Micro Ads: Small is the New Big

Micro ads deliver macro results, according to a new study by IPG Media Lab.

When viewed on smartphones, micro ads—videos 5 to 15 seconds in length—yield better brand recall, preference and purchase intent than longer ads, the study found.

Micro ads also yield better results among Millennials than viewers of other ages.

Micro ads enjoy an advantage because they're bite-sized, the researchers say.

The ads enjoy an advantage when viewed on smartphones because they seem to dominate the tiny screens.

Millennials dig micro ads because they grew up with smartphones. They find micro ads more enjoyable and of higher quality than viewers of other ages.

The study also found micro ads work better when viewers are out and about, rather than home; and when the ads have voiceovers.

For a micro ad to drive more than just brand awareness, its minimum length should be 15 seconds, according to the study. 

A micro ad shorter than that is simply too micro.

Travel's Romance with Video

Travel brands will increasingly lean on video to seduce mobile-carrying customers, according to Skift.

As evidence, the newsletter cites the 25-minute reverie French Kiss, recently produced by Marriott.

"Instead of selling hotel rooms and airplane seats as commodities, brands are learning to tell stories using video that create an emotional connection with a specific audience," Skift says.

Leading the field, Marriott runs a full-scale, in-house studio that produces original shorts.

Going Native Nothing New

There is nothing new under the sun.

Not even new media.

NBC has replaced ads on some of its shows with content sponsored by American Express, AdAge reports.

The content comprises extra scenes with stars from the shows, with the credit card issuer mentioned before and after each segment.

Other networks plan the same move.

"Many TV networks are cutting back on commercials to appeal to younger viewers who are used to watching shows ad-free on Netflix—and to appease marketers who are concerned their messages are getting ignored amid the clutter," AdAge says.

Before CLIOs are handed out, it's worth remembering broadcasters weaved "native ads" into TV shows 70 years ago (and into radio shows earlier still).

Pandemonium? Blame the Media.

Presidential politics rides a wayward bus.

It's named Media.

Media revolutions drive voters away from party élites, as historian Jill Lepore says in her article about populism in The New Yorker.

Lepore looks back at party upheavals of the early 19th century.

Although slavery was the big issue, the rise of populism was driven by revolutions in media:

• In the 1830s, advances in printing brought down the cost of a newspaper to a penny;

• In the 1840s, newspapers began to get news by telegraph;

• In the 1850s, newspapers began to include illustrations based on photographs.

"For a while, party élites lost control, until the system reached equilibrium in the form of a relatively stable contest between Democrats and a new party, the Republicans," Lepore says.

Then came the 1890s, when occurred another populist revolt, "which took place during another acceleration in the speed of communication, brought about by the telephone, the Linotype, and halftone printing, technologies that allowed daily newspapers and illustrated magazines, in particular, to carry political news faster, and to more readers, than ever before."

In the same decade, color printing appeared, which gave rise a nationwide "poster craze." Campaign posters papered every wall of every building, in every city; and every candidate "ran as an outsider."

Oddly enough, the 20th century was saner. 

Although voters saw the introduction of phonograph records, radio, weekly magazines, movies and TV, media's power to propel populists waned. 

"Despite the upheavals of the Depression, the Second World War, the Cold War, and Vietnam, the era of national newsmagazines, newsreels, and network broadcasting was a period of remarkable party stability."

But with the advent of mobile phones and the Internet, populism is again heating up.

"The American party system is not only a creation of the press; it is dependent on it," Lepore says. 

"It is currently fashionable, indispensable, even, to malign the press, whether liberal or conservative. But when the press is in the throes of change, so is the party system. And the national weal had better watch out. 

"It’s unlikely, but not impossible, that the accelerating and atomizing forces of this latest communications revolution will bring about the end of the party system and the beginning of a new and wobblier political institution. 

"With our phones in our hands and our eyes on our phones, each of us is a reporter, each a photographer, unedited and ill judged, chatting, snapping, tweeting, and posting, yikking and yakking. 

"At some point, does each of us become a party of one?"

When is Advertising a Waste?

Marketing maestro Edward Segal contributed today's post. Edward helps REALTOR® associations generate publicity about their activities and shows their leaders, staff and members how to deliver effective presentations.

