Yogi Land

Harness the mania

Editors Note: The Yahoo! Advertising blog recently asked 10 agency leaders one question: “How will the tablet revolution change the advertising landscape and your business?” Here is the response from Jeff Gabel, Chief Creative Officer Partners + Napier.

According to the recently released “U.S. Consumer Electronics Sales and Forecast from the Consumer Electronics Association (CEA),” tablet computers are projected to grow 157 percent in 2011, with more than 26.5 million units shipped.

As any new technology proliferates, especially one as flexible as the tablet, marketers feel pressure to keep their brands on top of the trend. So how do agencies harness this tablet mania in a smart way that will produce results?

We’ve seen a ton of impressive agency work that leverages tablets in the consumer space, but we’ve found that tablets yield high, immediate marketing returns when applied to B2B brands.

Placed in the hands of our clients’ passionate employees, tablets have mobilized entire sales forces. Tablet technology has helped clients track and report data, deliver interactive product demonstrations, and lead impactful meetings. The transition from paper-based sales materials to tablet-based engagement materials has provided clients with a significant improvement in measurable ROI, as well as the ability to update and manage content in real-time for the entire sales force.

Opportunities to apply tablet technology in the B2B space are often overlooked, but if we focus on providing clients with clear operational advantages in this way, we can better leverage the tablet revolution as it continues to develop.

See also:

• "The Tablet Revolution: Richard Schatzberger of Co Collective"
• "The Tablet Revolution: Gregg Fisher, Managing Director, LBi Health"

-- Christian Chensvold

Christian Chensvold is a New York-based writer covering business, lifestyle, and culture. He blogs at Ivy-Style.com. See some of his previous entries on the Yahoo! Advertising Blog, "Yahoo! Cricket Attracts an Audience of Millions" and “Mobile Retail Revolution.”

To learn what Yahoo! has in store for tablets and other connected devices, visit Yahoo! Advertising Solutions and contact your Yahoo! representative.

Four ways technology is changing consumer behavior, and expert tips for marketers

Whenever I hear the phrase “back-to-school shopping,” I invariably remember that amazing series of Staples commercials with parents dancing down the aisles to the strains of “It’s the Most Wonderful Time of the Year,” as their kids looked on dejectedly.

The ads may be hilarious, but Back-to-School (B2S) is serious business. According to the National Retail Federation, consumers will spend $68.8 billion outfitting students for school this year. A new Yahoo! study took a closer look at how digital media and new technology is affecting how consumers shop for back-to-school. Check out the four key findings we uncovered to help marketers.

Study finding #1: Consumers are shopping earlier and spending more

Yahoo! found that seven in ten consumers plan to spend more or about the same for back-to-school this year. Consumers say they will increase their budgets by 7% compared to last year. The biggest opportunities by category are in basic school supplies, clothing and media purchases.

The study also found that shopping starts much earlier than purchase. In fact, researchers found a five-point increase from 2010 for those shopping earlier. Approximately 60% of consumers told us that they are shopping at least three weeks before the start of the new school year. Searches on Yahoo! for "back to school" as early as July confirm that B2S is on people's minds well before the peak of the shopping season.

Study finding #2: Mom isn’t the only one doing the shopping

When it comes to back-to-school shopping, it's no longer just about convincing moms what to purchase. Specifically, Yahoo! found that 23% of dads and a whopping 84% of teens are getting involved in B2S shopping. Researchers found that dads are more likely than moms to shop for certain consumer electronics items, which tend to be pricier purchases. One in five dads said they plan to buy a tablet for B2S.

Study finding #3: Shopping happens online and offline

The vast majority of shoppers (75%) are using online and offline information to research purchases for B2S. Yahoo! also found a growing reliance on digital content, with 58% of consumers saying they read articles and 28% watching videos around the topic of back-to-school. Interestingly, Yahoo! found that dads are twice as likely to read articles on content portals about B2S than moms. Dads are also three times more likely to watch professional videos about Back-to-School than moms.

