Media Consumption

Tom Goodwin Sounds Off: Five Big Myths about Advertising Today

Phillip Nones Advertising, Branding, Business, Content Creation and Content Management, Marketing Communications, Media, Media Consumption, Social Commentary, Social Media , , , , , , , , ,
Tom Goodwin
Tom Goodwin

It’s so common to hear weighty pronouncements about the changing world of advertising and how the ground is shifting under the discipline.

It seems that we get one of these “new horizons” commentaries about every other week or so.

That’s why it’s refreshing to hear a few countervailing voices among the breathless babble. These are the voices of reason that move past the hyperbole and provide some sober grounding.

One such person is former advertising industry exec Jeremy Bullmore. His recent commentary on the “big data” craze is a good case in point — and well-worth reading.

Another industry specialist whose comments are always worth noting is Tom Goodwin, head of Tomorrow Innovation, a digital marketing consultancy. He’s identified five big myths about today’s advertising environment which need “calling out,” as he puts it.

What are Goodwin’s myths? They’re shown below, along with Goodwin’s “quasi-contrarian” views about them.

“TV is dead.”

Nope. More people are watching television than ever before — and that’s looking at just the mature USA and UK markets.  Goodwin contends that TV advertising has never been more valuable — and most commercials are viewed rather than skipped over.  But they’re viewed on many kinds of devices, of course.

Goodwin’s take: “TV is here to stay … [but] the notion of ‘television’ generates false boundaries to what’s possible with video advertising when [people] consume video in so many new ways.”

“Consumers want conversations with brands.” 

Ignore ButtonNo they don’t, Goodwin contends: “The conversations I most often see are those of disgruntled customers, given the microphone to complain that Twitter provides. It strikes me overwhelmingly, with remarkably few exceptions, that for most brands, people want an outcome or resolution or perhaps information — and not a conversation.”

“Brands must create good content.” 

Goodwin acknowledges that content delivered by brands needs to be inherently valuable. But it’s more complicated than just that:  “Branded content is not meritocratic — you can’t say any one piece of content is ‘better’ than another. Perhaps the best real test of content is when it’s served, how, and who it reaches and the value it provides.”

“Advertising is about storytelling.”

Goodwin contends that advertising people are buying their own hype with this whopper. “Let’s not delude ourselves that advertising is not about selling stuff,” he emphasizes.

“Advertising dollars should correlate with consumers’ time spent with media.”

Goodwin claims that advertising industry players feel a compulsion to “be where the people are,” under the assumption that people will engage with advertising in similar ways whether they’re online or offline, on a mobile device or a desktop, and so on.

Because of this thinking, media spend projections looking into the future “bear no resemblance” to what’s working or not working — or how it’s even possible to spend that much money advertising in the channels like mobile.

How have these myths of Goodwin’s taken hold in the first place? Is it because talking about them seems so much more interesting and important than contending that advertising is continuing on a more familiar trajectory?

Goodwin thinks this may be part of it. Certainly, he acknowledges that times are changing dramatically in advertising — as they have been for some time.  But he makes a plea for more wisdom and nuance:

“While nobody gets famous (or a promotion) saying things are complex or largely unchanged … it’s closer to the truth.”

Personally, having spent a quarter century years in the marketing communications field, I feel that Tom Goodwin has raised some very interesting and valid points.

Where do you come down on them?  Do you agree or disagree with the five “myths” Goodwin has identified in modern advertising?  Leave a comment and share your thoughts for the benefit of other readers.

Harris Poll: What Americans say they want in news coverage.

Phillip Nones Content Creation and Content Management, Media, Media Consumption, Social Commentary , , , , , , , , , , , ,

When it comes to the news, Americans say they’re tired of so much attention on celebrity gossip and scandal stories … but are they really?

news mediaExperience has shown that healthy foods on the menu at fast food establishments test well in consumer attitudinal surveys — only to bomb big time when actually introduced.

It seems as though many people answer the way they think they’re “supposed” to respond, even though they’ll never actually opt for the apple slices in lieu of the order of fries.

I wonder if the same dynamics are at work in a recent Harris Poll, which queried ~2,500 Americans age 18 or over about their preferences for news topics.  The online survey was conducted in August 2014, with the results released this past week.

