As the number of people playing videogames on smartphones surges, two new companies are touting a way for advertisers to reach the potential customers—without annoying them.
The start-ups, Kiip Inc. and Tap.Me Inc., are moving beyond the familiar mobile banner ads, letting marketers sponsor rewards or extra tools within the game. The idea is that users will then associate the brand with a positive experience.
When a player on a game that uses Kiip (pronounced "keep") hits a certain milestone, a message pops up saying that the person can also get a real-world reward—like a six-pack of soda free or a coupon for flowers on Mother's Day. The person can redeem the reward then or later, or email it to someone else.
"It's the moment where you feel like you've accomplished something. We match it with something that's branded," said Kiip's 20-year-old founder, Brian Wong.
Kiip uses algorithms to decide when to offer the deals, so weaker players can still get rewards and people won't be conditioned to expect prizes at certain times.
Chicago-based Tap.Me, on the other hand, lets brands sponsor in-game tools and rewards, but only if players choose them. With Tap.Me, advertisers can enter keywords and be matched to suggested tools and games they should sponsor.
For example, a restaurant chain that wants to tout its value menu might sponsor a tool that helps players get coins in the game. Once players choose that tool, the brand can send other rewards, like coupons, to the player's inbox.
Tap.Me signed its first official customer in May with Coinstar Inc.'s Redbox DVD kiosk service. Other brands, including the Wm. Wrigley Jr. Co., are in discussions with the start-up, which is on games with 5.7 million players now, including the popular "Charmed." It expects to reach more than 40 million players by the end of the year. The companies said they were still working out details of what the brands would offer in the games.
Founded about a year ago, Kiip began testing ads on games in April and has handled campaigns from Dr Pepper Snapple Group Inc., beauty product store Sephora USA Inc. and 1-800-Flowers.com Inc., among others. The company, which is based in San Francisco, says it has more than 12 million active players on 15 games.
Kiip is still testing the response to its ads and hasn't yet disclosed the games it is using. Eventually games using the start-up's system will say "Kiip enabled" as a selling point, Mr. Wong said.
Both start-ups are in talks with game makers to get on more games and share a percentage of revenues.
The effort to capture gamers' attention comes as mobile games become a popular pastime. According to measurement firm Nielsen, 74% of people who have Apple Inc.'s iPhone played games on the phone in the past month, and 66% of those with phones running Google Inc.'s Android system had played.
Advertising has long been present in regular videogames, but mostly as "product placement" such as messages that appear on billboards in a driving game. Traditional gamers have balked at seeing any ads at all in expensive console games, but that isn't the case in cheaper mobile apps, said Noah Elkin, a principal analyst at research firm eMarketer.
Also, unlike traditional videogames, mobile games appeal to women as well as men—thus drawing interest from brands that wouldn't have ordinarily advertised in a game. "Casual games are perennially popular especially with women, and you can reach an older audience as well," said Mr. Elkin.
But mobile advertising is still a nascent field. EMarketer estimates that in the U.S., spending on mobile ads will be about $1.1 billion this year, a small number compared with the more than $150 billion expected to be spent on advertising in general.
Mr. Elkin said that the trend on mobile devices is to move beyond banner ads, in an effort to get people to engage more with the advertising. "Most advertisers are still spending the bulk of their display dollars on traditional banners, but if you look at where the steeper growth is, it's at the richer end of the media: video, interactive," he said.
The start-up founders all believe that many people either ignore banner ads or are bothered by them—particularly in games, if they hit an ad by mistake and it takes them to a new screen.
"Something that we discovered very early on was that ads needed to take advantage of the natural game design" and not interrupt the game, said Tap.Me Chief Executive Joshua Hernandez.
"Mobile advertising is growing by leaps and bounds, but the manner in which brands connect to consumers is the real key" when it comes to making mobile advertising successful, said Bob Rupczynski, global director of interactive marketing at Wrigley, which has been in discussions with Tap.Me.
The advertisers evaluating the in-game advertising technology said they hope associating themselves with pleasant parts of the game and offering rewards will provide that connection.
