App Sales Reach New Heights as More Businesses Jump In

It’s hard to believe that it’s been only five years since Apple started the app market.

With 700,000 apps offered between the Apple and Google mobile platforms, consumers are faced with more choices than ever before. It’s estimated that mobile users spend on average about two hours a day with applications. The revenue from this market is expected to rise 62% in 2013, and reach $25 billion by the end of the year.

Growth…and bumps along the road. This massive growth hasn’t been without its trials for companies, online media buyers and consumers alike. There was a “wild west” like feel to the market five years ago, a variety of scams and hacks that plagued consumers and far too many loopholes for developers who wanted to make an easy buck.

Now the industry has matured and developers are becoming more methodical and strategic with app development. Instead of rapid cycles of development followed by quick releases of shoddy apps, they are concentrating on the very best apps and marketing them well.

More growth ahead. But there’s still a lot of growth to be expected in the industry – and a variety of different companies are looking to get in on the future growth in an already saturated market.

Only 2% of the top 250 publishers in Apple’s App store are “newcomers,” versus 3% in Google’s Play store for Android apps. This means new apps are competing directly with popular, time tested apps for sales and usage.

Not only are businesses challenged with developing apps that work correctly across a variety of different platforms, they also have to find a way to market them. Selling apps in a crowded market means digital advertising is a must. Online media buyers for apps are seeing costs rise higher than expected. Startups and vetted companies are challenged with marketing their apps in a saturated market while keeping costs low.

With strategic development, smart ad buys and persistence, though, businesses can make a splash in the app market– if they can stay consistent and afford to maintain their efforts.

Which Products Make the Grade for DRTV?

There are a number of different types of products being promoted through Direct Response Television (DRTV).

The criteria for choosing which products appear on which infomercials is very specific and not all items available to consumers will make the proverbial grade.

USP. For one thing, the product must have a unique selling proposition, or USP. It must do something in a different manner than other products currently available and it must capture the interest of the consumer viewing it.

Appeal to the masses. Since the product is being promoted using a mass media device like television, it must appeal to a large demographic of prospective customers. If the product is one which would specifically appeal to a certain niche market, it may be successfully marketed on a specialty channel.

Looks matter. Infomercials use a product demonstration format to show the viewer how it works. For a product to be successfully promoted in this manner, it must be one which can be shown in a way that is DRTV “friendly.”

What’s in it for me? Customers need to believe that the product being demonstrated can solve a problem which they are experiencing. To get a television viewer to open his or her wallet, they must be able to see the benefit of making the purchase.

Keep it simple. Unless a product being promoted through an infomercial can be easily explained, it is not going to do well. Prospective buyers will click away from something which appears as if it will be too much trouble to use. However, if it is a product that can be demonstrated effectively, DRTV can be a very effective way to promote an item.

Can Your Social Media Past Hurt Your Job Prospects?

Although criminal background checks, credit reports and online searches are standard fare these days for employers evaluating potential employees, social media history is growing increasingly important as part of the equation.

Social Intelligence, a social media history aggregation company, is banking on it. It provides a unique service for employers and gives them everything they need to evaluate someone in terms of their online activity.

While this may seem like detective work, CEO Max Drucker is quick to dismiss the connection. “All we assemble is what is publicly available on the Internet today,” he stated in a recent interview. The gathered information is categorized into several different sections, including professional honors, charitable work, racist comments, references to drugs, racy photos, displays of weapons and violent actions.

The service may seem like a safe bet for employers, but the FTC was notified by privacy advocates who are concerned with employers making determinations based on factors that aren’t relevant to job performance. In the subsequent investigation, the FTC determined that Social Intelligence’s business is in compliance with the Fair Credit Reporting Act.

According to the company, the reports remove references to religion, race, marital status, sexual orientation, disability and other protected information. What is exposed can be damaging – like a woman who was found to be hunting for Oxycontin on Craigslist. With employers looking to make smart hiring decisions in the tight economy and social media data being created every day, Social Intelligence is likely to be joined in the social background check space by competitors soon.