For starters, three-fourths of the respondents felt that celebrity gossip and scandal stories receive too much coverage.

Indeed, many believe that entertainment news in general receives too much attention in the news:

  • Celebrity gossip and scandal stories: ~76% claim too much attention is paid in the news
  • Entertainment news in general: ~49%
  • Professional spectator sports: ~44%
  • Politics and elections: ~33%

And which topics do people feel aren’t covered sufficiently in the news? It’s everything that’s “good for you”:

  • Education topics: ~47% believe too little attention is paid in the news
  • Local/national humanitarian issues: ~47%
  • Science topics: ~45%
  • Government corruption and scandals: ~44%
  • Corporate corruption and white collar crime: ~42%
  • Global humanitarian issues: ~33%
  • Health topics: ~30%

I suspect that the “actual reality” is different from how the survey participants responded. If news organizations weren’t seeing keen interest generated by their celebrity, entertainment and sports stories, they would stop producing them.  Simple as that.

Harris Poll logoYou can view more findings from the Harris survey, including data tabulations, here. Among the interesting findings is the degree of trust people have for various different news media:  network TV news, local TV news, local newspapers, national newspapers, online news sources.

Hint: trust levels are nearly where they should be …

What are your thoughts about news topics? Which ones are getting proper coverage versus too much?  Please share your observations with other readers here.

Where Print Advertising Still Reigns

Phillip Nones Advertising, Business, Marketing Communications, Media, Media Consumption , , , , , , , ,

city-and-regional-magazine-survey-2014-FOLIOPrint advertising may be atrophying, but it’s still important enough to be the overwhelming revenue stream for city and regional magazine publishers.

According to the latest annual survey of media in this category, conducted by FOLIO last month, most publishing titles continue to rely on print for the vast bulk of the revenues they generate.

But before we look at FOLIO’s figures today, let’s see what’s happened over the past decade or so.

Print advertising revenues in this segment of the publishing industry represented over 95% of overall revenue as late as 2005. It’s dropped since then – but it hasn’t declined all that much, all things considered.

Here’s what FOLIO’s research findings are showing today:

  • Print advertising: Represents ~75% of all revenues
  • Paid subscriptions: ~6%
  • Custom publishing: ~6%
  • Digital media: ~5%
  • Events: ~3%
  • Mobile products: ~1%
  • Mercantile data (e.g., list rental): Less than 1%

Compared to Folio’s 2013 survey, print advertising has declined slightly (from ~77% of overall revenues in 2013), but paid subscription revenues are down sharply (from about 10%).

Within this publication category, there are some differences between large and small publishers. Larger brands (those generating more than $5 million in revenues) rely less on print advertising; it’s only about 65% of their earnings.

With smaller publication titles, it’s been significantly more challenging to diversify away from print. They’re still relying on print ad sales to generate more than 80% of their revenue.  And that percentage hasn’t changed in five years.

Right now, digital media accounts for only about 9% of total revenues generated by the larger media properties in this segment. But managers at these publications anticipate that revenue from digital platforms will continue to grow at a faster clip.

In fact, they foresee a jump of nearly 30% in digital media revenues this year alone.

The FOLIO report notes that the increase in digital revenues is coming from better monetization strategies for existing products, rather than the introduction of new ones.

City and Regional MagazinesConsidering why publishers in the city and regional magazine category continue to rely on print versus other revenues, I think it goes back to the idea that consumers don’t consider these properties strong sources for “instant” or “breaking” news.

Behaviorally, there’s more of a propensity to browse through story topics in a more “linear” fashion. The emphasis on human interest and region-centric news also aligns more with a more traditional approach to journalism, where most every news story tends to have some sort of a “human” dimension.

Quite a few stories are long-form journalism, or ones that feature high-quality photography.  Far fewer of them are time-sensitive.  They lend themselves to a more leisurely perusal.

Even so, it would seem that broader trends regarding the way consumers are interacting with media — and the platforms they’re using to consumer them — destined to overtake the city/regional magazine category.

Eventually.

More details on the FOLIO research results can be found here.

Information, advertising and eye-tracking: Continuity among the chaos.