It's still too early to tell whether the strategy will work. Kiip says its tests show that 30% to 50% of people take advantage of the rewards. Likewise, Tap.Me says it's too early to have hard numbers on its effectiveness, although its tests show that users engage with sponsors about 15% of the time.
http://professional.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052702304231204576403403508609600.html
Showing posts with label mobile marketing. Show all posts
Showing posts with label mobile marketing. Show all posts
Thursday, June 23, 2011
Wednesday, May 5, 2010
The Next Wave of Digital Marketing Trends
Sometimes the most important small business marketing tools and technologies start out as expensive enterprise solutions exclusive to big brands and agencies; only much later do they become affordable and accessible to small businesses.
During a recent trip to San Francisco, I stopped by the tradeshow floor at Ad:Tech and found myself staring into the not-too-distant future of small business marketing. I didn't have a chance to see everything Ad:Tech had to offer, but I did have time to talk with a few innovative companies offering solutions that are sure to influence the way small businesses approach marketing.
Here's what I found that's worth sharing along with some tips for getting ready to adjust to new trends.
Innovation No. 1: Online Display AdvertisingBanner ads may sound like an antiquated way to get noticed, but actually display advertising is becoming much more interesting due to two important trends.
One such trend is better local ad targeting. Several companies, such as Local.com, LinkedIn and Facebook, have announced that they're getting into the local targeting game by offering geography-based advertising along with the standard demographic or keyword targeting you'd expect. Local targeting is already prevalent in search engine marketing and it's good to know that display ads are heading in the same direction.
Selling physical goods has long been about driving traffic to your e-commerce store so prospective customers can see and buy your products. That trend seems destined for a giant turn in the opposite direction, because it won't be long before smaller retailers have the ability to sell more of their products on other highly targeted consumer websites. One such website is Milo.com, where the CEO announced the company's intention to enable anyone to search real-time availability and local product information on every product, on every shelf, in every local business in America.
Another outstanding innovation for online retail comes from Pixazza. Pixazza is changing the way consumers shop by allowing people to browse and buy products that appear in any photos. For example, let's say you're reading an article in an online entertainment magazine and you see a photo of Jennifer Lopez wearing earrings that are to-die-for. Getting yourself a similar pair is easier than ever; as you hover over the photo Pixazza recommends earrings at suggested prices far below what Jennifer Lopez probably paid for hers.
Social media is arguably the most innovative internet tool to emerge since, well, the internet. There are definitely good reasons to advertise on social media sites (this includes your own fan pages and networks). The challenge for a small business is the same challenge facing any business: How do you get enough people to pay attention to your ads while they are busy uploading photos or conversing with friends?
There are a number of companies working to make social media advertising more engaging and even fun, and it won't be long before there are a plethora of choices for small budgets. At the show, NTB Media announced an interesting video advertising product with built-in games and quizzes to get people to pay attention and remember the content in the videos, and Fan Appz announced access to an integrated suite of social media applications designed to attract attention and engagement in exchange for a subscription of just $50 per month.
John Arnold's no-nonsense marketing advice is featured in his well-known marketing books which include Web Marketing All-In-One Desk Reference for Dummies, E-Mail Marketing for Dummies and the forthcoming book Mobile Marketing for Dummies. John is also a leading marketing speaker, trainer and consultant specializing in DIY marketing advice for small businesses, franchises and associations. If you have a marketing tool or technology you'd like John to write about, contact him at http://JohnArnold.com.
http://www.entrepreneur.com/marketing/onlinemarketing/article206418.html
During a recent trip to San Francisco, I stopped by the tradeshow floor at Ad:Tech and found myself staring into the not-too-distant future of small business marketing. I didn't have a chance to see everything Ad:Tech had to offer, but I did have time to talk with a few innovative companies offering solutions that are sure to influence the way small businesses approach marketing.
Here's what I found that's worth sharing along with some tips for getting ready to adjust to new trends.
Innovation No. 1: Online Display AdvertisingBanner ads may sound like an antiquated way to get noticed, but actually display advertising is becoming much more interesting due to two important trends.
One such trend is better local ad targeting. Several companies, such as Local.com, LinkedIn and Facebook, have announced that they're getting into the local targeting game by offering geography-based advertising along with the standard demographic or keyword targeting you'd expect. Local targeting is already prevalent in search engine marketing and it's good to know that display ads are heading in the same direction.
