Posts filed under 'Advertising'
Blyk have just carried out one of their regular Insight discussion groups with members and, not for the first time, participants said they felt time-pressured in their lives and wanted short cuts to information. The Blyk generation (16-24s) gets a pretty negative press but many are packing in studying, jobs, living independently for the first time and, quite reasonably, want some social life too. Maybe it’s not surprising then that they feel too busy, running between tasks, to notice advertising along the way: in an early piece of Blyk research one participant mentioned that she never got to see bands she liked because she was too busy to pay attention to posters and other advertising.
But it may not just be a question of being too busy. In dealing with the range of advertising impinging upon them, consumers make systematic decisions about what to pay attention to and what to ignore, when they can give attention and when not, and whether the risks of giving attention outweigh the benefits. Research (in 2005) by CBS, on the attention London commuters give to advertising in different media, highlighted some of the decisions that people make:
- they welcome and pay attention to advertising on transport (which fills in down-time and gives a focus for their attention on crowded buses and trains), but dislike billboard posters
- many like cinema advertising (they’re relaxed, it’s part of the show) but dislike TV commercials (which get in the way of focused viewing)
- internet advertising fares poorly compared to other media and is far more likely to be avoided (like TV advertising, it interrupts users’ focus but, additionally, users are wary of the outcomes of clicking through to advertisers’ sites).
There is complexity, though. What people attend to may not be what they act on. TV advertising may be disliked, but it is seen as more up-to-date than other media; it’s also more memorable and more likely to be acted on.
The CBS research pre-dates Blyk but it’s interesting to consider how mobile advertising might rate compared to other media. The positive news for Blyk is that the research found that 16-24s are more likely to see advertising as useful, compared to other age groups. Mobile advertising has the advantage of potential for personalisation so it can be focused on 16-24s’ interests. As we know, teens use their mobile phones to fill in down-time, to keep in touch with friends, and (occasionally) to browse the web; it’s something to do, a focus of attention. So mobile advertising shares some of the benefits of transport advertising in its availability in those in-between times. Beyond that, mobile ads have the same benefit of being up-to-date that TV advertising brings. So they should not only get attention, but also prompt action.
SMS and MMS seems to fit the bill for Blyk’s target group, with the potential both to reach them and prompt action. But mobile advertising is still challenged by users’ reluctance to click through to the web to browse content. Any general mistrust of advertiser web sites is amplified by concern about costs (everyone seems to know someone who has racked up astronomical browsing bills) and, often, a poor user experience of the sites themselves. 16-24s often don’t have up-to-date handsets (despite the stereotype of their obsession with gadgets) so any browsing they do may lack the exuberance of users with the latest technology. So while the Blyk model of sponsored links to click through from SMS and MMS seems to work, the expectation of more general browsing may not.
A white paper by Mobile Economy calls on Blyk (and any other ad-funded mobile network) to start innovating tariffs for mobile browsing in order to provide more useful services than currently. But at the moment 16-24s seem to be sending a strong, conservative signal about how much browsing they want to do. A survey by AppTrigger reports that in January 2008 people, generally, were using their phones in a similar way to in 2003. On the up-side for the industry, 62% of 16-24s have downloaded music or games. But it’s quite a step from downloading a game to phone browsing.
Blyk’s Insight group want Blyk to ‘make my life easier’. So would free browsing stack up in attracting members compared, say, to simply providing more free talk time? It could bring useful information to them, at times they are open to accessing it. But, it may hit precisely the ‘Opportunity or Attention Compression’ Alex describes in her post. Without the momentum of users’ experience and trust, offering it would be something of a leap of faith.
