DDB Istanbul sent me some interesting online advertising pieces a few days ago, and i didn’t had the time to post them. I already knew one of the ads, but the other 2 are as thought provoking and to the point as the first one. Choose wisely any of them.

Last week, Publico interviewed me about the recent changes on the online advertising industry. As the article is only available in portuguese to premium subscribers, i’m posting here my answers to João Pedro.

With online advertising budgets increasing, should we expect that it will surpass the investment made at the other media?
Even with changing consumer habits, where consumers are wired for about a third of their time, most of the large media budgets are still invested in traditional media, usually called above-the-line media. Some change is happening and the numbers are there to prove it: IAB, the Internet Advertising Bureau recently announced that Online Advertising has reached 17 bilion USD, with a 35% growth rate from 2005. These values are the cornerstones of projections that media such as radio or press will be overthrown by internet until 2010. I don’t think tough, that Internet will replace old media, but rather complement these or other media, increasing the proved positive correlation between online and offline campaigns. Much of this budget migration will happen thanks to greater accountability by interactive advertising technologies, richer consumer involvement and more personalized and targeted online advertising.
In Portugal, we’re only at the beginning of this trend, lacking true integrated marketing strategies and substantial online budgets, even if this kind of advertising is much more qualified and less expensive per reach than traditional media.

Is there any trend by advertisers to choose Google platforms to launch their campaigns? Or are they used as a side-strategy?
Big advertisers usually perform some risk management by diversification, with their specialized media agencies, optimizing campaigns and choosing the right channels and partners. Google, of course, is one of those partners, but is being referred as a frienemy, a short-term friend and a long term enemy, with several conflicting interests for being at the same time competitor and supplier.
For medium or small business, these platforms (Adwords, Analytics) are quite efficient for their small marketing budgets, with qualified targeting and easy campaign management. Google’s advertising solutions are now reaching also print or even TV, taking the next step to campaign integration and management for a large group of companies.

Some say that the recent purchases (specially by Microsoft and Google) of advertising companies can be a sign of a new bubble. Is this a sound argument?
While Microsoft reacted mostly to their failed attempt to buy DoubleClick, and didn´t intend to be left out of this industry, Google’s purchase of the DoubleClick is a bit different from the normal acquisition strategy, where smaller companies were the target. But if we understand Google as a advertising company, it makes perfect sense to increase their online advertising solutions portfolio with display advertising, or even with RSS advertising, as recently happened with the purchase of Feedburner.
Google’s information added to 10 years of DoubleClick’s consumer profiles will provide a huge and robust online advertising platform. All these internet media giants are buying more than companies� — they’re buying data, huge amounts of data, and that’s the extra value they were charged for. We’ll surely won’t see any bubble, as most of the growth of these services is based on real needs, with consumers adapting to a new digital lifestyle, and in consequence, more and more investment by brands in this medium.

© Publico 2007

EIAA has just published a new report (PDF, 220kb) on the popularity of online display ad formats of their european members’ networks. Analysing over 300 billion online ad impressions between July and December 2006, they’ve reached some interesting remarks:

• Traditional Banner (aka full banner) is loosing popularity (now only 13%)
• Super banners (aka leaderboards) are getting the biggest share with 35%,followed closely by the Medium Rectangle with 33% (shorthandly called M-Rec here in Portugal)
• Rich media and video banners are also seeing strong interest from advertisers, thanks to improved user experience and customer retention

The European Interactive Advertising Association (www.eiaa.net) is a unique pan- European trade organization for sellers of interactive media.

The relationship between an advertiser and a consumer has surely changed. They’re breaking up! Or so it seem to Microsoft Digital Advertising Solutions at bringtheloveback.com .

Link to YouTube: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RZDXfB0Rd4Q

Thanks for the tip, Filipe.

Some quick notes on the E-mkt 2007 conference:

- Alain Heureux, IAB European president, gave a quick overview of digital marketing and the challenges that our industry faces to be recognized by companies as a trustful medium, and the perspective of creating a IAB portuguese local office. Alain also challenged/invited us to be at IAB Congress “Let’s Interact” in Belgium, the next 4th and 5th of June - if you’re planning to attend, leave me a message and maybe we can plan something.

- Alison Fennah, Executive Director of the EIAA, had the most interesting presentation of the day, with great qualitative research and solid figures (if i’m not mistaken the name of the study was MediaScope) about the European internet industry.

- Ricardo and Luis, from Elemento Digital (one of the main sponsors), did a quick overview of what e-marketing can do and explained some terminology less familiar to the audience.

