The Most Important Rule of Sponsorships: Invest Rather Than Buy
AdAge

Even though spending on corporate partnerships with sports, entertainment and nonprofit organizations will reach $18 billion in North America this year, a majority of sponsorships remain ad hoc projects, fragmented and siloed within the company rather than optimized, integrated and aligned behind growth and enterprise-wide impact.

To maximize their return on these significant relationships, marketers must shift from being buyers of sponsorships to investors in partnerships. What's the difference? A buyer acquires something for limited use or to serve a single purpose. An investor, on the other hand, seeks to maximize return and is more likely to develop multiple ways to earn dividends and work in concert with the investment property.

Here are three questions companies should ask themselves to find out if they're buyers or investors:
1. Do you know what you want to do and with whom to do it?
2. Are we truly engaging our target group?
3. Are we measuring results in a meaningful way?

Trends: Digital Advertising
AdWeek

A vast array of technologies and trends are transforming online marketing. Because it’s hard to wade through the changes, we’ve whittled them down to six that are significant.

The death of the click through—maybe for real this time. Advertisers and publishers have been predicting—and hoping for—the death of the click-through rate for years, complaining it’s a highly inefficient way to measure an ad’s success, especially for brand advertising. Click throughs aren’t dead yet, but efforts like startup Moat’s “Kill the Click” campaign, which focuses on time spent mousing over an ad rather than clicking, should help dig its grave.

The merging of mobile and desktop. The dividing line between mobile devices (especially tablets) and desktop/laptop computers seems to be blurring. Apple, for example, has been incorporating features from its smartphones into its desktop operating system, and Jefferies & Co. predicted recently that Apple’s two systems—OSX and iOS—will merge completely. Meanwhile, ad servers like Google’s DoubleClick are trying to integrate their desktop and mobile offerings.

The persistence of supercookies. Researchers have found that major websites—specifically Hulu and MSN.com—have been following visitors with a file called a “supercookie,” which continues its tracking even after users delete it in their Web browsers. Not surprisingly, this doesn’t go over well with consumers. When called out, Microsoft and Hulu apologized and claimed to stop the practice. Don’t look for them to disappear completely, though—supercookies are legal.

The beginnings of ad-tech consolidation. Earlier this year, Andrew Bloom, vice president of business development at MediaMind, said, “The notion of consolidation is a wet dream for people in the industry.” And the dream may have started, sparked in part by Google’s acquisition in June of AdMeld. The latest deal came in September, when ContextWeb and Datran Media merged to create PulsePoint, which promises an easier way to create cross-channel campaigns.

The rise of HTML5. Once a dominant format on the Web, Adobe’s Flash has struggled to stay relevant, especially after Apple declined to support the format on the iPhone and iPad. Publishers and advertisers have shifted their attention to the newer, more mobile-compatible technology, HTML5. Even Adobe, which continues to defend Flash’s usefulness for games and other applications, has announced a separate product to help designers build ads in HTML5.

The value of specialized content. According to ad intelligence company SQAD, the CPMs paid for display ads held relatively steady over the past year, but things get more complicated when you compare different categories. Entertainment and finance sites saw their average CPMs increase by 50 cents or more, while automotive, lifestyle, and home/fashion sites went down by at least the same margin. SQAD’s conclusion? Specialized content still makes money.

For Advertisers, Older People Are the New Youth
AdWeek

Now that advertisers have realized that older consumers are worth targeting—it helps that they’re one of the few groups that still has money to spend—the AARP is launching a new online network to chase those dollars.
The group has built a network consisting of AARP.org and more than 600 complementary sites, like Oxygen.com and Grandparents.com, that it says will reach 40 million boomers. Using a data management platform, AARP says it can further slice and dice that audience by characteristics like age, gender, income, and buying behavior to meet advertisers’ goals. “What this allows you to do is have this highly efficient ad play with scale,” said Peter Zeuschner, AARP’s Northeast Media sales manager.

The time seems ripe for such an offering. Marketers have begun to realize that older folks have money, are active, and are less brand-loyal than previously believed, says Brad Adgate, svp of research for Horizon Media. But not all ad categories are ripe for the picking. Zeuschner sees AARP’s network being especially popular with finance, health, travel, and food advertisers. But beauty tends to be print-centric, and technology companies still aim younger, even though older consumers have been shown to be heavy spenders on tech.

Advertisers will also need to keep in mind the psychology of their audience. “Boomers don’t want to be targeted physically,” says Lisa Phillips, senior analyst at eMarketer. “They don’t want to see themselves in ads.”
 

Study: 67% See Increase In Cause-Marketing In '12
Marketing Daily News

As more marketers try to link themselves to do-good missions that resonate with consumers, the country’s biggest causes are getting ready to open the floodgates: 67% expect more companies to start cause efforts in the year ahead.

“We’re finding more companies, and across more categories, expanding cause-related efforts, whether it’s Budweiser’s veterans-oriented campaign or Chipotle Mexican Grill “Boorito” promotions for small farms,” David Hessekiel, president of the Cause Marketing Forum, which conducted the study, tells Marketing Daily.

The survey found that 22% of its sample expects cause-efforts to stay at current levels, and only 11% anticipated a decline. “Considering what’s been going on with the economy, it comes as a pleasant surprise so many are predicting increases,” he says.