Facebook and Twitter Buttons Track Users Around the Web

According to a new study by the Wall Street Journal, Facebook and Twitter social widgets are being used to track website visitors around the web, whether or not they engage with these buttons.

The social widgets – Facebook’s “Like” button and Twitter’s “Tweet” button – are ubiquitous. In the past year they have been added to millions of web pages and are normally used to share content with friends and followers.

The Wall Street Journal found that Facebook and Twitter are able to tell which websites the users are visiting even if they don’t “like” or “share” the content. The tracking happens unless users completely log out of their Facebook and Twitter accounts. Facebook says that they only use the tracking function for advertising purposes in order to display ads related to search history on a user’s Facebook sidebar. Twitter reports that they delete tracking data “quickly” and that the tracking is an unintended side effect of the functionality of the button.

Although both Twitter and Facebook deny that the tracking has any other purposes, theoretically the implications are much different: User search behavior can be linked back to a person’s social profiles, which normally includes detailed personal information. A person’s reading habits can be tracked back to their name, email address and offline information – everything from health concerns to past times to political and religious views. Privacy advocates compare it to having someone follow you around the library and taking notes about every book that you look at.

The new revelations come out amidst increasing concerns about Internet user privacy. There have been at least five bills presented before Congress dealing with online privacy issues in the last year.

Google Investors Ask, “What’s Next?”

Google has become synonymous with the Internet.

Google has also become a fixture in the American home with many people opting to “Google it.” The search engine giant has many things going for it, but even so, there is still some cause for concern.

Growing competition in the areas of search has cut into Google’s action and new emerging markets are still too young to count as assets. Does Google have what it takes to meet its investors’ growing appetites? In world where you are only as good as your last whopping success, can Google pull off a second miracle?

The rise of social networking catapulted Google into the stratosphere. AdWords, a pay per click advertising model created by Google, saw a tremendous rise in revenue thanks to market-targeted advertising. Facebook has taken notice crafting an ad program that bares striking resemblance to that of Big G’s.

Still not convinced? Let the numbers do the talking.

Just-announced 3Q numbers tell the story: Revenue from search drove a revenue increase of 23 percent and a net income increase of 32 percent. Google told analysts that display ads (images and video on YouTube, no text) are set to bring in over $2.5 billion in revenue in the coming year. (And mobile is estimated at about $1 billion.)

Yet for all of its successes, Google is still showing signs of age.

People are getting smarter about search and now with big box style websites like Amazon.com people are able to find all of their needs with less need to hunt around. As Google looks ahead it banks on the mobile market buying out AdMob, a mobile advertising agency.

Acquisition is the order of the day as Google strengthens its engineering and sales division by several hundred strong. The company is taking aggressive moves to make the leap into the new markets. Google’s vision is clear: To become the search engine for the social network generation, a sleeker more user intuitive interface working seamlessly behind the scenes.

Fight DRTV Fatigue With Creative Tweaks

For many in DRTV marketing, keeping the advertising fresh when the products and offers don't change much is a challenge.

In some cases, such as with Nautilus (which sells the Bowflex line of fitness equipment), the message tends to stay the same while only the faces and testimonials differ. With 20 years of ads and research, though, the company has found a system that works for them and stays fresh enough to keep interest levels high.

Other companies, such as Guthy-Renker (Proactiv and other health products) have an 18-month rule for an ad's lifespan, but change a few pieces of the ad during its life in order to keep it fresh. A 30-minute creative can have seasonal, promotional and competitive changes added or swapped to keep the ad fresh.

Keeping ad copy and presentation fresh is a challenge for those in competitive markets, such as cosmetics or cleaning supplies. In these markets, highlighting differences is paramount and the ability to change an ad mid-stream to cope with and differentiate it from new competition is important.

Some general advertisers have tried DRTV during the recession and have stayed, finding that it works. The Electronic Retailing Association, the industry trade group for DRTV, has added Jenny Craig, eHarmony.com and Avon as members over the past year. This has also changed the market, raising TV ad rates and altering how some are required to do business in light of new competition and higher costs.

DRTV spending has grown to a $4.5+ billion annual market and, despite the recession, is becoming more and more competitive as well. Analysts are expecting a big year for 2010 and continued growth in 2011.

