Oct
31st

Halloween Million Dollar Treat

Posted by Leah on October 31, 2008 at 10:25 am

If you haven’t already eaten the goodies you bought for trick-or-treaters tonight, it’s safe to assume we’ll all be eyeing the unwanted leftovers of Good n’ Plentys, Bit o’ Honeys and Candy Corn to curb our sugar fix from the weekend.

My personal favorites are Milky Way Bars and 3 Musketeers – and I’m sad to say that neither hopped on the Pay-Per-Click train to promote Halloween. Especially since Mars, Inc. (M&Ms, Twix, Milky Way, 3 Musketeers, Snickers etc.) is having a $1,000,000 Halloween cash giveaway.

Image: Halloween Candy by rochelle, et. al.

I searched [Halloween candy] in Google, and Hershey’s Gifts, Jelly Belly and BulkFoods.com positioned in the top three paid search positions, followed by Toucandy.com, Girardelli.com and CandyWarehouse.com. I went further and searched [Halloween], [Halloween treats], [Halloween goodies], and [Halloween Giveaway] and none of Mars, Inc. candies were listed in either Paid or Natural.

The Mars, Inc. Halloween promotion had a special Web site created: Halloweenmillion.com. If a user enters their contact information they’re automatically registered to win a $100 – $500 Visa pre-paid credit card. The user can go further into the site and register to win the $1,000,000 cash giveaway with a UPC code. The more UPCs entered the better chance at winning. If the user doesn’t have a UPC, the site allows a single entry by entering Halloween. With such a large amount of money being given away, it’s a scary shame Mars, Inc. did not more thoroughly promote this campaign with PPC.

That’s one of the greatest benefits about paid search; there is more control with timely promotions similar to the Mars, Inc. giveaway. There’s more control over the message given, the position in which the promoter wants to be and the landing page. Basically, if you have an upcoming Holiday promotion or an event you simply want to advertise – use Paid search. There is a faster turnaround, and more control in terms of position, message and landing page.

In conclusion, I’m going to leave you with a treat. If you’re handing out candy (hopefully not Good n’ Plentys or Bit o’ Honeys) or taking your kids trick-or-treating tonight, think about the next sensitive promotion or upcoming event that your company wants to promote online. Paid search will give you the control needed for a successful campaign.

Oh, and pretend I just handed you a Snickers bar. Boo!

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Oct
30th

Shop Early & Often This Holiday Season

Posted by Vern on October 30, 2008 at 1:05 pm

Enough with the gloom and doom already! Is anyone else out there as sick and tired of the steady drumbeat of the impending “economic apocalypse” from the media as I am?

Last time I checked, 94% of Americans had jobs. 98% of us weren’t losing our homes to foreclosure. Gasoline prices continue to fall. I filled my gas tank for less than $30 this morning, for crying out loud.

Other prices are coming down as well. This holiday season could be one of the best on record for gift buyers and gift recipients.

santa and ralphie

You may ask – has Vern lost his mind? Nobody’s that optimistic. And what’s this all have to do with paid search anyway? Well, read on, all you shopping neophytes. The silver lining in the storm clouds of recession is price competition. And the internet – your “A” ticket to shopping Nirvana.

Why the admonition to Shop Early? Shortages of this year’s “hot” gifts are likely as manufacturers have cut production, fearing the recession will dampen demand. C’mon guys, this is America, we’re all hard-wired from birth to be the consumption engine for the planet. Nevertheless, once you’ve finalized your shopping list, get busy! Get online!

Retailers, online and brick and mortars, are falling all over themselves to compete on price. In a land where almost everything we buy has become a commodity, the only ways to effectively compete are through price and convenience. The success of Wal-Mart, Sam’s Club and Costco are testament to pricing. The internet makes shopping convenient.

How’s a shopper to find the best prices efficiently, without spending endless hours jumping from website to website? Well, you have to know what you’re looking for.

Zero in on a manufacturer and product name. Model number helps as well. Then go to Google and perform a very narrow search. A less specific search like: Garmin GPS won’t do. Enter something like: Garmin nuvi 205W GPS in the Google text box. Google will serve up a results page with extremely relevant, targeted results and make price comparisons a snap. Check out the Shopping Results link. Comparing shipping details is less transparent, but be sure to confirm shipping costs and time to delivery.

The Shop Often portion of the title should be obvious. We all need to do our part to avoid a recession and prove the pundits wrong. Don’t let all the talk of hard times become a self-fulfilling prophecy. Max out those credit cards! Interest rates came down again this week. Yippie!

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Oct
29th

Google Tests Brain Waves of YouTube Viewers

Posted by admin on October 29, 2008 at 11:46 am

Ok, so it might not be as creepy as it sounds, but it is true. Google, in conjunction with MediaVest, a media specialist company, recently partnered with NeuroFocus, an advertising research firm that specializes in neuroscience.

The reported reason for the partnership is to gauge the effectiveness of YouTube’s InVideo overlay ads by analyzing viewer brain waves.

InVideo overlay ads occupy the bottom third of YouTube videos, are semi-transparent, and can include animation. Clicking the ad opens a new video player, while pausing the original video.

Here’s an example:

Google launched these overlay ads last year in an attempt to compliment and assist more traditional advertising.

Now Google is hoping to better understand YouTube user behavior and get a more accurate feel of the influence these ads have on YouTubers. Using a small sampling of people, Google and NeuroFocus tested various behavior and reactions to these ads through skin response, eye movement, pupil dilation, and an EEG brain scan.