The most awaited presentations were from Google, one of the main reasons people attended the event. To my surprise, they actually under delivered. Most of the talks were rather commercial, only evangelizing their products (Webmaster tools, ADWords and AdSense) and not addressing the challenges of publishers and brands.
I guess that explains the FOG (Fear of Google) feeling that was among some of the audience, that had some interesting questions during the day:

Ricardo from SearchMarketing.pt had some hands-on questions about SEM campaigns, and Maria João from Sapo (the largest portuguese portal) pointed some concerns about the discretionary decisions on banning publishers from their Adsense program. My guess is that she didn’t read the terms of service quite well, and probably the site was banned for running a competing platform.

One of the questions i made, remains yet to be answered: “What will happen to DoubleClick? How will it fit in Google set of technologies?”. I guess the folks here at Europe don’t have a clue about strategic decisions made at Mountain View.

Overall, it was a good start and maybe next year other professionals, organizations and advertisers all gather to look in a different way at e-marketing, a essential discipline at any marketing mix. We surely need more of these events to share our best practices and (here’s my challenge to fellow professionals) create our own national association.

Enter the realms of cognitive domination at boostyouresp.com where you are the master of sexual attractiveness …

As usual, AXE brings us a really funny website and this time you can use psychic powers to get you some girls or download a book with some hook up tips.

Link to YouTube video: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Nihi_cbGmYI
Disclaimer:”Girls represented in video game may not trully be into you”.

Source: AdRants

With a brand new identity and website, the Webby Awards - “the Oscars of the web” - have announced the nominees for the 2007 edition. The Webbys are presented by The International Academy of Digital Arts and Sciences and more than 500 members elect each year their favourite websites in several categories.

In this year edition, 3 new award categories have been introduced besides Websites: Interactive Advertising, Online Film & Video and Mobile. Some great examples of online marketing such as personal favourites wefeelfine.org or Jonathan Yuen are there, together with some mainstream sites such as Flickr or Salon.com, or the one from DraftFCB for HP.

The part that interested me the most were the interactive advertising awards but as i browsed through the entries i noticed that most of them have already been showcased at other awards. One that surprised me though was the entry “Clock” by Almap BBDO for Greenpeace, so simple that is brilliant. As for the entries, most of my preferences go to FarFar that has really seduced me this year, altough R/GA has delivered some quality work, specially for Nike (as they usually do).

If you have a lot of spare time and want to keep up with the best of the web, webbyawards.com is the place.

P.S.: Jonathan Harries (of wefeelfine.org) has a new interactive piece at Universe/DayLife.

The circle is now complete, with Google closing the gap and acquiring the only thing that was missing in their digital marketing services portfolio. With the strong reputation of asset management that DoubleClick technologies offer, and mainly through their ability to integrate third party assets, Google has given the final stab in Microsoft aspiration at online advertising.

DoubleClick did some buzz lately, with their intention to create a online ad marketplace, and perhaps that spurred the interest at Mountain View, that had some changes ($3.1 billion) to spend. One of the question that remains to be answered is wheter the platform will be provided to Google users for free, much in the same way that Urchin became Analytics. If this happens, it will represent a enormous boost in online advertising, as publishers could finally benefit of a widespread technology and standards, with equivalent metrics and centralized asset management.

Press release: Google, DoubleClick 

E-mkt 2007 is the first Portuguese conference on e-marketing, with invited speakers discussing the role of new media on traditional marketing strategies.

Here’s the program schedule (19th April) :

10h00m Web 2.0 – Plano Tecnológico e o E-MKT
Rui Grilo - Portuguese Technology Plan Coordinator

10h45m Putting e-Marketing in Context
Alain Heureux - IAB Europe President

11h15 Coffee-Break

11h45 Media Trends and the development of e-commerce across Europe
Alison Fennah - EIAA Executive Director

12h30 e-Marketing Integrated Tools
Ricardo Pereira - Elemento Digital - Business Development Manager
Luis Serra / Elemento Digital – e-Marketing Manager

13h00 - Almoço

14h15 SEM - Specific Web Marketing Tools
Chewy Trewhella / Google Customer Solutions Engineer

15h00 Online Advertising Case-Study Vivebem
Sérgio Leitão – Elec3city Advertising Manager

15h45 Coffee-Break

16h00 Search Engine Marketing
Inês Gonçalves / Google Ireland
João Anastácio / Google Ireland

16h45 Web 2.0

It surely will be quite interesting to anyone who works at SEM to have a first hand experience from Google professionals and get to know some interesting case studies in the Portuguese e-marketing industry. A must-go conference for any marketing manager or interactive professional. Sign up here.