Study finding #4: Shoppers want deals, deals and more deals

Given the state of the economy, it’s not surprising that 69% of consumers say they have a budget for back-to-school. At least 59% plan to use coupons more this year than they did last year, while 75% of consumers said they will be using both on and offline channels to find these deals and promotions. A third will be using smartphones to take advantage of B2S deals.

Tips for back-to-school marketers

• Target shoppers over a longer time period so you can influence them during the research phase and drive the ultimate purchase behavior.

• With the growing influence of kids and dads in B2S purchases, marketers can use new channels in their media buys.

• Consumers are leveraging video and articles to optimize their shopping lists, so be where they are. Check out a great example of a bac-to-school article on Shine, sponsored by Target.

• With consumers leveraging online more for deals, spread deals through digital ads and extend location based deals when at the store.

• Leverage Yahoo!’s targeting opportunities to reach a highly engaged B2S audience at scale with offers and promotions.

For more on the Back-to-School Shopping season, attend our webinar on August 25 at 11:00 am PT/2:00 p.m. ET.

-- Dianne Molina

Also: Mastering m-commerce; search engine popularity; and 20 shopping seasons a year

Consumers get hip, zip lips around advertisers: A Harris survey shows that consumers are getting savvier about behavioral targeting techniques used by online advertisers---and a no-comment mindset may be growing.

Hello? It’s 300 million mobile customers calling: More than 96% of the U.S. population are wireless subscribers, so it’s time to stop thinking about m-commerce and do something---anything! Here are beaucoup ways for brands and retailers to start tapping the m-market now.

Who uses search engines? “Only” 92% of U.S. adult Internet users, according to a Pew Internet survey, with no real statistical differences by categories including age, gender, race, income and education. Most Americans spending their online time searching or emailing, says the survey.

Don’t give me static: Most advertisers reuse their static print ads for digital editions of print magazines, but those that add interactive elements like videos and 3-D views of products get better results.

To everything, there’s a shopping season: Retailers are segmenting the classic four seasons into 13- to- 20 shopping seasons, including allergy, fall gatherings, lawn and garden, and big game season. A key goal is to spur impulse buying, which has dropped by half since 2008.

--- Bob Pickard

(Image by The Marque via Flickr, CC 2.0)

Media focuses on expansion of real-time bidding across the exchange

When the Right Media Exchange announced last week that it’s expanding real-time bidding throughout the exchange, the press took notice.

Ramsey McGrory, head of Right Media Exchange, spoke with the press to explain what our new publisher controls for data, pricing, and inventory means to exchange members and the rest of the advertising community.

Visit the Right Media Blog for highlights of the media’s coverage.

In which we celebrate our “1K” post

Did you know that:

• The year 1,000 A.D. was a leap year?
• The letter K stands for 1,000 because the prefix “kilo” (as in “kilogram”) derives from the Greek word for 1,000, “χίλιοι?”
• In Japanese mythology, 1,000 cranes signify healing?
• On Friday, July 22, the Yahoo! Advertising blog posted its 1,000^th article since its launch on September 9 of 2009?

It has been a heady 1 year, 10 months and 16 days since our very first post.  In that time we’ve done our level best to keep you, our advertisers, up to date on what’s hot in the digital advertising universe, from Yahoo! and beyond.

We’ve come a long way, and (we hope) have kept you abreast  of Yahoo!’s latest advertiser and consumer developments in search, display, video, branded entertainment, mobile and insights to help you be a better advertiser.

But it’s not all Yahoo!, all the time. It’s about keeping you up on one of the fastest-paced industries in history. We have explored relevant trends in hot-button topics like social media, green marketing, and ethnic advertising. And we’ve interviewed some of the most interesting minds in the business.

We’ve also included relevant advertising, publishing and social media news, highlighted the week’s hottest campaigns and even injected a little humor.

The blog is just one column in our B2B social media acropolis. Since we launched it, the Yahoo! Advertising Twitter page has grown from a few dozen followers to more than 14,000, and more than 33,000 people “Like” our Facebook page.

For you, that means no shortage of ways to keep up with us. We hope to see and hear a lot more of you over our next 1,000 posts. And subscribe to the blog to get every one of them in your email.

Good luck and good advertising!