John Wanamaker, a merchandising pioneer in the 19th and early 20th centuries, said, “Half of the money I spend on advertising is wasted; the trouble is I don’t know which half.”

Many people still regard advertising as the best way to help position, promote, and sell their products, services, or expertise. After all, if you have enough money, you can say whatever you want, wherever you want, and for as long as you want, to anybody you want. And in today’s competitive marketplace, there are advertising opportunities that simply did not exist a few years ago, such as Facebook.

The trouble with advertising, however, is that unless you are careful, some or all the money you spend on it can be wasted. 

But how can you guarantee every penny of your advertising budget is well spent?

Check your ego

Think you can do it yourself? 

Do not let your ego get in the way of your advertising success. 

The reality is that there is a lot involved in successful advertising, ranging from strategy and creativity to messaging and placement, and you need to know what you are doing every step of the way. Put another way, would you ask a lawyer to perform brain survey on you? Of course not. So why would you believe that you can do your own advertising if you’ve never done it before, or well?

No one cares about your product

You think everyone in the world will want to buy whatever you are selling. Face it: just because you may be in love with what you are promoting does not mean that anyone else will be, or will even care about it. A marketing professional can help ensure that you are reaching the right audience for the right reasons and in right way.

Money pits abound

Here are other major potential budget-wasting mistakes to avoid. You:

• Do not have a clear marketing message or effective marketing strategy.
• Do not know your niche in the marketplace, or who your target market is. 
• Have not weighed the pros and cons of the different advertising outlets. 
• Don’t know whether a particular advertising medium is the best one to use in order to communicate your message, or if that medium will even reach your target audience.
• Do not know how often you will have to advertise in order to have an impact.
• Do not know much money will you have to spend in order to be effective.
• Do not experiment or test market your messages or strategy before launching your campaign.
• Pull your advertising before you have given it enough time to work.

Until you have taken steps to avoid these fundamental mistakes, it might make sense to place your advertising plans on hold, and consult a competent marketing professional.

Perhaps if John Wannamker had followed the advice above, half of what he spent on advertising would not have been wasted.

Government Communicators: Send Outreach into Orbit

Award-winning video producer Ann Ramsey contributed today's post. She is a senior producer at the US Department of Health & Human Services in Washington, DC.

Although traditionally a favorite of corporate communicators, the Satellite Media Tour (SMT) should be part of every government communicator's toolkit. 

SMTs make efficient use of time-starved spokespeople who want to reach multiple media markets. This winter, for example, the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services held weekly SMTs throughout the Health Insurance Marketplace Open Enrollment period. The benefit? Without leaving Washington, busy officials reached broadcast journalists all over the country with continuing updates about healthcare enrollment.

Not every government communicator knows the ins and outs of the SMT, so here’s a rundown. While some agencies use PR firms for their SMTs, I will assume your agency has its own broadcast studio, or at least access to one. 

What is an SMT? An SMT is a series of video interviews featuring a spokesperson responding in front of a camera to the audio of each remote interviewer’s questions. The broadcaster remotely receives the sound and picture of the spokesperson, usually via satellite, for play-out in a live news program, or as a recorded media file for editing into a package for later broadcast. SMTs generally take one to four hours of the spokesperson’s time, and interviews are typically scheduled in 10-minute windows. If radio broadcasters are included, the interview series is referred to as an SMT/RMT.

Advantages. An SMT is an opportunity to tap broadcasters in order to introduce, or respond to, a newsworthy or time-sensitive topic. It allows for targeting of media markets, for direct interaction between the spokesperson and reporters, and for the opportunity to tailor the desired message to each market.

Must-haves. At minimum, you need an available spokesperson; a satellite-capable broadcast studio (look up: is there a dish on your building’s roof?); the manpower to pitch to the networks; and a modest budget to rent a block of satellite time.

Prep. First, send out a pitch notification (media alert) that includes your desired topic or announcement, the planned date of the SMT, the spokesperson’s bio, and any pertinent facts that can be used to leverage an interview. Target your top media markets, stations and networks, and work up a schedule of time-slots to fill. Most SMTs are aimed at some combination of TV news shows (morning, noon, evening) and/or radio drive-time shows. Contact local and network news divisions to pitch your SMT. Once your agency’s broadcast studio has a block of satellite-time arranged, notify all participating stations of the satellite coordinates and signal format details.