Phillip Nones Advertising, Content Creation and Content Management, Marketing Communications, Media, Media Consumption , , , , , , , , , , ,

digital eyeIn the Western world, humans have been viewing and processing information in the same basic ways for hundreds of years. It’s a subconscious process that entails expending the most judicious use of time and effort to forage for information.

Because of how we Westerners read and write – left-to-right and top-to-bottom – the way we’ve evolved searching for information mirrors the same sort of behavior.

And today we have eye-scanning research and mouse click studies that prove the point.

In conducting online searches, where we land on information is known variously as the “area of greatest promise,” the “golden triangle,” or the “F-scan diagram.”

However you wish to name it, it generally looks like this on a Google search engine results page (SERP):

F-scan diagram

It’s easy to see how the “area of greatest promise” exists. We generally look for information by scanning down the beginning of the first listings on a page, and then continue viewing to the right if something seems to be a good match for our information needs, ultimately resulting in a clickthrough if our suspicions are correct.

Heat maps also show that quick judgments of information relevance on a SERP occur within this same “F-scan” zone; if we determine nothing is particularly relevant, we’re off to do a different keyword search.

This is why it’s so important for websites to appear within the top 5-7 organic listings on a SERP – or within the top 1-3 paid search results in the right-hand column of Google’s SERP.

In recent years, Google and other search engines have been offering enhancements to the traditional SERP, ranging from showing images across the top of the page to presenting geographic information, including maps.

To what degree is this changing the “conditioning” of people who are seeking out information today compared to before?

What new eye-tracking and heat maps are showing is that we’re evolving to looking at “chunks” of information first for clues as to the promising areas of results. But then within those areas, we revert to the same “F-scan” behaviors.

Here’s one example:

Eye-tracking Update

And there’s more:  The same eye-tracking and heat map studies are showing that this two-step process is actually more time-efficient than before.

We’re covering more of the page (at least on the first scan), but are also able to zero in on the most promising information bits on the page.  Once we find them, we’re quicker to click on the result, too.

So while Google and other search engines may be “conditioning” us to change time-honored information-viewing habits, it’s just as much that we’re “conditioning” Google to organize their SERPs in ways that are easiest and most beneficial to us in the way be seek out and find relevant information.

Bottom line, it’s continuity among the chaos. And it proves yet again that the same “prime positioning” on the page favored for decades by advertisers and users alike – above the fold and to the left – still holds true today.

Does Social Media Buzz Actually Win Elections?

Phillip Nones Content Creation and Content Management, Government, Media, Media Consumption, Social Commentary, Social Media , , , , , , ,

social media politicsWes Green, one of the faithful readers of the Nones Notes Blog, posed a question as part of a comment on my recent post about the disconnect Gallup has observed between social media marketing promise and reality.

Wes’ question asked to what degree social media activity actually decides U.S. elections.

In other words, is social media “buzz” enabling campaigns to win elections that would have been won by a different candidate otherwise?

If you look at the sheer volume of YouTube posts, Facebook pages and sharing of breaking news on Twitter that’s being pushed out there by political campaigns, surely they must think that these social platforms are having an impact.

But what about a more scientific look into it?  I searched around for answers and found one such analysis.

Shortly before NM Incite, a social media intelligence joint venture of Nielsen and McKinsey, was shut down in 2013, it had looked at precisely these dynamics through the prism of the U.S. federal election campaigns of 2010 and 2012.

Here are two important pieces of data NM Incite uncovered:

  • Observation #1: In three out of four election campaigns, the candidate who was the most frequently mentioned on social media was the one who ultimately won the election.
  • Observation #2: The share of online “buzz” for each winning candidate was higher than the share of votes the winner actually won.

These two observations raise the next question: Is there a “causal” relation between social media presence and positive results on election night?  These findings don’t tell us that.

Instead, it may be that winning candidates are doing a better job at more than merely social media to win their races.  Their campaigns are just better organized and more adept at hitting on all cylinders.

Here’s one other finding from NM Incite’s evaluation that suggests that social may be an ornamentation and not the tree:  States with higher levels of voter turnout tend to be the ones with lower levels of online buzz about their candidates.

So there’s little evidence to suggest that social media buzz is generating higher voter participation.

