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When it comes to advertising … the Super Bowl is supreme.

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Super Bowl XLVISuper Bowl ad placements have the reputation of being the most pricey ones on television. And based on an analysis by Kantar Media of Super Bowl ad activity over the past decade, that perception is quite accurate.

According to Kantar’s analysis, over the last ten years the Super Bowl game has generated more than $1.7 billion in network ad sales from more than ~125 companies.

Just five Super Bowl advertisers account for more than one-third of the activity, led by – no surprise here – Anheuser-Busch:

Anheuser-Busch: 10-year advertiser … ~$239 million
 PepsiCo: 10 years … ~$174 million
 General Motors: 8 years … ~$83 million
 Disney: 10 years … ~$74 million
 Coca Cola: 5 years … ~$67 million

It doesn’t seem that long ago when the rule of thumb was that a 30-second ad for the Super Bowl game would set you back one million dollars.

That’s not the case any longer. In fact, the average rate for a :30 ad increased by ~40% over the past decade, reaching $3.1 million in 2011.

[And for 2012, the ad rate is expected to be even higher at $3.5 to $4 million per spot — a double-digit increase.]

At such stratospheric prices, you’d expect only a handful of ads to be longer than 30 seconds. That’s true to a degree; only about one in five of the Super Bowl ads are :60 spots. But compare that to just ~6% of ads on broadcast networks being long-form.

And if it seems as if you’re seeing more advertising during the Super Bowl game than in years past … you’re not hallucinating. Back in 2006, the volume of commercial time for ads during the game was ~44 minutes. That rose to ~46 minutes as of 2011, and will probably continue to creep upward in 2012 and beyond.

Most Super Bowl advertisers are big consumer brands. But Kantar also finds that nearly one-third of Super Bowl advertisers allocate more than 10% of their annual media budgets into the game. Clearly, it’s not only the big Hollywood film studios, car companies or food brands that are shelling out the bucks for the Super Bowl.

Kantar Media also compared advertising volume for the Big Game against the dollar volume of ads placed during other major televised sports events, such as the Baseball World Series and the NCAA Final Four Mens Basketball. In nearly every year, the one-day Super Bowl out-pulled these multi-day sporting events when it comes to raking in the ad dollars.

To sum things up, even in the world of advertising where the only constant is change … some things don’t change all that much.

Digital Advertising Growth Forecasts: Rosy Scenarios on Steroids?

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Ad spend forecasts lower than projected.Isn’t it interesting how industry growth forecasts for emerging digital segments always start out looking stupendously stellar? Terms like “swelling demand” … “robust growth” … and “tipping point” often accompany these breathless predictions.

And of course, the business media are highly prone to report the news, as it underscores the fact that highly interesting things are afoot in the marketplace.

What’s done much less often is to go back at a later date and compare the growth forecasts to the actual performance.

But digital media company Digiday has done that, and if you think you remembered industry growth predictions that were a bit high on hyperbole … Digiday’s analysis reveals your memory is right on the money.

One market prognosticator – eMarketer – is often cited for its digital ad market predictions. But how accurate are they? Here’s how it forecast annual mobile ad spending in the United States:

 Prediction by eMarketer published in 2008: $5.2 billion in 2011
 Revised prediction from eMarketer restated in 2011: $1.2 billion
 Percent off-target: ~77%

And here’s how eMarketer forecast U.S. annual video ad spending:

 Prediction by eMarketer published in 2007: $4.3 billion in 2011
 Revised prediction from eMarketer restated in 2011: $2.2 billion
 Percent off target: ~49%

Granted, it is a challenge to forecast growth rates in digital advertising activity early on in the developmental cycle. But being off by such a dramatic degree makes the forecasts essentially worthless – and laughably so.

Another phenomenon may be at work as well. Invariably, the initial growth forecasts are too aggressive rather than too timid.

Why? Rosy forecasts tend to spark more interest from journalists, venture capitalists, publishers and others – and hence have a greater propensity to be published. So there may well be subtle pressure to “err on the plus side” when formulating the forecasts.

Digiday’s Jack Marshall poses that question, too, and then writes: “It’s important to think about where new markets and technologies are headed, but the ad industry often gets preoccupied and overexcited with what are essentially just guesses.”

As for the latest crop of (downwardly revised) growth estimates, Marshall adds: “Let’s reconvene in four years for the inevitable update.”

If you’re a betting person, you’d best wager on the revised figures being lower.

Wolfgang throws down the gauntlet on SOPA/PIPA and Internet privacy … Would anyone care to pick it up?