Link to AppTrigger data from Usability News
March 23rd, 2008
Improveverywhere (IE), the informal flash mobbing group that stages ‘missions’ in public places (mass standstill on Grand Central Station, synchro swimming in Washington Square Park fountain etc.), has posted a video of their most recent event: a spontaneous musical by ’staff’ in the food court of a Los Angeles mall. It struck a chord with me because at high-school my clique of friends dreamed of a similar outburst in the class room or on the hockey pitch (but of course we never carried it out in those deferential, British, pre-Hairspray days). If you look at IE’s blog most comments are full of admiration for the food court video; but one or two see this mission as a departure from IE’s core of informal, inclusive activities. Typically, IE’s missions are organised via internet (their web site, social networking) and mobile phone. Participants (‘agents’) turn up on the day ready to do what’s necessary, and it works, more or less. The food court mission required a song to be written, a day’s rehearsal, negotiations with the mall authorities, and a team of actors who could sing and dance. Instead of IE’s typical compilations of unsteady video clips after the event, a professional-looking edit was posted. And the end result was less about the experience of the individuals involved (although it must have been a blast) than about the reactions of bystanders in the mall, as this erupted in front of them. But it was fun to watch and share, and most bloggers wished they had been there to experience it, so why carp?
Coincidentally Newsweek published an article last week, The Revenge of the Experts, claiming that web users now seek expert knowledge rather than peer commentary on the web. The article used Google’s Knol expert knowledge pilot and Mahalo (a start up Google rival, where search results are vetted by experts) as examples of responses to this need. Read a little further in the Newsweek article, though, and you find a comment from Jason Calaconis, Mahalo’s founder, ‘The more trusted an environment, the more you can charge [advertisers] for it.’ Ah, so that might be what’s going on. Could it be that users are being sent an ever-so-subtle message about peer group unreliability in order to drive them to more profitable sites? And will they be getting what they’re looking for even when they choose those authoritative-looking sites? According to Mindhacks, a set of apparently authoritative articles on sleep disorders have been published by the National Sleep Foundation, an organisation that receives funding from drug companies, which it spends on ‘public education’ i.e. advertising the existence of sleep disorders. Not an isolated example, I am sure, but just an indicator of the potential for messages with a specific bias from an apparently authoritative source.
It’s a bit of a stretch from Improveverywhere to the National Sleep Foundation but it’s worth it to make the point that much can be lost when basic user-generation is compromised. Heartwarming as the food court video is, it raises the bar for other IE missions. Will its high production values put them off? Will highly orchestrated mobs like this reduce the inclusivity of future missions (as far as I can tell many people join IE and turn up for missions without knowing anyone else who involved, and that’s where their social networking begins)? It will be interesting to see. It could go either way: the video could spawn many more adventurous mobs, or it could clip the wings of the project as a whole.
More generally the web is messy and full of mis-information, and production values are often low. But, nevertheless, good information will out. As the commercial story behind the Newsweek article unfolds, Andrew Keen, author of ‘The Cult of the Amateur’ is quoted as saying ‘no one wants to advertise next to crap’. But what’s his definition of crap? Slightly rough content, sometimes contradictory, sometimes superficial but which is, nevertheless, up-to-date and may just include some nuggets you couldn’t find anywhere else? User-generated content has its pitfalls, and web users need to be educated about them (and about the pitfalls (and strengths) of expert information too). But to lose peer commentary, to authorise and sanitise it would be to lose much of what drives people to the web in the first place. Olly Buxton, writing one of several critical Amazon reviews of Keen’s book, picks up on the issue of what can be gained from user-generated content. Citing the Britannica/Wikipedia dispute he writes
‘if the choice were blind faith in Encyclopaedia Britannica or a sceptical read of Wikipedia, I know which I’d have, and which I’d counsel for my children - especially since Wikipedia is automatically up-to-date, preternaturally following the zeitgeist, and replete with good know-how on things that Britannica would never have in a million years’.
So I would say to advertisers think twice before investing in the authority and expertise the internet ‘controllers’ want to bring about; there may be more to trust (and to invest in) in peer commentary, ‘crap’ notwithstanding.
Newsweek link via Putting People First
March 12th, 2008
CBS Mobile have announced the first US trial of location-based advertising to mobiles, in partnership with Loopt, the friend tracking and networking site. The service will be opt-in and the ads will arrive at CBS web sites on subscribers’ phones. Having worked on ‘future concepts’ of this kind some years ago (with the luxury of not having to join up the underlying technology, nor worry about the protection of individuals’ privacy) it will be interesting to see the service develop. (In fact the concept I worked on was peer-to-peer, rather than advertiser-to-consumer: a sort of location based Gumtree, where individuals could advertise rooms to let, yoga classes, lost cats etc. And I’m sure such a mobile service will emerge sooner or later.)