DRTV Industry will benefit on Fast-Tracking Patents

The U.S. Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO) may soon be offering a way for frustrated inventors to hurry along their patent applications through a new, expedited system.

The Patent Office says this fast-tracking system is a response to many who believe that the patenting system is too slow to keep pace with the speed of technology.

“Some patents need to go fast and some need to go more slowly,” says Patent Office chief David Kappos. The plan would allow those who need a faster decision on their patent applications to pay an extra fee to have it expedited through the system.

The proposal could go into effect next year, after public input is completed this summer. Currently, and for its entire history, the Patent Office has reviewed applications on a first-come, first-served basis. This would be the first major overhaul to the patent process' system of acceptance since the Office's inception.

Many other government offices already offer expedited services at a higher fee, including the State Department's passport processing service. It takes an average of 34.6 months for a patent application to go from initial filing to acceptance, up from 26.7 months in 2003.

Currently, the Patent Office already offers a fast-track program for “green” technologies and that program has had good success. It’s looking to build upon these capabilities for this new, broader-reaching fast-tracking and will sure lead to a more productive drtv campaigns.

Android and Friends to Take On iPad

The Taipei Computer Trade Show has long been a venue for manufacturers to show their latest wares in the gadget arena.

This year is no different as computer makers Acer and Dell have both announced tablet devices to compete with Apple's popular iPad, released this year. Both companies also said that their devices will be using Google's Android operating system as their software backbone.

This shows that Android is the OS of choice against Apple's proprietary operating system for its mobile smart devices (iPad and iPhone). It also shows that Microsoft may be out of the running, for now, as far as its mobile offerings as Hewlett-Packard is rumored to have delayed release of its tablet computer because of problems with Windows.

In the smartphone world, markets clearly divided and then Apple dominated because of several factors. The first was mobile carriers, with Apple tied to AT&T and others open to many carriers, this seemed like a losing situation for Apple. Fighting back on the software front, however, Apple dominated by giving a leg up to developers and dominating the applications market with more apps available for their devices than any other maker or operating system.

With hardware mostly all coming from the same core sources, such as ARM Holdings, which makes chips that power about 40 tablet-style devices currently or soon-to-be on the market as well as 10 e-reader devices for electronic books, the competition is all in software.

Android's clear advantages are in its free-to-use architecture, its more open availability to developers and device makers and the fluidity between devices. Its weak point currently is application development, for which it has only about 25% of what is available for Apple devices.

With Apple already well on in an early lead, it's questionable that others will be able to catch up, but Android devices are certainly planning to make a run at it.

Shoppers Coming Out of Their Recession-Built Shells

March saw a 1.6% surge in retail sales this year, one of the contributing factors that is leading economists to conclude that the United States may be recovering from the recent financial crash more quickly than previously anticipated.

Banks are also rebounding quickly; J.P. Morgan Chase & Co. saw a 55% profit gain this quarter, which many see as a sign that investors can be optimistic about the coming year.

For advertisers and retailers, this is good news: consumer spending is expected to grow at an annualized rate of more than 3% in the first quarter. Previous, less optimistic expectations had that number at less than 2% - a nearly 50% increase.

Equally important is what consumers are spending their money on – motor vehicle sales have increased 6.7%, clothing sales have increased 2.3%, and furniture sales are up by 1.5%.

Economists say that consumers generally spend money on these kinds of items when they feel optimistic about the future and more inclined to spend discretionary income. Sales of electronics and appliances are also up 3.6% from the same month last year, though they slipped slightly from February to March.

The one pessimistic point in all these optimistic numbers is the fact that a consumer spending-fueled recovery could indicate that another slump is just around the corner. The recession simply may not have lasted long enough for consumers to have learned their lessons about carrying debt and discretionary spending.

Still, no reason not to enjoy the sun while it shines.

Online TV Gets More Engaging With Interactive Features

As viewers turn to online venues for TV watching, networks are looking for ways to capitalize on that engagement while simultaneously staying up-to-date with what users expect in an online world.

The web is an interactive medium, with people constantly telling each other what to look at, what they’re doing and what to do; in turn, television networks are discovering that there are many ways they can turn that tendency to their advantage.