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Wolfgang NebmaierThe outcry concerning the enforcement provisions included in the pending SOPA (Stop Online Piracy Act) and PIPA (Protect Intellectual Property Act) legislation in Congress has been swift.

… And effective too, evidently, as numerous elected officials have scooted away from the legislation (including some who were once co-sponsors of the legislation.)

Among the more interesting commentary I’ve read from concerned citizens on this topic is a note I received from Wolfgang Nebmaier, an industry colleague who provides business translation services for corporations.

He has is an interesting perspective, I think, considering his background and business activities. Here are some excerpts from what he wrote me:

I am of German descent. This makes the issue of censorship very personal to me. During all times of state terrorism, free speech was not free. Instead, [an elaborate] spy system is established, as was the case with Hitler, and later Stalin, and later … anywhere.

To speak your mind without making sure the walls “have no ears” was potentially fatal. In fact, my father … barely escaped death, but only because he knew the side streets of Munich ‘like the back of his hand’ and was able to ditch his pursuers. He spent the remaining time of the Third Reich hiding – along with his uncle, who had escaped from Dachau – under the snow in a mountain cabin. Believe me, this history is engraved ‘deep in my DNA.’

In all cases of curtailed civil liberties, a perceived external threat is used to justify the big, crude hand of the state appropriating the role of protector …

And make no mistake, we already live in an extremely supervised state. There are more than ample mechanisms in place to monitor and watch people closely. As an example, PayPal, ‘the world’s most-loved way to pay and get paid,’ monitors and analyzes the amounts and subjects of all your money traffic. Recently, this led to a ‘friendly reminder’ to me that I had had too many transactions of a certain amount with a certain title; I was forced to justify all the amounts and the title.

So state censorship is just a law away. The infrastructure is already in place in terms of technology and people.

Every time an “authority” is created, inevitably it wants to prove itself necessary, assert itself and re-enforce its power. It will, sooner or later, be champing at the bit to ‘do its thing.’

Another tidbit: I am a translator and, as such, occasionally canvas job sites. Recently when I looked for translation jobs, there were just a few – except for a plethora of national security-related language analysis jobs. These are Blackwater-type, non-governmental government proxies hired to monitor whatever they are told to monitor – ‘just doing their job.’ The infrastructure of Big Brother watching every click we make is in place, my friend … way in place!

Regardless of what side you take in the SOPA/PIPA debate, the concerns raised by Wolfgang are well worth considering. They’re definitely food for thought for the 21st Century.

The companies everyone love to hate.

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Bad company ratingsIt seems that there are certain companies people like to criticize all the time. One that I’ve heard quite a bit of grumbling about in recent months is Comcast.

Now comes along a report from 24/7 Wall St, an equity investment data aggregator and investment firm, which has compiled a list of the “Ten Most Hated” companies in America.

Its list is based on reviewing a variety of qualitative and quantitative attributes. Companies were examined based on total return to shareholders in comparison to the broader market plus competitors in the same sectors.

Financial analyst opinions on publicly held companies were also reviewed, as well as findings from consumer surveys conducted by diverse sources (the University of Michigan’s American Customer Satisfaction Index, Consumer Reports, J.D. Power & Associates, ForeSee, etc.)

Also evaluated was the Flame Index, which uses an algorithm to review ~12,000 websites to rank companies based on the frequency of negative words and terms associated with them.

Lastly, an analysis of media coverage to determine the extent of negative and positive news coverage was conducted.

Stripping away such quasi-governmental agencies as the U.S. Post Office, Freddie Mac and Fannie Mae, it leaves us with an interesting list of the “worst of the worst.”

Some of the companies that made the 24/7 Wall St list – and the reasons for them achieving the dubious honor – include:

American Airlines – Not only has this airline filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy, it’s rated the worst airline for customer service. It’s performing at or near the bottom of the heap on attributes like on-time departures, flight cancellations, and baggage handling problems. American Airlines’ University of Michigan ACS index of 63 is dramatically lower than Southwest – the industry’s leader which scored an 81 on the index.

Facebook – This behemoth may claim a user base of 800 million+, but that doesn’t stop people from having major grievances with the company. A recent customer satisfaction survey conducted by IBOPE Zogby found that ~30% of users consider Facebook’s customer service to be “poor.” (Anyone who has ever actually tried to interface with the company might be tempted to ask, “What customer service?” Facebook has also received negative press coverage for sneakily instituting, with no warning, privacy settings that change how it shares personal information with others.

