Mobile Codes Run ‘Gauntlet’ in Marketing Book
Online Media Daily

Readers of former Kodak CMO Jeffrey Hayzlett’s upcoming business book Running the Gauntlet will get videos of the marketing guru to start every chapter, courtesy of 2D mobile codes.

The typical biz book of 10 chapters was too traditional for a project that purports to help readers “drive change” in their own companies. The author, speaker and consultant decided to structure his second book differently from the usual business guide. "We decided to be more interactive—35 chapters of about 1,500 words each,” he says. Each chapter would get a 2D code that triggered an introductory video of Hayzlett introducing or enhancing the topic.

This is one of the first and more extensive uses of mobile codes in a full-length book. Joseph Mitchell’s The Zappos Experience was published several months ago with embedded codes, and Publishers Weekly reports a number of projects coming soon that will be deploying the familiar and generally unsightly two-toned QR codes.

That was Hayzlett’s original plan, although he considers QR encoding “ugly codes. The book had already been laid out to include QR embeds when he saw SnapTag’s CEO Nicole Skogg at a conference show her company’s alternative 2D code, which uses custom art that can include logos and branding.

Now users of Running the Gauntlet—scheduled for release Jan. 3—can snap an image of the relevant chapter SnapTag and send it either by email, MMS or via a dedicated reader app to the vendor and be linked to the video.

The video clips run 30 seconds to a minute. Hayzlett says video enhancements to a book like his are an added value; people retain information more readily from multimedia formats while making the experience more personal. “You can convey things on video, and it is a reflection of me and a more interactive touchpoint with the book,” he says.

One of the unique advantages of adding 2D codes is the feedback loop of user data it provides. Skogg says that for the first time, authors will have some rough gauge of reader engagement. “We will be able to measure engagement from how many tags a user scans and their frequency. We can look at a time line and see if they are jumping around in the book—did they read it in a week, or are they keeping it with them for six months?”

Hayzlett, a marketer at heart, believes that over time mobile codes in books can be leveraged to cultivate closer relationships with readers. “We can offer them special offers or have them 'friend me'"—and make the reader feel in closer touch with the author.

AdWeek’s 2011 Hot List Revealed
AdWeek

This year, to celebrate the media world’s tumultuous and always entertaining transformation, Adweek’s Hot List goes 360 to track the best print, TV, and digital properties.

We culled and crunched data—from audience and ad metrics to measuring social influence via Klout—and tracked votes from our first-ever Readers’ Choice poll—which garnered a whopping 182,000 votes—on Adweek.com.) The result: our most comprehensive Hot List ever. The hottest properties overall—Time, The New York Times, CBS, AMC, and Facebook—are an elite class of media powerhouses that take chances and embrace change with proven results.

Also being honored are CBS president, CEO Les Moonves, who Adweek named the Hottest Revenue Generator, and Richard Turley, Bloomberg Businessweek’s creative director, appointed the Hottest Creative Player. Moonves and Turley may be worlds apart, but they stand together as visionaries who helped catapult their businesses to new heights.

Forecasts for 2012 Ad Spending Revised Downward
AdAge

Thanks to strong performance in emerging markets and events like the Olympics and U.S. presidential election, ad spending is expected to see single-digital growth next year. However, two firms—Publicis Groupe's ZenithOptimedia and WPP's Group M—are now getting more conservative in their predictions about the business in 2012, and have revised global forecasts down slightly from earlier this year.

The latest forecast by ZenithOptimedia, which will be released December 5, shows that global ad spending in major media will grow 4.7% to $486 billion in 2012, 5.2% in 2013 and 5.8% in 2014.

That's a dip from what it said in October, when the company released its last forecast. At that time the media agency predicted 5.3% growth for 2012. The agency also predicts that spending will end this year at $464 billion, 3.5% higher than in 2010.

Separately, Group M says it expects a 6.4% increase in global ad spending in 2012, which is down from a July report forecasting a 6.8% increase. Its new report, also released December 5, predicts that 2011 will show a 5% increase in spending over 2010, to $490 billion.

3 Online Advertising Trends to Watch in 2012
Marketing Daily News

It’s that time of year again, when people like me hold forth on where we’ve been as an industry this past year, and where we’re headed. When you think about it, of course, it’s a little silly to assume that come Jan. 1, the focus of a whole industry suddenly shifts at midnight when the ball drops. In my mind, the key themes and issues for digital advertising in 2012 look a lot like the ones we grappled with in 2011. The same things that excited us about digital in 2011 will see us into the new year. But, technology evolves at a breakneck pace these days, and with every new capability comes a new opportunity to engage.