NBC unveiled an online video viewer that inserts other content related to the video being shown. Their new design allows users to take quizzes, view deleted scenes, and read blogs that talk about what’s happening on their favorite shows.

On ABC, viewers are mostly looking at the full-screen video, but they also have access to interactive comments and can share the episode on Facebook.

ABC is trying to keep up with the interactive needs of its users by making commentary from producers and actors available with their episodes, along with comments and ways to send the episodes to their friends, netting more page views and more click-throughs.

Indeed, that may be the whole point of more interactive features: online advertisers look at the time spent on a site as a gauge for how much the ad revenue is worth. With interactive features, networks can raise that number – and potentially their ad costs.

Are Facebook Ads Getting Too Personal?

Ads that are custom-tailored to the user are nothing new in an online world.

After all, any time you open an email on Gmail, Google pops up several ads related to the content of the text inside. Apple’s renowned for targeting its users with custom recommendations for future purchases on their iTunes store. We’re accustomed to a certain amount of information-gathering so companies can deliver relevant ads that we might actually be interested in.

Looks like Facebook may have crossed a line, though.

Facebook’s users post more personal information on their pages than what they’ve been buying lately, which makes for ads that are tailored to personal likes and dislikes, opinions or associations, and even changes in their relationship.

One problematic ad rush has been among women who change their Facebook status to “engaged” and receive a glut of ads offering them wedding-related merchandise.

For many, it’s too invasive a method of advertising. On the other hand, many advertisers have come to find it quite successful, though some are using the info they have to get attention for schemes.

One company in particular is fond of using personal info to get users attention (26-year-olds get a free iPad!) and then trying to convince users to sign up for completely unrelated services.

Facebook says they’re still working out the kinks in its online advertising. It might want to hurry; users are not enjoying the experience of ads that get too personal.

TV Finds Unlikely Source to Credit for Viewer Boost

The Internet has been warily eyed by television networks as a potential rival, but the latest numbers for viewership of live events seems to tell a different tale: the internet is actually working in the networks’ favor.

The Winter Olympics in Vancouver, the Super Bowl and even the Grammys saw huge upticks in their viewership this year, particularly the Super Bowl, which was the most watched program in the entire history of television in the United States. Networks are crediting this surge in television watching to, yes, the Internet, and particularly social media.

With so many people on social networking sites like Twitter, Facebook and other chat engines, viewers can talk with their friends about events in real time, even if those friends are on the other side of the globe. The Internet may also be fueling interest as a simple promotional tool; when the entire Internet is abuzz with the upcoming game, it’s more likely that viewers and online media buyers are going to be excited to tune in.

Networks are even finding that viewers tune in to see events that they already know the outcome of. If someone hears about a stunning win by an athlete in the Olympic Games, they’re not willing to limit their experience to one 140-character tweet. They want to see it for themselves.

And that’s shaping up to be a good combination for the networks.

Cable Still Strong Despite Recession

Network television has been taking a hard hit from the recession, with their advertisers pulling out at the last minute and bidding much lower for the time slots that used to bring in the major advertising dollars.

Since it gets much smaller numbers in terms of viewers, it’s easy to think that cable would be, if anything, in even more trouble than network when it comes to bringing in advertisers.

Turns out that isn’t so. Advertisers cut their budgets for television by $10 billion in the first two quarters of 2009, but cable actually managed to grow nonetheless, getting up to nearly $8.8 billion, a 1.5% increase from last year. Granted, these aren’t exactly mind-shattering growth numbers, but they’re still extremely impressive when you consider that television advertising overall took such a major hit.

The upfronts are of course the most looked-to barometer for how well network television is doing, and the numbers are consistent with the advertising reports overall. Upfront spending dropped 12% to just $6.7 billion. This doesn’t necessary mean that network advertising spending is as bleak as many would speculate from upfront numbers alone, because the recession has forced many companies into a “wait and see” philosophy rather than gambling on the future success of a show.