I’d say we need more research on this topic. It’s a rapidly changing environment, no doubt.  An analysis that dates back to 2010 and 2012 is like a lifetime in online political campaigning.  Has anyone come across any newer research?

Gallup puts the Kibosh on Social Media’s Marketing Hype

Phillip Nones Advertising, Branding, Content Creation and Content Management, Media, Media Consumption, Social Commentary, Social Media , , , , , ,

“Social media are not the powerful and persuasive marketing force many companies hoped they would be.” — Gallup, Inc. 

social media verdictThat’s one of several key conclusions from a report issued this past summer by research firm Gallup, Inc. The report examined the influence of social media on consumer purchase decision-making.

The Gallup findings are based on web and mail polling it conducted with ~18,000 American consumers during 2013.

When asked about the influence of social media on buyer behaviors, ~62% of the respondents reported that social media has “no influence at all” on their purchasing decisions.

By contrast, ~30% stated that social media has “some influence,” while only ~5% reported that social media has “a great deal of influence” over their purchasing decisions.

Compare these middling results with the fact that U.S. companies spent well over $5 billion on social media advertising in 2013, and the two figures seem out of proportion.

Actually, the disconnect between “people and products” on social media shouldn’t be too surprising, in that ~94% of the Gallup respondents reported that the reason they go on social media platforms is to connect with friends and family members.

The percentage of people who use social media to follow trends and/or to find reviews or other information on products is far lower: ~29% according to the Gallup survey.

But it’s the magnitude of the difference that may be surprising.

And here’s another thing: In its report, Gallup states that “consumers are highly adept at tuning out brand-related Facebook and Twitter content.”

It’s yet another data point supporting the growing realization that social media has failed to live up to its early marketing hype. So it should come as little surprise that more companies have been refining their strategies to stress quality over quantity when it comes to both fan acquisition and to published content.

More findings from the Gallup report can be viewed here.

Google Glass: Far-sighted … or fuzzy?

Phillip Nones Business, Marketing Communications, Media, Media Consumption, Social Commentary , , , , , , ,

Google Glass fashionI’ve been blogging about Google Glass forever, it seems — or at least as far back as 2009 when the early conception of the product, then known as “Google Goggles,” was in its preliminary stage of development.

The Google Glass product was “soft-launched” in 2012, but it’s only become available to the broader consumer marketplace since the spring of this year — at about $1,500 a pair.

So … how has Google Glass done so far?

“Underwhelming” might be one way of putting it.

As it turns out, there are a number of key factors that are hindering consumer acceptance of this new piece of electronic gadgetry. Consider these points:

  • Substandard quality of images and video compared to a ~$200 smartphone:  oversaturated colors, lack of depth and dimension and all.
  • Battery life in normal use that is far less than promised: only about three hours instead of a full day.
  • Although somewhat streamlined compared to the beta versions of the product, it remains a somewhat “clunky” wearable device — or as Forbes magazine puts it, a “fashion failure.”
  • The general “creep-out factor” of constant surveillance remains a psychological barrier to many consumers.

Indeed, the jokes haven’t abated about the kind of people who make up the cadre of Google Glass “early adopters.”

“Glassholes” is one of the not-so-nice monikers they’re being called.

Going forward, Google Glass faces even more competition in the “wearables” category as computer power migrates into watches, jewelry and clothing in addition to eyeglasses. Even as these concepts become more mainstream, I suspect that Google Glass will continue to lag behind other products which seem to be harnessing the “high-tech-meets-high-fashion” concept more effectively.

We saw clear evidence of that this past week with the introduction of the Apple Watch.

Whereas Google has taken a “brute force” approach in the technological aspects of Google Glass (with design playing second fiddle), Apple has taken its technological innovation and packaged it in a way that resonates with the marketplace at a more visceral level.

If you glance quickly at someone wearing Apple’s watch, you’d be hard-pressed to think it’s anything much different from an analog version.  If Google hopes to have the same kind of success that Apple is poised to have, it needs to start thinking along those lines, too.

