Metzger Associates' Blog

Online worlds: a whole new marketing adventure

If you’re looking for some as-yet-under-exploited real estate for your marketing messages, you’ll have to jump into the new bohemias of online gaming. Massively multiplayer online role-playing games (MMORPGs) are the next frontier for new media marketing, and a few bold companies are staking out their territories.

With more than 800,000 avatars and a steady stream of new “births” every day, the most exciting of the lot is Second Life, a virtual world whose economy has effects on the real world. “Linden dollars” can actually be exchanged for American currency, and have generated a multi-million dollar economy.

Many Second World citizens have quit their day jobs in the meat world to live off the fat of the land. And even the gamers who aren’t so hardcore about their experience are spending 40 hours or more each month building a fantasy life online, and taking the social networking idea to a whole new level.

There’s also an online newspaper, where anyone can get the scoop on the latest events in the world.

With so many hearts and minds invested into a new world whose current 83 square-mile area is growing rapidly, smart marketers couldn’t be far behind. Rather than create passive advertising messages, which would just annoy users, advertisers are finding creative ways to allow users to interact  with their brands.

 Of course, you don’t have to be pretty to be a fun online experience.

To paraphrase our friend Nate Warren, the most powerful billboard is the human imagination.

Television Advertising Effectiveness Down 33 Percent

According to an article in Advertising Age, McKinsey & Co. is telling its Fortune 100 clients that TV advertising will be one-third less effective in 2010 than it was in 1990.

Why?

According to the article, the report predicts the following:

• A 15 percent decrease in buying power driven by cost-per-thousand rate increases
• A 23 percent decline in ads viewed due to switching off
• A 9 percent loss of attention to ads due to increased multitasking
• A 37 percent decrease in message impact due to saturation

This coupled with the fact that, according to a Forrester research study cited in the article, people between 18 and 26 spend more time online than watching television and adopt new technology far faster than any other group. We can only imagine that trend will continue with the age group immediately behind them.

It's clear that reaching consumers -- not just young consumers -- is becoming a greater and greater challenge, and it's only going to get more difficult. Marketers must keep up with new trends and understand how new technologies will impact their plans. Even if a new tool has a low adoption curve today, it may suddenly take off, and those that aren't prepared may find themselves running to catch up.

It's Australian for Changes, Mate!

According to today's Wall Street Journal, the Australian beer company Foster's will stop running television advertising in the U.S. in two weeks, opting instead for an Internet-only strategy. The slogan for the new campaign?

"Because TV Sucks."

While this certainly isn't a move that will be emulated entirely by many large television advertisers, it is an interesting data point in the continuing shift in the way we get news and information.

The Young and the Vicious

Business Week used this headline for a great article in the July 31 issue. The story gave examples of how employers are getting beat up on MySpace's companies and co-workers section. According to the article, there are more than 25,000 such groups on MySpace, taking  shots at a myriad of employers.

What amazed us was how some companies continue to ignore the impact these sites can have. AMC Theaters led the pack when -- after being shredded in a group called "AMC Worked Me" -- offered this response:

Social networking sites are not official communication vehicles for AMC [Theaters], but we recognize that they exist.

Seems a bit like the head of security at a bank noting that "guns are not an official way to  withdraw money from our institution, but we recognize it happens." People -- in this case, your employees -- are talking about you in a very public forum. Official or not, you may want to work on the problem.

Sites like MySpace are far from a 100 percent accurate source, but any company -- especially one that wants to sell to or employ young people -- would be wise to do more with such postings than simply "recognize they exist."

If You Can't Beat 'Em, Join 'Em!

After months of fighting and pulling their content from YouTube, NBC now wants to play nice. We can't say we're surprised, given that networks need avenues to sample their creative product, and YouTube gets more than 40 million video views each day.

Yet another example of the changing media landscape.

YouTube visitors will now be able to find a number of clips from top shows -- with the network's full blessing --  including "Saturday Night Live" and "The Office." This is a complete 180 from when NBC forced YouTube to take down clips that users had uploaded and shared.