Best Buy – This company is still smarting over self-inflicted problems during the holiday season when it ran out of popular merchandise it sold online … then neglected to inform buyers of the fact until just two days before Christmas. The retailer’s explanations (excuses?) seemed lame. It’s one reason ForeSee dropped Best Buy from being the second-ranked company for retail satisfaction prior to the holiday season (just behind Amazon). Now Best Buy is ranked so poorly, it no longer appears among the Top 20 national retailers. To make matters worse, Forbes magazine predicts that Best Buy is a prime candidate for simply disappearing … the only question is whether it will happen before or after Sears/Kmart bites the dust.

Netflix – Here’s a company that’s gone from the “highest of the high” to the “lowest of the low” in one fell swoop. Instituting dramatically higher pricing in August 2011 resulted in the rapid loss of more than 800,000 Netflix subscribers … accompanied by the company’s stock price plummeting 30% from over $300 per share to $215 in under six months (and more than 60% for the full year).

Johnson & Johnson – When an iconic brand like J&J can manage to have a slew of two dozen product recalls over a two-year period – including with Motrin and Children’s Tylenol – it’s bound to have a dramatic impact on company performance and reputation. The FDA took over three Tylenol plants in March 2011, and OTC drug sales are off double digits compared to the previous year. While J&J’s stock price hasn’t tanked in the event, it has remained flat – which is horrendous performance compared to the rest of the pharma industry.

For the record, the five other companies named to 24/7 Wall St.’s “Ten Worst” list were:

 AT&T
 Bank of America
 Goldman Sachs
 Nokia
 Sears

… And I’m sure all of us can think of reasons why these also gained entry onto the “rogue’s gallery” of corporations.

The employment cunundrum: “Workers, workers everywhere … and ‘nary one to hire.”

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Labor shortage in the midst of high unemploymentThese days, conservative estimates are that ~13 million Americans are seeking employment. And yet, more U.S. companies are reporting that they can’t find qualified workers to fill their open positions.

In fact, more than half of American employers surveyed by Manpower Group, a leading staffing group, report that they’re having trouble hiring qualified workers. That’s nearly 40% higher than what was reported in the company’s 2010 survey.

The most obvious reason for the incongruity is the disconnect between the background and capabilities of available workers and the skill sets companies are seeking.

But there may be a few other factors at work as well. Spokespersons for Manpower Group suspect the following:

 The 2009 recession made it very easy for companies to find qualified candidates … but those days are now over.

 Employers are less willing to invest the time or dollar resources to train new employees for specialized or unique work.

 Employers may be less willing to hire candidates from outside their area so as to avoid incurring relocation expenses … even as job candidates may also be less willing to consider moving because of the soft housing market.

Melanie Holmes, a Manpower vice president, puts it this way: “Employers are getting pickier and pickier. We want the perfect person to walk through the door.” She and other specialists contend that companies need to get more realistic about the situation and react accordingly.

The Manpower survey results were part of a large global research study of ~40,000 employers worldwide. The trends it sees of greater difficulties in hiring were clearly evident in several other countries, besides just the U.S. (India, U.K. and Germany), whereas in China the trend was just the opposite.

More results from the 2011 Manpower Group survey can be found here.

Internet advertising: Blue smoke and mirrors?

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Online advertising spurious claimsIn today’s online world, marketers can’t afford to do advertising the old fashioned way. They need to rely on automated programs that serve ads to the right audiences in cyberspace.

One question I hear often from business leaders is to what degree of confidence should they place in these automated programs to actually deliver what is promised. There’s a nagging concern that some of the promises might be a bit more like “blue smoke and mirrors.”

As it turns out, some of that concern may be well-placed. Here’s one recent example of problems along these lines. And Trust Metrics, an online media rating firm, has studied more than 500,000 unique web domains – in effect, “taking inventory of the ad inventory.” And what it’s found is pretty sobering.

For starters, the online ad inventory supply is marked by dynamic change and constant evolution. Approximately 20% of the domains studied by Trust Metrics in late 2010 don’t even exist anymore as of the end of 2011. Tens of thousands of sites that may have once been vetted by agencies or networks are gone. There is no content at these domains … or they’re simply “ad farms.”

Trust Metrics claims that never have so many marketers purchased so much online ad inventory in an environment that is so degraded, a significant portion of the domains might not even be around a few months from now.

Moreover, approximately 10% of the domains Trust Metric evaluated that sell ad impressions in scaled buying environments (e.g., exchanges and networks) are actually non-English language sites – hardly valuable places to advertise. Plus, that represents more domain names than those identified as pornographic, or containing significant profanity or hate speech.

Trust Metrics’ evaluation also found that well over half of the sites available in large ad networks are what it classifies as “substandard environments which don’t adhere to even the barest minimum in publishing or editorial principles.