After all, delivering good advertising (and by “good,” I mean relevant) is really about harnessing a moment. It’s about harnessing the user’s intent at the very instant he’s looking for information, looking to find an answer, or looking to solve a problem. We’re all at our most receptive to advertising when it’s consistent with what’s on our mind at a given time. And technology allows us to understand what’s on the user’s mind and match it with a relevant message from an advertiser. Making that connection—on every platform and in every context—will continue to drive the direction of digital advertising in the coming year.

There are other macro-level dynamics at work here, too.

SOCIAL ON THE RISE: Audiences are changing, for good: The so-called “digital natives” are growing up fast, and we need to change our approach to engaging them. This generation’s social-media adoption is broad and deep. Digital natives turn to friends and family as a primary source of authority, and call for transparency after witnessing a great deal of corporate and institutional incompetence and corruption (think Enron, Tyco, etc.). Digital-native consumers will expect that what is of most value to them will come to them, from friends or networks, rather than from sources they search out. As a result of this shift, social-media ad revenues have skyrocketed, and are predicted to reach $8 billion next year. But if brands want to make that money really work for them, they can’t just throw any old social-media strategy to the wall and see what sticks. They need new ad formats that push those Facebook pages and Twitter feeds to consumers in a relevant context, as opposed to pulling them away to social sites. In the right context, social can work with content to add significant value for the consumer, rather than eliciting useless “Likes” that advertisers struggle to monetize.

VIDEO IS ROLLING: As they say, when you’re looking for answers, you should always “follow the money,” and that definitely holds true in advertising. If your first stop on the money trail is social, then video is close behind. Video – beyond pre-roll and in-stream – is dynamically innovating our space. In 2011, we have seen online video emerge as the fastest-growing digital ad format. In 2012, we will see online video that is more creative, engaging, and useful. Advertisers are no longer simply taking what works on TV and placing it online. We are seeing a revolution in video, with more creative content coming directly from users, which helps brands develop a more meaningful engagement with consumers. At Vibrant, our approach is bringing sight, sound and motion together to deliver an immersive, user-initiated experience that is delivering compelling results for advertisers.

SMARTER ANALYTICS: Behind the scenes, as ads grow more dynamic and multifunctional every day, marketers who need to demonstrate ROI continue the search for better metrics. After all, the best campaigns are interactive, offering users utility and entertainment via search boxes, news tickers, and gaming portals. So advertisers are looking more closely at user behavior with pre- and post-click data that gives them more mileage from their campaigns. Finally, we’re seeing a burst of new technologies that can more clearly measure reader engagement and retention, and I think there will be a continued interest in gathering and analyzing data that can go beyond CTRs and counting clicks. With these results available, we will see that all content is not created equal, and that despite the recent increase of volume of content, results will come from placements in better quality environments.

Social, video, and measurement: That’s what I think 2012 will be about. These elements played an important role in what we’ve done in 2011 and drive the direction of the innovation and creative possibilities digital advertising is capable of achieving in the coming year. And we’ll be using technology to connect with consumers in better, more relevant, more sophisticated ways that serve both advertisers and consumers.

Marketers Ramp Up Real-Time Strategies
Direct Marketing News

Ask any marketer what it takes to effectively reach consumers in a digitized, mobilized and socialized shopping environment and undoubtedly he will say you've got to target the right consumers with the right message at the right time. Increasingly, however, marketers are going beyond the notion of "the right time" by attempting to target consumers in real time with personalized and segmented interactions.

In a Sept. 27 Forrester Research report authored by Srividya Sridharan, Dave Frankland and Allison Smith, the writers attempt to define real-time marketing.

"The real-time buzzword is back," they write. "Marketers, vendors and service providers use this term in a variety of scenarios to describe technologies, analytics, customer service and processes. The hype around real time has multiple implications for customer intelligence professionals. Real-time marketing, often touted as a technology solution, is a people and process focused effort too."

While that may be helpful, it doesn't necessarily nail down a definition. Outdoor gear retailer Cabela's leverages Bazaarvoice's customer intelligence tools to understand consumers and how they respond to and review different products. By coupling customer review data with other information in its database, Cabela's is exploring how it can make amends to consumers who have had a difficult time with a product or service.

Although Cabela's is still exploring the program, it currently operates two real-time programs designed to regain consumers who have abandoned the site before making a purchase. Event-triggered emails allow Cabela's to lure customers back to the site if they've abandoned their shopping carts while behaviorally targeted banner ads attempt to bring consumers back to the site if they previously left without making a purchase.

For Hearst Magazines, real time means the ability to segment potential subscribers of two of its titles according to likelihood of transaction. Prospects with a high likelihood of subscribing have less obstacle to registration than less probable subscribers. Prospects deemed high-risk are funneled through one or two more action steps and offered an incentive to provide payment with their orders.