I wonder how many people will opt in to the CBS Mobile service and, once in, will use their web sites often enough to get the benefits of the advertising. It will, of course, depend on what the deal is and whether the content is enticing. With the delivery format as described, it’s likely to be a service people with conventional cell phones use when they have some down-time ‘let’s see if there’s anything interesting near here’ rather than always on. How many times would you go through the process of accessing a web site and finding nothing relevant to you before you stopped altogether? Still it’s early days and I’m sure this is nothing CBS Mobile and Loopt haven’t thought of.
If the location-based element is combined with personal profiling the service could be powerful, e.g. just as I’m going into a bookshop to buy a birthday present for someone, I’m notified that there’s a sale on all SciFi (having previously listed SciFi in a profile of my reading). Anecdotally it seems there might be broadly two sorts of response to this kind of prompt: some would welcome it (just as they welcome Amazon recommendations ‘those who bought this, also bought…’); and some would dislike the intrusion (and probably wouldn’t sign up to the service anyway). In any case, the combination of location and personalisation might be too ‘micro-personalised’ for advertisers who may want to prompt more serendipitous buying. And (although it’s hard to tell from the available information) that sort of personalisation may not be possible with the current CBS Mobile plan, where advertising is to be delivered anonymously.
Now that mobile advertising is up and running in several different implementations it will take some time before effective delivery formats bed down i.e. until users vote with their feet about what is acceptable and what isn’t. And my suspicion is that it might be quicker on mobiles than on traditional internet (i.e. via computers), where many companies continue to use advertising practices that frustrate users (despite the admonishments of usability guru, Jacob Nielsen). With mobile phones, however, there’s less space and, in most, less processing power to play with, plus a sensitivity to cost that is largely absent from computer use. Indeed the whole context for use differs dramatically from the computer. So people’s acceptance of formats that don’t suit their actual use of the phone may be limited.
So much of acceptance depends on the right implementation for the device being used and the context of use, as a quote from John Strand, attending this week’s Mobile World Congress in Barcelona, highlights
“One thing is to come out with an announcement. The next is to deliver. At the end of the day, the user decides who is the winner and who is the loser. The winner is the one who can give the best experience.”
Thanks to Richard Linington for pointing out the CBS Mobile/Loopt announcement.
February 12th, 2008
Blyk had many pixels of trade press last week. Yet because of its softly, softly launch many people still don’t know about it. When I describe it to people who haven’t come across it I usually get two, polarised reactions (sometimes from the same individual):
‘Great, it’s about time someone tried a new approach to mobile phone charges.’
‘Eeuch, there’s enough advertising around already.’
However tentative Blyk members may feel about receiving advertising on their phones, it seems some are responding to the experience. Blyk has reported an average 29% response rate to its ads and last week revealed a 45% response rate to a campaign by Penguin Books, where members could click from the ad to download an audio chapter of Nick Hornby’s book, ‘Slam’. This kind of statistic is, of course, great news for Blyk. It may also surprise sceptics who might not have expected Blyk’s advertising to include book downloads (to be fair this is just one element of Blyk’s advertising mix). The success of this specific ad also suggests that when the content is right, and the process of accessing it is smooth, and free, people will begin to use phone functionality beyond texting and calling (although there’s no doubt these remain primary).
The response to the Penguin campaign is good news for book publishers, too. Statistics for book reading are depressingly low, and some, including Steve Jobs and Michael Hirschorn (not surprisingly, of the computing and TV industries, respectively) are saying reading’s a thing of the past. The web is a great place for committed readers to share their thoughts via book clubs and forums, but generally it competes, alongside TV, for potential readers’ attention.
So in order to build readership it makes sense to go where your readers might be. Paul Coelho, who seems to have a very shrewd understanding of his audience, has claimed that pirating his own books on the web increased sales of the books themselves. Not surprisingly, Coelho’s initiative generated far fewer column inches than Radiohead’s free album download: most book publishing lacks the scale and glamour of rock music; besides a book delivered by the web is a much less consumable item than music, so there is a more obvious path from web delivery to buying the book itself.