The other noticeable trend to get excited about is the movement toward ad pricing based on cost-per-action rather than cost-per-click. Paying for ads based on CPA means that you don't pay the publisher until you get the action you want from the ad. For example, if you want your online display ad to drive someone to an online store to buy the advertised product, you won't have to pay until someone actually clicks the ad and completes the purchase. Several companies--such as Hydra--have announced an emphasis on CPA tracking and billing.
- How to get ready
Get to know your acquisition costs on an intimate level. If cost-per-action advertising sounds attractive, you'll need to have a firm understanding of what you're willing to pay for each new customer or action your advertising obtains in order to know how to bid. If you're interested in the possibilities of targeted display advertising (and you're interested in getting sophisticated with your targeting) start building a profile of your best prospects and customers--including geography, demographic information and typical buying behavior. If you need help figuring out how to analyze your customers to get that information, online advertising company Ad Buyer offers a set of free audience profiling tools.
Selling physical goods has long been about driving traffic to your e-commerce store so prospective customers can see and buy your products. That trend seems destined for a giant turn in the opposite direction, because it won't be long before smaller retailers have the ability to sell more of their products on other highly targeted consumer websites. One such website is Milo.com, where the CEO announced the company's intention to enable anyone to search real-time availability and local product information on every product, on every shelf, in every local business in America.
Another outstanding innovation for online retail comes from Pixazza. Pixazza is changing the way consumers shop by allowing people to browse and buy products that appear in any photos. For example, let's say you're reading an article in an online entertainment magazine and you see a photo of Jennifer Lopez wearing earrings that are to-die-for. Getting yourself a similar pair is easier than ever; as you hover over the photo Pixazza recommends earrings at suggested prices far below what Jennifer Lopez probably paid for hers.
- How to get ready
It's time to get your inventory database in shape. Selling products on websites owned by other companies will likely require you to conform to their database and information technology standards. There's no need to get overly sophisticated here. If your company has the ability to publish real time inventory and product information to your own website, you probably already have enough technology to quickly enable a feed of that information to other online databases.
Social media is arguably the most innovative internet tool to emerge since, well, the internet. There are definitely good reasons to advertise on social media sites (this includes your own fan pages and networks). The challenge for a small business is the same challenge facing any business: How do you get enough people to pay attention to your ads while they are busy uploading photos or conversing with friends?
There are a number of companies working to make social media advertising more engaging and even fun, and it won't be long before there are a plethora of choices for small budgets. At the show, NTB Media announced an interesting video advertising product with built-in games and quizzes to get people to pay attention and remember the content in the videos, and Fan Appz announced access to an integrated suite of social media applications designed to attract attention and engagement in exchange for a subscription of just $50 per month.
- How to get ready
Test before you invest. Social media advertising is already accessible and affordable to small business, but affordability isn't the only reason to invest in a particular form of advertising. Don't invest in a new social media tool or advertising strategy until you are sure you have the ability and the time to track your results and compare them against other opportunities. As a small business, you can't afford to invest in everything. If you don't track and compare your results, you won't have the information you need to make budget-wise choices.
- How to get ready
Make sure at least a portion of your website is designed to display and function properly on mobile devices--especially the pages that contain contact information for your business. If you have a location-based business, start making your communications more mobile friendly so people can respond to your offers and information while they are on-the-go. Sending text-messages and e-mails with mobile coupons and snack-sized bites of product information are great places to start. Also, social media users are more likely to become mobile savvy than the average internet user, so make sure you have a presence on the most common social sites.
John Arnold's no-nonsense marketing advice is featured in his well-known marketing books which include Web Marketing All-In-One Desk Reference for Dummies, E-Mail Marketing for Dummies and the forthcoming book Mobile Marketing for Dummies. John is also a leading marketing speaker, trainer and consultant specializing in DIY marketing advice for small businesses, franchises and associations. If you have a marketing tool or technology you'd like John to write about, contact him at http://JohnArnold.com.
http://www.entrepreneur.com/marketing/onlinemarketing/article206418.html
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