Pitching tips. Local TV/radio news divisions are busy places. Nonetheless, a government agency can appeal to them by offering the twin advantages of authority and topicality. That a national authority, such as the Secretary of a cabinet-level department, is available to speak directly to a reporter about a hot topic is attractive to a network, particularly a small, local affiliate. Furthermore, offering a local angle can be helpful, if you can tailor your statistics and examples to each media market. Once a news producer is interested in the interview, the concept and timing normally need to be cleared with a news director at the station. That’s why each time-slot may take a couple of phone calls or emails to confirm.

Day-of. Your agency’s broadcast studio will likely handle booking and supervision of the makeup artist, production crew and satellite link-up, as well as delivery of any non-live interviews to the network producers. You will be assigned a studio SMT producer and floor director to oversee the production. You will need to provide the studio talking points to be loaded into the teleprompter, so your spokesperson can refer to them during each interview. It’s smart to confirm that the studio team has all the information for each interview, including time-slot, the station’s network control room telephone number, producer name and number, interviewer name and number, IFB (“Interruptible Feed Back”) number (used by the studio to dial into each station), backup/engineer number, and delivery method (live or taped).

On-air tips. As a communications professional, you should coach and assist your spokesperson. Be aware that on-air time with the reporter will be short; perhaps just a few minutes. Often the final story is only 90 seconds long. So reporters need your spokesperson to make between one and three points concisely. You should be on site with the spokesperson during the SMT, and coordinate with the studio’s SMT producer and floor director. Let your spokesperson know the first name of each reporter (the reporter will be speaking directly into your spokesperson’s headset). For each interview, the IFB number for the remote station is phoned by the studio’s audio engineer to create a direct audio link between the interviewer and the spokesperson. If needed, this link can be interrupted by the studio SMT producer or floor director, in order to keep the spokesperson informed. (Think of Jon Stewart on The Daily Show listening to a fake mic in his ear and saying, “Wait… I’m being told…”). If any linkup is lost, or any station has to cancel or delay, the studio SMT producer will make on-the-fly changes to maximize the scheduled line-up.

Afterwards. Your agency broadcast studio will deliver any non-live media to stations that have requested taped versions for editing or later play-out. As desired, you may want to follow up with broadcasters for feedback and to confirm that post-delivery airing took place. You can also get a tape of your spokesperson’s on-air answers from your studio, for media training purposes or to keep as an archival record.

Trends. Downsizing in broadcast is having an impact. Today you may find the network news producer and interviewer are one and the same person. If something urgent takes place, the floor director or studio producer must use the IFB to reach the interviewer. Another new wrinkle is that the interviewer may want to do the interview remotely, and so, rather than dialing into a station’s IFB number, the studio dials directly to the interviewer’s own mobile phone. It can be tricky! Social media is also having an impact. You can research the Twitter handle of a given broadcast station, in order to follow and interact on social media before and during a given live interview. And it's now possible to create so-called “air-checks,” permanent internet links to selected news show segments that make them available in play-back to stakeholders after the fact.

Plan 9

Attention ad planners: 9 seconds is the perfect period to expose a digital ad, according to a study by Sled.

The ad-platform provider found customers' brand awareness increased twice as much as it did when they viewed an ad for other lengths of time.

But that may be an eternity, in Earthlings' time.

According to Sled, customers viewed ads run recently by BioPharmX a mere 4.1 seconds, on average. 

And according to MediaPost, customers viewed recent ads from the San Antonio Convention & Visitors Bureau for only 4.8 seconds.

Back to the drawing board.

How to Take Advantage of the Challenges Facing News Organizations

PR expert Edward Segal contributed today's post. He has placed stories in The New York Times, The Washington Post, The Wall Street Journal and The Los Angeles Times, and is author of Profit by Publicity.

The challenges you face in convincing the media to do stories about you or your company is matched only by the challenges editors and reporters face in gathering and reporting the news.

In order to produce their news products—such as a daily newspaper, the latest posts on their Web site or social media platforms, or nightly TV news program—editors, producers and their staff must contend with a never-ending series hurdles. These include:

• Making decisions on which events or activities to cover, especially in the face of late-breaking news.

• Weeding out the truly newsworthy press releases from the hundreds of apparently superfluous, irrelevant or poorly written ones that they receive every day.

