2010: The Year of *Audience* Targeting

In my last post, I said there might not have been a huge dominating story that defined 2009 in digital marketing. After all, ad spend growth was minimal, total audience growth was minimal and platform growth was not dramatic despite the continued but predictable growth in mobile.

The story of 2009 was not a dramatic one, though as I previously wrote it's tough to ignore the impact of NBC/Comcast. The story of 2009 is a continuing saga, specifically the improvements on basic audience targeting such as semantic targeting, contextual targeting and some different spins on buying them such as real-time bidding. At FOX, we have been a leader when it comes to targeting and we have incorporated these updates into our platform at a pace that allows our advertisers to keep pace with them. The story, and it is significant, is about that pace. I have noticed an acceptance of targeting as a strategy and an urgency toward adopting it. This will continue to attract big brands, bigger budgets and consistent revenue streams that will feed the biggest story of 2010: Record internet revenue growth.

The *Audience* Tops 2009 News

I'm not really sure that there was a single story of the year for 2009. I'll discuss the ramifications of that in my next blog post. But for the purposes of this one, I'd have to say there was a lot for content, and marketing executives to chew on, as a result of the Comcast/ NBC Universal deal. The reason for selecting it as the top news event is simple but not obvious: audience.

That's right. Even though there's the drama of big names and big money and the possible boost it will give to interactive TV, this deal is most significant for its game-changing creation of a huge and engaged audience. Take it from a competitor of this new company, it is the size and quality of the audience that will position it as a leader in the digital marketing space. Comcast brings its cable properties, for sure, but it also brings its addressable audience of active online users. NBC, you could argue, will gain a new audience for its online content from this deal, and that audience is extremely valuable.

The combination of content and audience will comprise a most formidable online ad vehicle next year, and for years to come. The TV networks are well-positioned to play here; portals are still trying to catch up. I don't think any marketer can lose on insisting on excellence and optimization in both areas.

Cross-Promoting to Keep The Concept Store Alive

I have a very hard-won perspective on the concept of retail cross-promotion. Early on in my career I worked in the consumer electronics publishing space. I’ve seen how retail display has evolved over the years, as one time powerhouses like Circuit City crashed and online innovators like NewEgg flourished. One of the more brilliant ideas was the "concept" store. Niketown has mastered it, and so has other leisure retailers like Bass ProShops and Cabela’s.  BestBuy did a nice job with it, but was hit by the recession hard. I guess Nokia was too, because it recently announced that its concept store in New York City was headed for closure. According to The New York Times, “it is a sign its retail strategy of flashy brand-booster outlets is needing a refresh.” I don’t agree.


I think Nokia is looking at its concept stores the wrong way. To my way of thinking, big concept stores are big monuments to brands. They are brick-and-mortar brands and as such, need to be supported by cross-promotional campaigns. The Internet is easily the best way to do this. I’m not privy to the overhead involved with Manhattan real estate, but I can tell you that the Nokia store was a great display for what the company could do with various segments of its customer base from the basic phone for kids to the diamond-encrusted case for the hoi polloi. Current targeting technologies can take that "concept" store and make it a conceptual online retail destination. Target the kids to check the store out, and then direct them to the more tactical Nokia.com. Target the hoi polloi for a sweepstakes that includes a trip to NYC and an exclusive tour of the store.

I think retail concepts are still great ideas. Not every brand is going to be able to be Apple and combine abstract concept with brick-and-mortar commerce. Even Nike seems to value display and cool factor over actual purchase at its stores. Nothing wrong with that. In fact, it’s something the audience you might be neglecting online might like to see.

The Big CPG Opportunity

Here’s a prediction: One of the non-stories of 2009 will be a big story for 2010. That story involves consumer packaged goods companies and their use of social media. If you noticed a few weeks ago, eMarketer reported that consumer packaged goods companies and social media are “not an easy mix. CPGs have legacy marketing techniques that focus on reaching mass audiences, and the ways they measure marketing and sales success simply do not mesh with the types of measurements that social media can offer,” eMarketer wrote.