And it’s this path that Penguin are following. Last year they partnered with social networking site Piczo to promote six classics to a young teen audience. Now they have taken a punt on Blyk. So I say three cheers for Penguin (those who regret that this was an audio, rather than written, download will, perhaps, allow two and a half cheers). For the sake of authors, book publishers and, most importantly, potential readers, I hope the punt pays off.
February 4th, 2008
I want to respond to danah’s post at some length, hence a separate posting. To understate the case, our relationship to advertising is a complex one. We can recoil when we read reports of advertisers’ manipulative practices, yet we can also enjoy advertising, and find it genuinely informative; while it’s often a delight to escape advertising in unspoilt landscapes, we have probably driven our branded car to get there, are sporting branded outdoor gear etc. etc. I suspect there are as many inconsistencies in our attitudes to new media advertising as to traditional media. So, for example, the same people who complain about pop ups and banner ads in web pages (and, yes, there is evidence that advertising on web sites disrupts processing of site content) may also be watching and sharing favourite ads on YouTube. We’re in it to the hilt.
So advertising is part of popular culture, much of which we may not particularly want to espouse, nor to see influence our children. There is conflicting data concerning children’s understanding of advertising, and its influence on their decision-making (always a good idea to look at who is publishing the data). Some suggest that children become sceptical about advertising pretty early on (we might question whether this a scepticism we want our children to develop; my understanding is that the French, who have light regulation on advertising to children, take the view that it’s part of growing up). Most European countries have some restrictions on TV advertising to children, with Sweden at the most stringent end of the scale and the UK among the more relaxed. And there may be downsides to these restrictions: the British advertisers’ association, the IPA, have claimed that in Greece, where there is a restriction on advertising toys during children’s TV, there has been a reduction in the quality of children’s programming, with cheap imports substituting for more expensive, locally-generated programmes (it’s their role to point to these kinds of consequences, of course). Recent UK restrictions on TV advertising of junk food to children have seen a migration of advertising to the net. I don’t think we yet know what influence it has there but it’s hardly likely that businesses would be investing in it if they didn’t think it would have some effect. Marketing takes the opportunities that are available and if we want the benefits advertising brings (e.g. sponsored events, broadcasting, on-line experiences, phone services etc.) we also have to be aware of its impact and vigilant for potential abuse.
And if the impact of advertising in our everyday lives is complex so, too, is our role in working for companies of all kinds that use advertising to promote their products or sponsor their activities. In the UK there was a ripple of press reports in 2003 when a collection of documents from advertising agencies working on campaigns for tobacco manufacturers revealed an agency’s derogatory classification of their market segments, including a description of some smokers (low income) as ‘slobs’. It’s not hard to see how these cynical attitudes can develop if, at best, a company’s only contact with its customers is to herd groups of them into a strange environment and observe them from behind a two-way mirror in the forced discussion of a focus group. Hardly a recipe for empathy. Short-hand labels for customer segments are efficient for internal communication, but they are only a key to the real people, with everyday lives, emotions, aspirations, behind the labels.
How can we mitigate the distanced cynicism that tempts companies into manipulative advertising practices or, for that matter, to ship untested goods, plan obsolescence into products, snare unwitting customers into providing personal data that can be traded, fail to deliver adequate customer support and so on? We have to recognise that business has its agenda and it’s not the same as its customers’, although some congruence is needed for a business to succeed. As researchers we have a role - albeit a relatively small one - in creating that congruence. The closer a business is to its customers, and the more it understands them, the more opportunities it has to choose not to be exploitative, to be humanely human-centred. The conventional research recipe of clusters of regional focus groups are not going to raise executives’ social consciousness. We have to push for imaginative approaches to doing and presenting research that keeps the internal team as close as possible to its external customers. That can mean working outside our own comfort zone sometimes, experimenting with new methods, learning new techniques. The subtleties of different research approaches may not be of interest to the people who use our research, but as researchers we’re guardians of the methods being used, and the conclusions that are drawn from them.
January 10th, 2008
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