• Fact-checking stories.

• Finding the best available experts to interview, explain or provide perspective on  technical or complex stories.

• Maintaining staff morale in the face of budget cutbacks, mergers and acquisitions among news organizations, and the creeping influence of some advertising departments on the news judgments of editorial personnel.

• Providing enough time and resources so reporters can adequately research stories and be properly prepared to interview people for them.

• Ensuring that the work of their reporters, editors and producers meets the criteria of good journalism. 

How do you turn the media’s lemons into your lemonade? To ensure that, despite their problems and difficulties, you’re able to convince news organizations to do the stories you or your company want done? By going the extra mile to help make their jobs—and their decision to do stories about you—as easy as possible. Here’s how:

Help them with their homework. Provide them with as much background information as you think is appropriate about your story, including news releases, fact sheets or other stories that have been written about you or the topic. 

Don’t wait until it’s too late. Give editors and reporters as much advance notice as possible about scheduled events such as news-making special events.

Show them the story. Find the best possible visuals to "show" your story as well as tell it; and be sure to let the news organizations know about your visuals when you contact them. 

Give them ideas. Call editors and reporters with story ideas that you think they may be interested in, even though those ideas may not result in news coverage about you. By showing them you are a resource of information and ideas, they will be more receptive to your calls later when you pitch them a story about yourself. 

Provide good sound bites. Once you have the media’s attention, take full advantage of the opportunity by providing them with the quotes they need to help tell their story to their audiences. The better your quotes, the more likely it is that they’ll be used… and that the reporters will come back to you in the future for more interviews.

2016: The Creative Comeback

The Creative Revolution inspirited marketers in the mid '60s.

Will the Creative Comeback do so again in the mid teens?

CMO predicts it will, in a year-end roundup of expert opinions.

The technicians have had their day.

The results?

One in three campaigns fizzle.

Perhaps the creatives' time has returned.

"Blow up any process that isn't dynamic and collaborative," Darren McColl, SapientNitro, told CMO. "Creativity in a world of technology takes constant collaboration, not process."

Here's what others had to say:

Marketers, please come out from behind your tech and data and start acting like humans. You’ll be amazed at what can happen. — Jeff Pundyk, The Economist Group

Do something unexpected, launch a breakthrough, challenge a leader, 'wow' consumers, make memorable moments, engage in new conversations. — Ed Vlacich, National Brands

Effective creativity now requires pairing shrewd psychology with showmanship. In 2016, I resolve to channel, daily, Daniel Kahneman and P.T. Barnum. — Marsha Lindsay, Lindsay, Stone & Briggs

In an age where brands know more than ever about our customers, embracing creativity and fearlessness should no longer be seen as risk taking but instead as smart, innovational thinking. — James Earp, Razorfish

Be bold, be creative, but be human. Think beyond getting attention; design for engagement. And design beyond impressions, think expressions. — Brian Solis, Altimeter Group

Next year, we’re daring to go from being valued to being loved. We’ll be showcasing the power and value of creating an emotional connection. — Susan Ganeshan, Clarabridge

14 Trust-Busting Ways to Destroy Your Credibility with the Media

Media and presentation skills coach Edward Segal contributed today's post. He has written for The New York Times, The Washington Post, The Wall Street Journal and The Los Angeles Times, and is author of Profit by Publicity. His post describes 14 ways publicists, spokespersons and executives destroy the media's trust.

Credibility is essential when trying to generate publicity. 

If you are in the public spotlight (or want to be), your ability to instill trust among the media will determine your reputation with reporters, editors, columnists and bloggers.

Trust is about establishing (and maintaining) successful working relationships with those on whom you depend for publicity.

Unfortunately, there are plenty of ways to get on a reporter’s bad side. Here are some of the major ones, followed by the excuses you might use to justify violating the media's trust.

But then, why would you?

1. Don’t return e-mails, texts, or phone calls from the media. (Excuse: “Don’t they know I’m busy?”)


2. Refuse to provide the source of facts, figures, research, or other information that you include in your news releases or answers to questions from the media. (Excuse: “They should believe me, and not question where I got the information.”)


3. Don’t spell check, proof, or fact check news releases and other press materials. (Excuse: “There’s no such thing as perfection. Beside, who cares if it’s not 100% accurate?”)