Ten years ago, a company like NBC may have simply litigated a YouTube out of existence. Now, they're coming to the table with content and using the popular site to promote its programming.

The evolution continues...

If You Still Think The World Isn't Changing...

We never thought we'd see this one.

According to a recent survey by college market research firm Student Monitor and covered in today's Digital Music News, the iPod is now more important to college students than beer drinking.

Say it isn't so!

The survey found that 73 percent of all students described the iPod as "in," compared to 71 percent for beer. Student Monitor interviewed 1,200 students across 100 universities. Beer almost always tops the rankings (the Internet topped the '97 poll). Other notables this year included using Facebook, text messaging, and drinking other types of alcohol.

Perhaps there's a cross-merchandising idea hiding in there someplace.

News Releases as News

There were several interesting findings in a study recently released by Outsell Inc.  We were most intrigued by the following :

Press releases online (especially in such sites such as Google News, YahooNews and MSN News, which is where most executives find and read them) have overtaken trade journals and their respective sites as the top information source for knowledge workers.

That brings a number of key points to mind:

• Press releases remain important, and it may be argued they are more important than ever. Before, if a reporter tossed a release in the trash, not much of anyone saw it. Today, more people may read a release on Google than read the story written from the release in many publications.
• The way people are getting their news continues to change. Perusing a trade magazine was commonplace in the 1980s. Today, people look for what they want, read that and move on.
• More than ever, the ability to tell your company's story in a compelling way is critical. For many years, advertising ruled branded communications. But as it becomes harder and harder for advertising to break through -- and easier and easier for consumers to skip or avoid -- an intellectual connection with the customer may be what makes the sale.

A campaign of well-thought-out, well-written and interesting news releases -- which are, after all, stories -- can separate your company from the pack in a cost-effective manner. If you're not using this vehicle, you're missing an important element in your communication program.

Metzger Associates Comments on Net "Overexposure"

Metzger Associates' New Media Practice Director Doyle Albee was recently interviewed by Newsfactor Magazine for a story concerning those who "expose" a bit too much of themselves online. From bloggers to get fired for postings (called getting "Dooced") to kids who learn hard lessons about being too forthcoming on MySpace pages.

The entire article is available here .

America's Medal Hopes Riding on Thumbs of Cincinnati Teen

CNN reports that Ted Owen, head of the Global Gaming League (GGL), a  company which promotes the lifestyle and culture of gaming, is lobbying the Chinese government to bring competitive video gaming to the 2008 Olympics as a demonstration sport.

Admittedly, our first reaction was "you've got to be kidding!"

But on further consideration, this is another signal that tells us the way we communicate, get news, shop -- and perhaps now, even the competitions we chose as "spectator sports" -- is all  changing. Think about some of these other changes:

• There are more podcasts in the U.S. than there are radio stations in the world. Quite a feat for podcasts, which didn't really exist just a few years ago, while commercial radio has been with us for decades.
• We'd never heard of Google in 1995 and today the company has 6,000 employees and is a verb ("I Googled that to find out more information").
• How many blogs did you have on your news aggregator in 2000? If you're like most people, you didn't have any -- and you didn't have a news aggregator. Now, according to the Pew Internet & American Life Project,  8 million American adults say they have created blogs; blog readership jumped 58% in 2004 and now stands at 27% of internet users.
• Pew also reports that 50 million Americans turn to online sources for news every day. Considering that was a virtually non-existent option just 25 years ago, we've come very far, very fast.

So, is it really so surprising that gaming -- which arguably requires no more athleticism and no less skill than sports such as bowling or golf -- is trying to become an Olympic sport?

The world around us is changing fast, and the way companies must communicate is changing just as quickly. Are you keeping up?

Were YOU a Web Site Skeptic in 1996?

Here's a great article from Bulldog Reporter, a publication that covers PR and communications issues. The premise is outstanding: how many companies and executives dismissed the Internet in 1996 as just a fad?

Worse, how many are making the same mistake today regarding blogging, podcasting and other opportunities to communicate with your customers?

Recommended reading.