--- Jeff Sweat, Jeff Hecox, Michael Mattis, Dianne Molina & Robert Pickard

Also: Take Data Signals from Baseball; Protect Yourself from “Brandjackers”

You built it, but they’re not coming. It’s not enough to build a terrific online destination with rich content, gorgeous graphics and a sharp SEO plan. To generate traffic, says Derek Gordon of Mediapost, go where your target audience hangs out and bring ’em back to your place.

 Five data-driven lessons from baseball. Using statistical analysis known as "sabermetrics," the Oakland Athletics were able to outsmart and outperform much richer teams. What can online publishers and marketers learn from the A’s success with data-driven strategies?

Beware of brandjackers, bad guys who hijack your brand search terms and steal your sales. Prevalent in markets with strong online sales and complex web of channel and promotional partners, brandjacking costs the U.S. hotel industry about $1.9 billion a year in lost bookings. Start protecting your brand now.

 What’s the deal with DSP? AdExchanger asked a dozen industry executives about the challenges posed by using demand-side platform (DSP) data for targeting users in online ad campaigns. 

 Most online ad effectiveness research is a mess, producing inaccurate and unreliable results. So says the Interactive Advertising Bureau, which offers these best practices to shape things up. 

 ---Bob Pickard

A mere 20,000 Twitter users steal almost half of the spotlight on Twitter, which now ropes in a billion tweets every week.

That means only 0.05% of the social network’s user base attracts attention, according to a new Yahoo Research study titled, “Who Says What to Whom on Twitter.”

Of the 260 million tweets with URLs that the study’s authors analyzed, nearly 50% of the tweets consumed were created by what they called “elite” users who fall into four categories: media, celebrities, organizations and bloggers. “Ordinary” users encompass everyone else.

Like findings in previous studies, the researchers for this one conclude Twitter resembles an information-sharing hub rather than a social network, with the top generators garnering huge follower tallies but not following their content consumers in return.

Unlike previous studies though, this one delves deeper into the production and flow of tweets. For example, while ordinary users consume a high number of tweets from celebrities and bloggers, those celebrities primarily listen to other famous people’s tweets and those bloggers listen to other bloggers on Twitter.

“By studying the flow of information among the five categories … our analysis sheds new light on some old questions of communications research,” the authors wrote in the 10-page study.

For access to a PDF of the full study, click here.

Do you think Twitter, which marked its fifth anniversary earlier this month, has evolved away from being a social network and transformed into just an information-sharing outlet? And if you think so, is that a good or bad thing?

More About: social media, social networking, study, twitter, Yahoo

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Prop 19, California’s controversial bid to legalize marijuana, lost at the polls on Tuesday by a slim margin: Just 53.9% of voters said “No” to the proposal.

However, if that vote had been up to the wider web of Internet users, Prop 19 would have passed with a 55% majority.

According to data gathered by Yahoo during the company’s Ask America online survey, more than 8 million responses were recorded overall. With regard to Prop 19, 133,000 online “votes” were cast on the question of whether marijuana should be legal. In Yahoo’s survey, a slightly higher number of responses favored marijuana legalization.

Clearly, this is one of the more controversial topics that arose around the midterm elections. But Yahoo also tracked other popular issues from the American political landscape — from Tea Party antics to immigration and healthcare.

When it comes to right wing-left wing bickering, 72% of Yahoo’s respondents said the political discourse had reached an unnatural level of animosity. However, 61% said they were not too worried about Tea Partiers steering Congress in a radically right direction.

Around 75% of respondents actually favored Arizona’s controversial and conservative new immigration laws, saying they’d approve of such measures in their home states. And 65% said they wanted the U.S.’s newly passed healthcare laws to remain in effect.

To see other issues and results, check out this inforgraphic based on survey data, created by JESS3:

Click image for larger version.

Of course, Yahoo’s data was gathered from a wide range of Internet users, not all of whom were eligible to vote.

This infographic is the fourth and final installment in the Ask America series based on Yahoo’s data. Images were created by interactive agency JESS3.

Header image courtesy of Flickr, GUS314159.

More About: Ask America, election, elections, infographic, JESS3, Political, Yahoo

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