Even more telling, sellers are depending more on “scatter” than ever before, which continues to improve the return on investment for advertising budgets. The amount of airtime held back for scatter could cause a large excess of unsold inventory, which may very well turn into a bidding war as air time gets closer. Even if such a scenario occurs, it’s not likely to turn out well for the networks, since they need to fill that air time and may need to sell that inventory at lower rates.

While network takes a thrashing, cable is expected to grow over twice as fast this year, with a 3.6% increase to $20.2 billion in 2010.

Is Online Advertising Really a Better Option Than Television?

Setting aside the question of legality, the availability of full-length TV shows has been growing by leaps and bounds since the first arrival of YouTube, but the battle to make some money off of the venture has been proceeding at a snail’s pace by comparison.

In the last year or so, quite a few leaps have been made to ensure large media outlets get paid for their show’s popularity online in forums like Hulu, where they can run short ads when someone views old and current TV shows.

The rush to make money in online channels has created a lot of buzz as executives fear they’ll lose their television ad revenue as viewers switch to watching online. Their fears seemed founded: TV ad rates are less than they have been in previous years, as advertisers scale back their marketing budgets to accommodate their dwindling revenues.

Online advertising is cheaper and seemed to be reaching a wider audience. Even as they learned to make money through online ads, television execs were concerned for their dwindling revenue overall.

They may not need to be concerned. A new survey by eMarketer indicates that while online ad revenue is fast growing, TV advertisers will actually spend less per hour of viewing than their online counterparts – by a stunning 38%.

Maybe it isn’t time to give up the ghost on old-fashioned TV advertising after all; in short order, it could be cheaper to reach the same audience on the tube than on the net.

Advertisers Win the Battle for Lower TV Rates

TV giants have been saying they don’t intend to lower their TV rates, no matter how bad the recession gets. After all, it’s still valuable real estate that reaches millions of viewers.

There’s news leaking out that the giants are sinking bit by bit, though, and that’s made them slightly more amenable to negotiating lower rates. The price drops are small, by all accounts – but when the TV networks had been saying they wouldn’t budge at all, even a small drop is a big victory for advertisers.

Broadcast networks have been seeing fewer advertisers willing to spend big money for TV spots for the last year. Declining ratings and the auto industry’s difficulties are also contributing factors, seeing as car ads are one of the most common appearances on TV.

The upfronts are also looking at a makeover. Previously, TV networks would sell commitments to deliver viewers, usually in lots of 1,000 viewers. They would also save some commitments to sell when the commercials were closer to air time, in hopes of negotiating a higher rate if the show were doing well. Advertisers preferred buying in advance if the show did well; the networks preferred selling late.

Now that trend is reversed. Hewlett-Packard has decided to wait and see if the audience they’re seeking actually tunes in, abandoning the upfronts. If their reaction is any indication, networks may have to cut their rates simply to pull in those upfront dollars – though for some, it’s worth the risk to wait.

Rather than get low, but guaranteed, upfront rates now, the networks may take a chance on the strength of their shows and hope for higher rates when it’s closer to commercial time. It’s a lot of pressure on the fall lineup.

Research Creates Better Strategies for Web Advertising

In the early days of television, advertisers had no idea how to capture audience attention in the new medium. The only precursor to TV advertising was print or radio ads, so they did the best they could to use those experiences and apply them to an entirely new focus.

Today, we’re looking at a similar problem with web advertising. We know print ads. We know TV ads. But do we know web ads?

Research being conducted by the Walt Disney Company suggests that we don’t know it nearly as well as we think. In the research labs, volunteers are asked to scroll through websites while researchers observe them through one-way glass, recording the movements of their eyes as they track objects and text on the screen. One ad catches the reader’s attention. Another goes by unnoticed. What made the difference?

That’s what the Disney researchers are attempting to discover.

Their methods are fairly straightforward, trying out different combinations of ad types and sizes in different places on the web page to see which are most effective at capturing and holding attention. The research also includes keeping records of heart rate, skin temperature, and facial expressions so that enthusiasm can be recorded.

The Starcom MediaVest Group considers Disney’s research “invaluable,” and Allstate, Kellogg and Bank of America are also getting in on the action.