But one wonders if Google is “hard-wired” that way …

Organic Search: Still King of the Hill in Generating Web Traffic

Phillip Nones Advertising, Business, Content Creation and Content Management, Marketing Communications, Media, Media Consumption, Social Media , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

online searchingIn recent years, the focus on “content marketing” has become stronger than ever: the notion of attracting traffic via the inherent relevance of the content contained on a website rather than through other means.

It seems eminently logical.  But content marketing is also relatively labor-intensive to build and to maintain. So there’s always been an effort to drive web traffic through “quicker and easier” methods as well.

But the newest findings on web traffic really do demonstrate how fundamental good content is to meeting the challenge of generating web traffic.

An analysis by web analytics and measurement firm BrightEdge reveals that organic search (SEO) drives over half of all traffic to websites (both business-to-business and business-to-consumer).

By contrast, paid search (SEM) accounts for only one-fifth of SEO’s result, and social is lower still:

  • Organic search: Generates ~51% of all web traffic
  • Paid search: ~10%
  • Social media: ~5%
  • All other methods (e.g., display advertising, e-mail and referred): ~34%

Web traffic driversSource:  BrightEdge, 2014. 

In other words, all forms of advertising put together don’t drive as much traffic as organic search.

The BrightEdge statistics also remind us that social media, however popular it may be to millions of people, isn’t a highly effective traffic generator like search. Here are some of the key reasons why:

  • Social shares are fleeting and can get drowned out easily.
  • Most users don’t go on a social platform, only then to click on different links that take them away from social.
  • Not everyone uses social media, whereas everyone uses a search engine of some kind when they’re in “investigative” mode.

That’s the thing:  People use SEO when they’re seeking answers and solutions — often in the form of a product or a service.  Unlike in social or online display advertising, there’s no need to “disrupt” the user’s intended activity.

And if you’re in the B-to-B realm, organic search even more prevalent:  Organic search drives ~73% of all web traffic there.

Even consumer categories like retail, entertainment and hospitality find that organic search is responsible for attracting 40% or more of all web traffic.

The takeaway for companies is that any marketing strategy that doesn’t adopt “content development” as a core tactic instead of an “ornamentation” is probably destined to fall well-short of its full potential.

The “App Gap”: Mobile Apps Overtake All Others in Digital Media Consumption

Phillip Nones Business, Demographics, Media, Media Consumption, Social Commentary, Social Media , , , , , , , , , ,

Mobile apps overtaking other digital media consumptionIt was bound to happen.

The bulk of time Americans are spending on digital media … is now happening on mobile applications.

According to data released this past week by Internet and digital analytics firm comScore, the combined time that people expend using digital media breaks down as follows:

  • Mobile apps: ~52% of all time spent online
  • Mobile web surfing: ~8%
  • Desktop: ~40%

Apps are clearly in the driver’s seat – particularly in the mobile realm.  In fact, comScore estimates that apps account for 7 out of every 8 minutes spent on mobile devices.

On smartphones, the app usage is ~88% of all time spent, whereas on tablets, it’s ~82%.

This doesn’t mean that app usage is spread evenly throughout the population of people who are online.  Far from it.  Only about one-third of people download one app per month or more.  (The average smartphone user is downloading about three apps per month.)

The inevitable conclusion:  App usage is highly concentrated among a subset of the population.

Indeed, the 7% most active smartphone owners account for almost half of all the download activity during any given month.

But even if most users aren’t downloading all that many apps … they are certainly engaged with the ones they do have on their devices:  comScore reports that nearly 60% are using apps every day.

Here again, the data show that usage levels are much higher among smartphone users than they are with tablet users (where only about one quarter of the people use apps daily).

Where they’re spending their time is also interesting.  Well over 40% of all app time spent on smartphones is with a user’s single most used app.  (Facebook takes top honors — of course.)

And if you combine social networking, games and Internet radio, you’ve pretty much covered the waterfront when it comes to app usage.

When you think about it, none of this should come as much surprise.  We’re a mobile society – hourly, daily, monthly and yearly.  It only makes sense that most online time is going to be happening when people are away from their home or their desk, now that it’s so easy to be connected so easily from even the tiniest mobile devices.

And speaking of “easy” … is it really any wonder why people would flock to apps?  It’s less hassle to open up an app for news or information rather than searching individual sites via mobile.  People simply don’t have the patience for that anymore.