4. If you don’t know the answer to a question posed by a journalist, just make it up. (Excuse: “Politicians do it all the time, so why shouldn’t I?”) 


5. Don’t post the latest news releases and other information on your Web site. (Excuse: “They could Google it if they want to.”) 


6. Plagiarize information, research, or quotes. (Excuse: “I have too much on my plate to write it myself. Besides, no one will ever find out!”)


7. Miss deadlines important to reporters. (Excuse: “I’ve have my own problems!”)


8. Agree to do media interviews on topics in which you have no knowledge or expertise. (Excuse: “Why should I pass up an opportunity to be quoted by the media?”)


9. Cite outdated or questionable facts, figures or other information in your press materials or conversations with reporters. (Excuse: “I just don’t have time to update all of that stuff myself!”)


10. Do or say something that will make the reporter look bad in the eyes of her editor, colleagues or audience. (Excuse: “Now she knows how it feels!”) 


11. Ignore time limits that reporters may impose on their interviews with you. (Excuse: “I have a lot to say!”)


12. Deny you gave the reporter information that proved to be false or wrong, even though you did. (Excuse: “What difference does it make? Reporters get things wrong all the time.” 


13. Show up or phone in late for media interviews; better yet, don’t show up or call in at all. (Excuse: “I was having a really bad day and had much more important things to do.”)


14. Forget to send information to a journalist that was important for their story. (Excuse: “What’s the big deal? If it was that important, she could have gotten it from someone else.”)

Why is trust more important than ever?

Find out by reading Path of Persuasion.

Bread and Circuses

For 25% of Americans, entertainment trumps accuracy in content, according to a new study by Adobe, The State of Content: Expectations on the Rise.

And the younger you are, the more entertainment counts, the study shows.

Entertainment is more important than accuracy for 10% of Boomers; 20% of Gen Xer's; 35% of Millennials.

In his new collection of essays, Notes on the Death of Culture, Nobel Prize winning novelist Mario Vargas Llosa laments the fact we've become puppets of “emotions and sensations triggered by an unusual and at times very brilliant bombardment of images that capture our attention, though they dull our sensibilities and intelligence due to their primary and transitory nature."

Our addiction to spectacle shows its worst side in politics, today a “mediocre and grubby activity that puts off the most honest and capable people and instead mainly recruits nonentities and rogues," he says.

Instead of leaders, we settle for clowns, ready to do anything to grab a moment of our attention.

Brands Faring Best on Facebook

Americans trust marketing content on Facebook more than marketing content delivered by other media channels, according to new research.

E-commerce consultancy The Acquity Group asked 2,000 Americans to score channels for trusted marketing content (1=most trusted; 10=least trusted).

Leading the pack, Facebook earned an average score of 4. 

Magazines and newspapers earned a 4.4.

Email and TV earned a 5.3.

In addition, young Americans (18-30) are twice as likely than old Americans (52-68) to rank Facebook as the most trusted channel for marketing content, the study reveals.

They're also more likely than old Americans to buy a product after encountering that content on Facebook.

NOTE TO READERS: Copy Points turns five years old this month!

Go Slow

Patience is a virtue in B2B marketing, says agency owner Eric Fischgrund, writing for Huffington Post.

Winning the race for leads, revenue and leaps in share price demands not only that you form a content plan, but stick to it.

Repeat thyself

Don't scrap a reasonable plan because results don't materialize overnight, Fischgrund says.

"If a white paper fails to generate downloads and leads, or a blog post fails to drive visitors to the website, there is no need to panic. Go back and review the delivery—consider the time of day or day of the week the content was published, or review the ads you placed on LinkedIn to generate clicks. Perhaps you will find it had nothing to do with the content or landing page, but because you reached your audience via e-mail blast at a time normally spent away from the computer."

Be patient

Don't expect to rally prospects, customers, analysts and influencers in a month.

"In reality, it takes time to establish a platform, cultivate a following, and execute upon strategic objectives," Fischgrund says. "It's a far smarter practice to focus on quality, not quantity of the content and messaging published via social media."

Cultivate the media

Get to know the reporters for trade, regional and national publications.

"Form relationships with reporters and media outlets," Fischgrund says. "Reporters always seek value, and if you can position yourself or your client as an expert, or their news as being important, you will achieve exposure."

Remember: the hare's fast, but the tortoise wins.