Getting Around the TiVo Ad Problem

Cable TV networks have long bemoaned TiVo as a way for their consumers to get around watching regular advertisements. And lately, they’ve also been getting a lot of pressure to put their shows online for free as many stations and networks already do – a double whammy for advertising and a serious threat to the cable networks’ profits.

Comcast is bouncing back with a double whammy of its own: In a test of consumer response, it’s launching several TV shows from a handful of major media companies – including CBS and Time Warner – into online venues. The catch? You can’t watch them unless you’re already a cable subscriber, and the online shows have the full panoply of advertisements, just as they would if you watched them on the tube.

There’s some argument as to whether consumers will accept the new dynamic after having been introduced to full-length TV shows, including many cable network shows, in an online forum for free. Beyond the cost issue, one of the benefits of watching a TV show online thus far has been the drastically shortened advertisements.

In a 30-minute show, for instance, viewers might see only two minutes’ worth of commercials – that’s about 8-10 minutes less than their normal exposure to commercials during the course of a show that length.

TV networks are working on finding a happy medium. More ads than the current brief spots might still be palatable to consumers. After all, fewer ads are still fewer ads – even if those online spots get a little longer than they are currently, they’ll still beat out their TV counterparts.

Could That Web Ad Contain a Virus?

Hackers can be smart people and they have started to strategize to expand their reach and attract new victims.

Online advertising is specifically designed to target a large number of people, often in a specific demographic, and hackers are piggybacking on those marketing efforts to land some serious viruses right where they’ll do the most damage.

The strategies of these hackers usually involve taking over a currently existing ad and infecting it with malware. When interested customers click on the perfectly legitimate company ad, they’re also downloading a vicious virus into their company – unbeknownst to either them or the advertising company.

Companies are responding to the virus problem with serious investments in Internet security in an attempt to protect their customers. Obviously the malware-ridden ads can seriously damage a company’s reputation, as consumers get the impression that doing business with them only leads to potential damage to their computers and personal information.

To keep their names out of the mire, companies have worked hard to remedy the problems as soon as they occur and get the ads taken down within a few hours. Unfortunately, a few hours is all it takes for a well-positioned ad to reach thousands of customers, many of whom will be infected with the malware.

Online security may become one of the few places companies are willing to invest more money, even in a rough economy. With web advertising one of the few marketing strategies that is showing growth, companies can’t afford to have those dollars get killed by a virus.

Social Media Beats Out Conventional Marketing for Procter and Gamble

Social Media Beats Out Conventional Marketing for Procter and Gamble

If we had any doubt that social media was the future wave of marketing, there’s a case study recently put out by Procter & Gamble that will make you think twice.

Josh Bernoff, the co-author of Groundswell, demonstrated a social media technique that P&G judged four times as effective as their usual marketing tactics. Dollar for dollar, the social media approach was four times better.

Shhh…don’t talk about that product
P&G was marketing tampons, a product that no one especially wants to talk about directly, much less in advertising. So instead of marketing their products through conventional methods, P&G created a website called beinggirl.com, where its users could talk about anything from parents to music to problems at school to health issues – including, naturally, subjects that were handy lead-ins to tampon use.

They didn’t go for the direct sale, though. In sections where it was relevant, they simply put in a small message: brought to you by Always maxi pads and tampons. That simple technique – a place to open a dialogue and a small reminder about the host – was four times as effective as other tactics.

People Switching From TVs to PCs

Remember when everyone was worried that the DVR made television advertising obsolete? Well, only about one in every five households has a DVR – but over 75% have access to the Internet at home. As more and more TV shows air online with shorter or no commercials, computers with Internet access are proving to be more of a threat than DVRs.

Interestingly, Magid Media Futures did a recent online national study and found that the foremost reason people watched shows online wasn’t necessarily to escape commercials. They usually watched shows online so they could catch their favorites at a more convenient time.

However, that doesn’t mean that escaping commercials isn’t still a factor. Commercials online are both shorter and less frequent than TV ads.

Online media buyers can count themselves fortunate in this respect, though: Consumers may be more likely to watch online ads. With the shorter viewing time, it’s less likely that they’ll get up for a five-minute trip to the kitchen, and there is no ad skipping online.