
Recently, market forecasting firm Ampere Analysis surveyed ~10,000 consumers in North America and Europe. Approximately 15% of them had watched at least one video clip on Facebook within the past month.
While Facebook hasn’t exactly caught up with YouTube, its rise has been pretty stunning — especially when you consider the massive head-start YouTube had. More than five years, in fact, which is a lifetime in the cyberworld.
Undoubtedly, one reason for Facebook’s success in video is its “autoplay” feature which snags viewers who might otherwise scroll by video postings. Facebook reports that it has experienced a ~10% increase in engagement as a result of adding this functionality.
And there’s another big advantage for advertisers that Facebook possesses. Since its viewers are always logged in, Facebook has the potential to collect far more demographic and behavioral data on its viewers that advertisers can tap into to target specific demographics.
For now at least, Facebook doesn’t offer the option for ads to run before video clips begin playing (the ads appear after the content). Also, Facebook’s ad charges kick in after just three seconds of the ad being shown, compared to YouTube which sets the bar higher for ad charges to take effect.
[Incidentally, Twitter has the same 3-second policy as Facebook, whereas Hulu charges only for ads viewed all the way through.]
Another difference is that Facebook charges for every ad view, so if a viewer watches a video twice — even if it’s the same video in the same viewer session — Facebook counts it as two views. On YouTube, that would be considered one view, regardless of how many times the video is watched.
Of course, these kinds of differences can be adjusted — and there’s no reason to think that Facebook won’t do just that if it determines that making those changes are in their best business interest.
Besides, advertising rates are already similar between the two platforms, which suggests that advertisers have come to place a high value on Facebook’s robust audience targeting.
Autoplay features have raised some questions as to what constitutes a true video “view.” If video ads are being autoplayed, views are easier to get, but are they worthwhile? Also, the fact that autoplay videos are running without sound until such time as the viewer chooses to engage is causing some advertisers to create content that “make sense” even on mute.
But the bottom line on Facebook’s foray into video seems to be that the demographic and psychographic audience targeting Facebook can deliver is of important value to advertisers.
Add the fact that YouTube is no longer the only major online video platform, and it’s easy to see how significant competition from Facebook risks the loss of advertising dollars for YouTube, along with damaging YouTube’s growth prospects over time.
In recent years, computers have upended many a job category. And they include quite a few positions involving “language” – from foreign language translators to medical transcriptionists.
And now, it looks like copywriting itself may be the next domino to fall.
Earlier this year, The Wall Street Journalpublished a story about Persado, a company which has developed a software algorithm that enables it to write copy without the human element.
David Atlas, the company’s chief marketing officer, refers to it as “algorithmic copywriting.” The process creates sentences with a maximum length of 600 characters that are used for e-mail subject lines and other short persuasive copy.
Persado builds the copy by sending thousands of different e-mail subject lines to the e-databases of its clients, which include large retailers and financial services firms such as Overstock.com, AMEX and Neiman Marcus. Response rates are measured and used to refine the subject lines to narrow them down to just the most effective.
Company PR spokesperson Kirsten McKenna explains the Persado edge further:
“Typical A/B testing will send out only a few messages – then go with the one that gives the best response. Persado can send out thousands of permutations of the same message to determine which would be the most successful.”
“We have never lost to a human.” — Alex Vratskides of Persado
Comparing Persado’s machine-generated results with traditional copywriting, “We have never lost to a human,” Alex Vratskides, the company’s president, claimed to The Wall Street Journal.
Those results would suggest that Persado is doing things right. And here’s another positive indicator of success: The company raised over $20 million in venture capital earlier this year.
The bigger question is whether Persado will be able to scale its simple and short-sentence copywriting into persuasive copy for longer-form marketing materials such as sales letters and brochures – which would make it an even bigger threat and seriously threaten to upend the traditional copywriting field.
For the answer to that question, I’d never want to take issue with the views of veteran copywriter Bob Bly, whose perspectives I respect a great deal. In writing on this topic, he states:
Bob Bly
“I do think that either already or very soon, software will equal or surpass the performance of human writers in both simple content and short copy. We have to prepare for the eventuality that computers may someday beat human direct response copywriters in long-form copy, just as Deep Blue beat Kasparov in chess and Watson clobbered Ken Jennings in Jeopardy. Ouch.”
What do you think? Is computer copywriting the wave of the future? Let’s hear your own perspectives.
The old adage that a picture is worth a thousand words has ever-greater resonance as time goes on. And when visuals come up against text – it’s really no contest at all.
Nones Notes 