The results of these studies hope to show how the subconscious brain works and the effects it has on the conscious brain. Don’t worry, the whole process may sound like the next great Steven King thriller, but in essence… it wasn’t that fun! In order to test these behaviors, sensors were placed on the participant’s heads as they viewed and interacted with YouTube.

brain scanner from brainstorm

Now, typically, you may think that a simple click-through rate would be able to effectively track the success of overlay ads. However, since InVideo ads are designed to be non-intrusive, they generate a need for a form of reporting that goes beyond what a click-through rate can give them. Therefore, as Leah Spalding, the Advertising Research Manager for Google explains, they needed more of a technologically sensitive approach.

Click through was important.. but since we’re looking at brand impact, it’s not enough to just look at the click through rate (CTR). CTR will not give us any indication as far as how memorable an ad is, or metrics on brand impact, etc. For these reasons it’s important to include and consider CTR but to look beyond that.

According to NeuroScience and Google, the results of the brain wave readings showed that the overlay ads have a high level of engagement, enough to influence user behavior as well as improve overall brand response, with scores that ranked above the typical results of a NeuroScience evaluation. (This information was presented in a Webinar that aired October 23, 2008.)

However, Yaakov Kimelfeld, Ph.D., Digital Research and Analytics Director at MediaVest, conveyed that this type of testing is not proven to be an accurate measurement of advertising’s true emotional impact; but, it is something that researchers are working on.

For now I think we are safe from Google brain wave scanners coming through our computer screens and filtering through our thoughts and web behavior. While this type of research is new in the online ad space, it may not be long until advertisers begin jumping on the brain wave bandwagon in order to potentially eliminate the guess work in advertising.

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Oct
28th

Android Has Arrived

Posted by Chip on October 28, 2008 at 1:43 pm

After much fanfare, the T-Mobile G1, the world’s first Android based smartphone, was released on the 22nd of this month.

For those of you who aren’t familiar, Android is an open sourced software stack for mobile devices which includes an operating system, middleware and applications. Backed by Google, Android’s arrival has been anxiously awaited since the rumors of the Google phone first started to surface a couple of years ago.

After this much anticipation, it would have been very easy for the release to dissapoint. However that was not the case at all. In an interview with Mercury News, Peter Chou, chief executive and co-founder of HTC, who’s the actual manufacturer of the G1 device, stated that he expects to ship more than 600,000 devices this year alone and that he feels confident in their ability to compete with the iPhone in the growing smartphone market.

The rush by opportunistic eBay sellers to turn these devices for a profit, including unlocked versions that are reportedly going for as much as $1,000, has certainly matched the similar mania that followed the release of the iPhone. So if this can be considered a type of litmus test, it certainly looks like the G1, and the Android platform for that matter, are off to a great start.

That’s not to say that there haven’t been a couple of glitches during the initial release, including a security flaw that was found in the device’s web browser and reportedly already has a patch in development. There’s a thread over at T-Mobile where it seems people are having all sorts of problems with the POP3/IMAP email service.

But despite these bumps in the road, which I for one tend to both expect and accept with any new launch, the device seems very cool. Not to mention eerily similar to the images that surfaced in many places, including right here, over a year ago speculating as to what the rumored “gPhone” might look like.

I for one am pleased to see the Android release, not only because of devices like the G1, but because as an open sourced platform, it’s sure to lead to many cool mobile apps to talk about in the future.

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Oct
27th

Oneupweb Shopping Cart Parade Benefits Salvation Army

Posted by admin on October 27, 2008 at 10:33 am

Please don’t get the food wet.

This was my mantra last Friday as I dodged rain drops while pushing a cart of food over a mile. I had a basket full of boxed rice, spaghetti, oatmeal and canned goods that I wanted to get safely to the Salvation Army Food Kitchen, better known as Sal’s Kitchen.

What was I doing pushing a cart of food when it was raining? Well, it only sprinkled a bit and who can really predict Michigan weather anyway – NOT ME. My cart was just one of 36 pushed by Oneupweb employees to help stock the local Traverse City food pantry.

Oneupweb Donation by Adam Renault
Photo Credit: Adam Renault

Like many pantries across the country, it too has been affected by the economic downturn. As more people are faced with hard times, they go to Sal’s for a little help. But who helps Sal’s? That’s what our CEO, Lisa Wehr, was thinking about a week ago when she decided her company needed to lend a hand.

I have to say it was the most creative food donation I have ever made. Not that food donations need to be creative and entertaining, but actively pushing a cart of food and loading it into a Salvation Army truck made me feel so much more involved with helping a worthwhile cause.

Photo Credit: Adam Renault

Anyone can write a check. Not everyone can maneuver a cart with a mind of its own, missing pot holes by a fraction of an inch! For me, physically pushing a cart and filling a truck to proactively help someone in need was incredibly satisfying.

I also have to admit that I don’t think about food donations until around Thanksgiving. Lisa’s idea got me thinking about just how important it is to help these pantries before the holidays, especially now, when times are tough for many.

Oneupweb Donation by Adam Renault
Photo Credit: Adam Renault

So if you find a few spare cans of peas, or boxes of cereal, please think about your local Salvation Army. It doesn’t have to get there creatively, it just has to get there.

Update: Here’s a little video of Oneupweb’s shopping cart parade.