That will change in a hurry. I’m not just talking about the obvious involvements with Twitter and Facebook. The digital marketing industry seems to have forgotten that there’s a lot of branded content opportunity and innovation still available on MySpace and YouTube. In fact, I think CPG companies will further embrace MySpace and YouTube next year because they are better fits for their branded content opportunities. It’s easier to be innovative with a longer form “palette” if you will, to stretch out and tell a brand story that can then be spread virally. If you’ll remember it’s where CPG companies started on social media, and they wont forget the opportunities and successes that they found there.


The disconnect that has been well documented presents an opportunity. Social media, like any network of websites worth their salt, represents a unique conduit to a targeted audience at an efficient price. CPG companies have been after that since the early days of soap operas.

The Baton, Officially, Passed To A New *Digital* Age.

I started out in the publishing business as a political reporter in NY in the early 1980s. I met some amazing people in 1982, including Mario Cuomo and Ed Koch. I was also introduced that year to Editor & Publisher magazine. E&P was the bible of the newspaper business and I read it, religiously, as I climbed the ranks from reporter to city editor and, ultimately, to editor in 1985. When I moved to the advertising side of the publishing business in 1986, E&P was still a must read. As a publisher, E&P was my go-to resource on all aspects of the magazine business from circulation to technology.

When I learned earlier this month that Editor & Publisher was publishing its final issue, I felt as if I had lost an old friend. E&P dates back to the late 1800s when William Randolph Hearst and Joseph Pulitzer were battling it out for newspaper supremacy in many major U.S. cities, including New York. Clearly, the fact that Editor & Publisher will not see another year is no surprise. It is a magazine (not the best business to be in today) about the newspaper industry (an industry that has been under ridiculous pressure from the Internet for the past decade). But, none the less, it was like a punch in the gut; for someone who read it from cover-to-cover for so many years.

Ironically, the things I learned from the pages of E&P helped me greatly even after I joined Yahoo! in 1999. When, for instance, I was handed an all color, PepsiStuff redemption booklet, by Pepsi's John Vail, and asked to help him build Pepsistuff.com my knowledge of "the five p's of publishing" immediately kicked in. To E&P -- thanks for the knowledge base and thanks for the memories, my dear friend -- with your passing, the baton has, officially, been passed to a new *digital* age.

The Best Game in Town!

I’m not a huge fan of industry wide prognostications. Like everyone else I view them as a barometer that may reflect what my team sees in the market... or it may just be a statistic that reflects good or bad market conditions.


I happen to think market conditions for internet advertising are excellent right now. So when I see numbers such as this month's view from Nielsen showing a .5 percent dropoff for the Internet, I get concerned. Like anything else that aspires to exceed economic expectations in 2009, Internet advertising has fallen short. Why? Well, if you look at the sharp hits taken in automotive, financial service and pharmaceutical marketing, it’s hard to shape any kind of uptick.

But while overall numbers are down, let’s not lose sight of the targeting factor. Internet advertising has grown and will continue to grow because it can target customers at various points in their engagement and purchase lifecycles. Until other media can do that, good old fashioned audience targeting is the best game in town.

Excite, Connect, Create...

As I understand them, the goals of advertising are to create excitement around a product, connect the product to customers, and hopefully create new customers. If I’m right, I have a great job. The digital brand experience does create new customers, according to November’s FEED: The Razorfish Digital Brand Experience Report. Fully 64% of consumers surveyed made their first purchase from a brand because of a digital experience - either with a website, microsite, mobile coupon or email. The agency and publisher surveyed 1,000 "connected consumers" about how Internet technologies and services affect the way they engage with brands and make purchasing decisions. This group, which is defined as having access to broadband and spending a specified amount of time and money online, used to be the digitally-savvy minority, but in the past year it has become the new mainstream. Today, roughly 200 million U.S. consumers fall into this category. 

Some key findings include an obsession with discounts, which can call into question the overall value of the customers you’re attracting. But targeting technology allows you to see that value by some the analytics metrics that show much more than click-thrus. Consumers are largely engaging with brands to receive exclusive promotions or discounts. Of those who follow a brand on Twitter, 44% say that access to good deals is the main reason. The survey also found that digital can make or break a brand. 65% of consumers say a digital experience, either positive or negative, changed their opinion of a brand. And in that group, almost all (97%) indicated their experience influenced whether or not they eventually purchased that brand. These numbers are hard to argue with.