The bottom line on this is that of for 1 million domains that sell ads … most advertisers wouldn’t want to be on ~600,00 of them!

Of course, the flip side of this is that there are thousands of sites that do perform for advertisers – and those “good” sites drive valuable clickthroughs, sales and brand building.

But clearly, advertisers would be well advised to adopt a “buyer beware” stance in the current online advertising environment.

Jobless Americans and Gallows Humor …

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Jobless AmericansThere’s a funny-yet-sobering ditty bounding about cyberspace that chronicles a day in the life of an unemployed American looking for work.

Whether it’s the alarm clock, the coffee pot, clothing, appliances, the car and the gasoline it takes to run it, everything with which this person interfaces during the course of the day comes from overseas – especially China or some other East Asian country.

For those of you who haven’t encountered this satirical little piece yet, you can read it here.

Dana Bales, an industry colleague of mine who is a managing partner at Dayton, OH-based NEO Marketing Communications, reacted to this joke by noting a few key points about China. He writes:

I’m a free trade advocate. I absolutely support NAFTA. But for the life of me, I don’t get our trade relationship with China. Let me get this straight:

 China imposes trade barriers to many of our goods and services.

 China allows its industries to pollute with impunity, keeping its costs for manufactured goods lower while adding to atmospheric and oceanic pollution.

 China allows its citizens and companies to rip off non-Chinese patents.

 Although experts may disagree on the degree of impact, China manipulates its currency to benefit its own export goods.

 China actively supports efforts to hack into U.S. corporate and defense systems, stealing untold billions of dollars’ worth of technology.

 China uses American dollars to subsidize its own industries.

Food for thought, indeed – even if you don’t agree with every single one of Bales’ statements.

It would be nice, too, if our government and trade officials could focus on coming up with some workable solutions to these issues. I think we’d all be happier if we could relegate this sort of gallows humor to the literary trash can!

What’s the Latest in Content Creation for B-to-B Marketers?

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Content creationThere’s an interesting new study just published that gives us interesting clues about what B-to-B marketers are doing in content creation.

The B2B Content Marketing: 2012 Benchmarks, Budgets & Trends study is a joint research effort of the Content Marketing Institute and marketing information resources firm MarketingProfs. The survey found that nine out of ten B-to-B marketers are using some form of content marketing activities to achieve their business goals.

[For this survey, content marketing (also known as custom publishing or branded content) is defined as “the creation and distribution of educational and/or compelling content in multiple formats to attract and/or retain customers.”]

The research found that usage of several content tactics is now quite widespread:

 News articles: ~79% of respondents are using
 Social media (excluding blogs): ~74%
 Blogs: ~65%
 e-Newsletters: ~63%
 Case studies: ~58%
 In-person events: ~56%
 Videos: ~52%
 White papers: ~51%
 Webinars or webcasts: ~46%

When queried as to how effective marketers believe these tactics to be, a combination of traditional and “new” ones were cited with high effectiveness scores:

 In-person events: ~78% view as an “effective” tactic
 Case studies: ~70
 Webinars or webcasts: ~70%
 e-Newsletters: ~60%
 White papers: ~60%
 Blogs: ~58%
 Web microsites: ~56%
 Articles: ~51%
 Social media: ~51%
 Videos: ~51%

The survey also investigated how content tactics are being measured for success. Tracking web traffic stats is the most popular measurement tool:

 Web traffic: ~58% use to measure success
 Sales lead quality: ~49% use
 Direct sales figures: ~41% use
 Sales lead quantity: ~41% use
 Qualitative feedback from customers: ~40% use
 Search engine rankings: ~40% use
 Inbound weblinks: ~30% use

And what is the biggest challenge these marketers see in content creation? It’s the age-old problem of coming up with interesting topics to write about.

More than four in ten respondents cited “producing the kind of content that engages prospects and customers” as their biggest challenge.

Some of the comments heard from survey respondents on this topic sound all-too-familiar:

 “Finding people within my organization to contribute their expertise … nobody outside of marketing seems to see the value in sharing our expertise with the market via content.”

 “Having the discipline and being able to assign sufficient resources to create and manage the right content for the target audience, in a sustainable manner.”

 “The ideas are all there; it’s just a matter of finding time to create and write copy.”

 “Management patience: Management needs to understand that in today’s B-to-B environment, it takes time to engage prospects.”

What about your situation? Are your content management issues the same ones as reported in this study … or are you facing different challenges?

Convention centers: Where the laws of supply and demand don’t seem to matter.