The research is based on respondents at nine leading nonprofits, including the American Heart Association, Boys & Girls Clubs of America, DonorsChoose.org, Feeding America, First Book, KaBOOM!, Share Our Strength, St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital and Susan G. Komen for the Cure, “which together have hundreds and hundreds of partnerships in place with marketers,” he says.

The Rye, N.Y.-based group recently launched Cause Update, a free subscription service to link causes with marketers and ad agencies.

For brands, the risk is that as consumers see more and more cause-efforts, it’s easy to become invisible. “There is a huge difference between a well thought-out and well-executed program, such as Yoplait’s Lids for Lives, which inspires consumers to send in tens of millions of lids, and simply putting a pink ribbon on your product and saying you support breast-cancer research. Programs need to stand out. The bar really has been raised, and marketers need to find ways to benchmark their efforts.”
 

Mobile eCommerce Gains Consumer Buy-In
Online Media Daily

Mobile, social and geographic location continues to feed off the 80% of the global population carrying mobile devices generating more sales through mobile Web sites.

Smartphone adoption grew 50% during each of the past two years. About 58% of mobile users will have a smartphone by 2015, up from 38% in 2011, and 18% in 2009, according to eMarketer.

The other part of the story points to the quick rise in ownership among recent mobile phone buyers. Marketers from various companies, such as Disney and AT&T, in attendance at an eMarketer event, were updated on the sector's progress. For instance, they heard Apple increased its share of U.S. mobile phone sales to 10% in February 2011, up from 8% in the year-ago month, and Android rose to 27%, up from 7%, respectively.
In addition, U.S. mobile commerce sales are predicted to reach $4.9 billion this year, and will account for $163 billion in sales worldwide by 2015, according to ABI Research.

Depending on how Google's acquisition of Motorola Mobility plays out will determine who gains and retains future leads, said Noah Elkin, eMarketer principal analyst at the event. "The phone's operating system has become a key purchase factor when consumers decide on the phone to buy," Elkin noted, pointing to comScore February 2011 stats suggesting OS is the No. 1 factor, followed by app selection and music and video capabilities. "The fact phones can make voice calls continues to become increasingly irrelevant."

It turns out that mobile Internet traffic worldwide rose to 5.02% in June 2011, up from 1.82% in March 2010, according to Net Marketshare. While it may not seem like much, the percentage doubled in the past year.
 

Pepsi Launches Social-Viewing Platforms for 'X Factor'
AdAge

Pepsi has been promising viewers they'll be able to experience X Factor in ways they "never imagined." This week it will start delivering.

Pepsi Pulse and Pepsi Sound Off will provide the "X Factor" faithful a way to interact with each other and the show. It also provides Pepsi with platforms that could be used to cultivate conversations around Super Bowl or the Grammys, for example. A Pepsi spokeswoman said discussions about other uses for Pepsi Pulse and Pepsi Sound Off are ongoing, though there's nothing concrete to share at the moment.

Pepsi Pulse is a digital visualization of conversations about "X Factor." A series of checkmarks with the text "2 people agree with Simon" appear on screen, or a mass of hearts appears with the text "69 people love X Factor." Mouse over the hearts or checkmarks and tweets pop up. The concept was built out in just three weeks, said Andrea Harrison, director-PepsiCo Beverages digital engagement. She said that it's meant to be a qualitative, not a quantitative view of consumer conversations. Pepsi worked with Firstborn on the project.

Pepsi Sound Off, modeled after Twitter, is a place for fans to connect during the show and incorporates a gaming mechanism. Viewers can post comments in a stream, as well as organize streams by popular hashtags. Messages posted on Pepsi Sound Off can also be pushed to Twitter or Facebook. Pepsi is leveraging Gigya's social technology. It also worked with Undercurrent and Huge on the platform.

Beer Industry Looks to Rebuild 'Brand Beer'
AdAge

Stuck in a multi-year slump that shows no sign of lifting, beer industry leaders have blamed everything from the economy and weather to anti-smoking laws in bars. But one top executive is bluntly suggesting that industry itself is the problem for failing to out-market the spirits category.

"The days of beer guys knocking each other around and not worrying too much about spirits and wine is over, and it's frankly been over for a long time," MillerCoors CEO Tom Long said in a forceful speech to hundreds of beer distributors gathered this week in Las Vegas for a meeting of the National Beer Wholesalers Association. "And if we're going to thrive long term, then we're going to have to look at those competitors and as an industry take on the challenge of brand beer. Make no mistake: our success over the next five years depends on that."

The last three years have been brutal. In the 52 weeks ending in late August, the number of beer cases sold in stores was down 1.5% from the year earlier, according to Nielsen, while spirit volume sales were up 3.2% in the year ending in mid-September. By year's end, experts are forecasting beer volume to be down some 2%. That would mark the third year in a row of a decline, which hasn't happened in 50 years, Beer Marketers Insights President Benj Steinman noted in a presentation to distributors, who met at Caesars Palace for their annual convention and trade show. "If we have yet another year of 2% decline, it will be a lost decade," he said. "We'll be back to where we were 10 years ago."

Mr. Long, who took over as CEO in June, suggested advertising is playing a role in the rise of spirits, with more brands spending liberally on TV, moving into a medium that beer used to have to itself. He even took the unusual step of showing off several sprits ads from brands such as Captain Morgan and Smirnoff -- hardly the presentation you expect at a beer conference.