Paper Cuts

Ad spending fell 4% in the first quarter versus last the year, The Wall Street Journal reports.

Outsized cuts came to print vehicles.

Newspapers suffered a 15% falloff, while magazine advertising was trimmed more than 8%.

The absence of special events like 2014′s Sochi Olympics worsened the decline. 

Nonetheless, cuts by the 10 biggest spenders—companies like Procter & Gamble, General Motors and AT&T—exceeded 10%.

Those advertisers trimmed spending "to cut costs and navigate the complexities of the digital ad market," the newspapers says.

Ideas Once Spreading

One hundred and fifty years before TED revitalized the chalk talk, lecture halls known as "lyceums" flourished across the U.S.

At their peak in the 1850s, the halls drew more than a million people a week—nearly 5% of the country's population.

Attendees brought their 19th century attention spans to hear itinerant speakers like Ralph Waldo Emerson, Charles Dickens, Daniel Webster and Theodore Parker.

Unlike other public gathering spots of the day, lyceums welcomed women and, north of the Mason Dixon Line, African Americans. 

Tickets, sold by subscription, were cheap (about 25 cents).

Most speakers delivered "instructive" talks about science, travel, and the arts; but lyceums also hosted proponents of hot political ideas, especially early feminists, prohibitionists and abolitionists.

The latter aroused so much animosity as the decade progressed that audiences, afraid of violent outbreaks, eventually stopped going to lyceums, and the phenomenon lost much of its steam.

Following the Civil War, many of the once-heady halls were converted to venues for vaudeville acts.

Machines Will Take over Marketing

Harvard Business School professor Jeffrey F. Rayport predicts that technology will soon take over marketing.

"What Salesforce.com did for sales management and NetSuite did for financial management, software-as-a-service providers will do for marketing, by automating much of what marketers do every day," Rayport says.

As ever greater dollars are shifted to digital from other forms of marketing, marketing technology will rise in importance—and spell doom for activities like planning, budgeting and management.

"Instead of setting advertising budgets on quarterly cycles, marketers will launch ad initiatives whenever opportunities emerge, and they will optimize them for efficiency and effectiveness on the fly," Rayport says. 

"Bidding on ad exchanges already happens in real time; enhancements in media placement and creative execution (for example, what image goes with what copy for a given recipient) will occur with similar speed. The 'budget cycle' is already a quaint idea. It will soon be a thing of the past."

What Planet are You on?

"Effective stories match the worldview of the people you are telling the story to," Seth Godin says.

The last time I checked, in my world the least effective way to persuade people you were trustworthy was to claim you were trustworthy.

What worldview does Overstock.com think customers have?

Millennials: In Blogs We Trust

A new study by research firm Millennial Branding reveals that Millennials rely on blogs more than any other form of media as a source of trustworthy product information.

Thirty-three percent of Millennials say they count on blogs to guide their purchase decisions, while fewer than three percent allow traditional forms of media (TV, magazines and books) to influence them, according to the study.

Although a majority (58 percent) expect brands to publish online content, a mere one percent of Millennials say that ads of any sort increase their trust in a brand.

Before making a purchase, Millennials instead seek the opinions of friends (37 percent), parents (36 percent) and online experts (17%).

Civility. There's an App for That.

Worried friends and followers on Facebook and Twitter might think you're ill bred?

Your social media reputation is safe with a subscription to ThinkUp, according to Farhad Manjoo, columnist for The New York Times.

ThinkUp keeps tabs on your graceless behavior on those networks and points out, among other things, how often you refer to yourself, use profanities and ignore others.

The tracking service is designed "to make you act like less of a jerk online," says ThinkUp co-founder Gina Trapani.

A Content Marketing First

According to ADWEEK, Bank of America ran a banner ad this week on NYTimes.com that, when clicked, activated a live Webcast of The New York Times' "Schools for Tomorrow" conference.

Visitors who clicked the ad tuned into a live stream of the one-day event, Webcast inside the banner.

Bank of America was a sponsor of the conference.

An advertiser has never before hosted a live Webcast of a Times conference within an ad, says ADWEEK.

The ad "represents the demand by marketers today to align with, create and use content to get the attention of ad-weary consumers in fresh ways," ADWEEK says.

Expect to see a lot of copycats in the next 12 months.