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McCormick Place, Chicago, IL

For those of us in the business world, it comes as no surprise that conventions and trade shows are in significant decline. While they’re not exactly on life support, we’ve witnessed convention attendance drop pretty significantly over the past decade.

In fact, the decline in the United States has been more than 30% — from 125 million attendees in 2000 to just 86 million in 2010.

It’s not hard to understand why. The “shocks and hard knocks” of the economy have contributed, of course. But in addition to this, the ways people communicate have been changed forever by the online/interactive revolution.

With lean staffing — who has time anymore to take four days away from the office? – plus the ability to congregate easily online in virtual forums and meetings, the need for face-to-face interaction just isn’t the same as it once was.

With such a steep decline in trade show attendance, one wouldn’t expect that investment in new or updated convention centers would be high on the agenda, correct?

Think again. Even as cities and their convention centers are competing for a shrinking pool of convention-goers, they’ve continued on an expansion binge – paid for by hapless taxpayers.

You don’t have to look hard to see example after example of initiatives that make essentially no economic sense, being undertaken by cities in a form of one-upsmanship that is reminiscent of that famous Irving Berlin song, “Anything you can do, I can do better.”

At McCormick Place in Chicago – the convention venue everyone loves to hate – the city has invested heavily in expansions and upgrades in recent years. In 2007, a new $900 million expansion was completed … and today McCormick Center is running at 55% capacity. Swell, fellas.

Closer to where I live, Baltimore City built a brand new, city-owned hotel to the tune of $300 million, thinking it would improve the sagging fortunes of its convention center. Opened in 2008, the hotel has managed to lose money in every successive year – as much as ~$11 million in 2010.

So what is Baltimore’s reaction? It’s now considering putting together a new public-private initiative that will add an arena, yet another convention hotel, plus an additional ~400,000 square feet of convention space. The cost in public money? “Only” about $400 million.

From Boston to Austin and from Columbus to Phoenix, public officials dupe themselves into believing that if only they upgrade or expand their convention facilities, they’ll see robust growth that meets or exceeds optimistic projections of increased hotel bookings and other ancillary economic activity.

Time and again, they’re wrong. And not just because of the economy or changing business practices. When every other city is expanding right along with you, no one is going to attract more than their fair share of any additional business potential that may be out there.

I love what Jeff Jacoby, an op-ed columnist for the Boston Globe, had to say about the newest efforts to expand Boston’s convention center (along with a ~$200 million price tag in new public subsidies), even after a less-than-stellar 2004 improvement initiative fell woefully short of the predicted new convention activity.

“The whole thing is a racket,” Jacoby stated. “Once again, the politicos will expand their empire. Once again, crony capitalism will enrich a handful of wired business operators. And once again, ‘Joe and Jane Taxpayer’ will pay through the nose. How many times must we see this movie before we finally shut it off?”

How many times, indeed.

The 24/7 Work Week

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The 24/7 work weekIf you’re thinking that work demands are increasingly encroaching on your life at home … you’re not alone.

According to the U.S. Department of Labor’s Bureau of Labor Statistics in survey results released earlier this summer, more Americans are using their weekends to get more done on the job. The results came from a survey that involved interviews with ~13,200 people over the age of 15.

Non-self-employed persons in office or administrative positions are less likely to be working on weekends. Only 20% of those folks report doing weekend work, compared to ~82% of them working on weekdays either full- or part-time.

But on a typical working day, nearly one in four employed Americans reported that they do at least some of their work at home. Not surprisingly, self-employed people are likely to do so, but those working in business management are more likely to do so as well.

The BLS reports that employed men spend, on average, 8 hours and 9 minutes per day on work or work-related activities. That’s a bit more time than employed women spend on work-related activities (their daily average was 7 hours and 26 minutes).

However, the trajectory appears to be upward for women and downward for men … so it may not be long before any difference between the genders completely disappears.

And for those people who work more than one job … that’s where weekends have lost most of their meaning as a time for R&R, because fully half of the people with multiple jobs find themselves working weekends.

As things evolve, it’s becoming pretty clear that the “Protestant Work Ethic” for which our society is so well known remains pretty robust, 200+ years on.

It reminds me of how a teacher of Russian History explained things to us students in class at Vanderbilt University back in my college years. Speaking of Southern Europe, this professor claimed, “People work to live” … whereas in Northern Europe, “They live to work.”

For some folks, as their working years grind on, they might be thinking that the whole enterprise has become a little sucky. But hopefully, most of us are performing tasks we like or love, so that it doesn’t seem quite so much like “work” … or apply whatever other coping mechanism does the trick!