NEWS: What Top Brands Spend on Advertising

Procter & Gamble, et al, Changing The Way They Buy Ads, “Wreaking Havoc” With Big Media

from Silicon Alley Insider by Michael Learmonth

This week Viacom (VIA) CEO Philippe Dauman warned Wall Street that ad sales aren’t going well: The 7% growth the company had in the first quarter will be more like 3% to 4% in Q2. Philippe singled out weakness in automotive industry, in addition to the already decimated financial/mortgage business

But Martha Stewart Living Omnimedia president Wenda Harris Millard (SA 100 #38) says that’s just the tip of the iceberg. She says that in addition to a faltering economy, big media now faces a new problem: It can’t see the future any more.

Why? Because a staple of the ad industry — consumer packaged goods — has changed the way it buys advertising, and the results have thrown the media business into chaos.

Earlier this year, CPG companies like Procter & Gamble (PG), under pressure from their own rising food, commodities and fuel costs, shifted ad planning from an annual to a quarterly basis and making shorter-term ad commitments. That means media companies that could once make reasonable projections for FY revenues now have to update their assumptions every few months. “The planning cycle has changed,” Wenda tells us. “This is wreaking havoc on media company forecasting.”…

What Top Brands Spend on Advertising

Tuesday, October 16th, 2007; – Janet Meiners |

Want to know what top companies like Microsoft, Google, and even Coca-Cola spend on advertising? Here’s a breakdown by percent of revenues in 2006, starting with the most first (according to this article):

1. Microsoft - more than 20 percent of their annual revenue or $11.5 billion
2. Coca-Cola – more than $2.5 billion
3. Yahoo - more than 20 percent of their annual revenue or $1.3 billion
4. eBay - 14 percent to 15 percent of its revenue – which was $871 million, much of that to advertise on Google
5. Google – In the millions rather than billions of dollars – with $188 million
6. Starbucks - $95 million…

Zuckerberg: “Larger part of advertising is in traditional brand …

By Nick Gonzalez 
Look at this Marketing Pilgrim post for an idea of how big the brand advertising business can be. Brand spending across our network (movies, music) seems like a test budget compared to the money that sits behind the dam. …

NEWS: Publishers Want More Video Ad Creative from Agencies

Publishers Want More Video Ad Creative from Agencies from ClickZ News Blog

Tired of seeing the same in-stream video ads over and over? The people selling them are getting sick of it, too. According to ad execs speaking at yesterday’sStreaming Media East conference in New York, one reason for the lack of variety is a lack of creative.

“We don’t get multiple creatives,” said SVP Digital Sales at Martha Stewart Living Omnimedia Christine Cook, alluding to the time the same pre-roll ad for a particular advertiser kept popping up before video clips of Martha demonstrating recipes for pasta or brownies.

Cook (what a great name for a Martha Stewart ad seller!) had the crowd audience cracking up. As it turned out, the ads were for a laxative brand.

Noting the promise of hyper online ad targeting, Cook said she would like to see agencies develop more creative elements to enable customized variation of Web video ads. “We’re not getting as much creative…so you lose that opportunity of having that one-to-one [targeting],” she said.

Not only are advertisers and agencies overwhelmed by the options, they might not have the ability or budgets to produce a lot of varying creative or Web video elements, said Peter Naylor, SVP Digital Media Sales at NBC Universal. “They’re as resource constrained as anybody.”

From Cook’s experience Web video advertisers are also are reluctant to provide shorter spots. Part of the problem is a lack of standards, she believes. Different publishers ask for different ad lengths, or offer different video formats, for example.

Speaking of ad burnout, Cook said Martha Stewart even tried reducing ad rates for 5-10 second spots to spur use of shorter ad slots. Referring to longer spots, she said, “We knew it was burnout for the consumer.” 

NEWS: Network TV Schedules in Trouble, but Audiences Loyal to Programs

Network TV Schedules in Trouble, but Audiences Loyal to Programs

from MarketingCharts

Consumers are growing disenchanted with their television experience but are nonetheless loyal to their favorite programs, showing a marked preference for content over its delivery method, according to Accenture’s inaugural Global Broadcast Consumer Survey. Although television remains the predominant mass communications device worldwide, with 97% of respondents watching TV in a typical week, consumption patterns [...]

BRAND: Yahoo==Alice in Wonderland, a little lost

The web 1.0 leader worries about survival as a stand-alone property. Wall Street cares about growth and Yahoo has lost market share during the web 2.0 resurgence.

The Semel-years led Yahoo toward better financial management, but poor strategic thinking. Rather than investing in the infrastructure of people, platforms, and innovation – the company moved toward content and services – a dead-end that competes with millions of media partners – and a goal where it’s impossible dominate the world of opinions. 

Post-Semel, the company has had too many ideas. 360, AMP, Broadcast, Buzz, Del.icio.us, Geocities, Jajah, My Bookmark, MyBlogLog, Shine, Yahoo Auctions, Yahoo Directory, Yahoo Music, Yahoo! Open Strategy, Yahoo Pipes, YPN, Yahoo Video, Yahooligans – too many me-too projects, too little results.  

What’s next? 370? Shinola? Twitt-oo?

Web 2.0 is not a tea party – it’s a war. Choose your fronts and remember to win.

PS: Microsoft has lost interest in Yahoo. Will Yahoo be distracted by shareholder politics? Will the stock price tank? Will strategic partners question Yahoo’s credibility? Difficult times for Yahoo ahead – they need a win.

Who Is Buying Yahoo Shares Today?

By SAUL HANSELL

…Mr. Yang boasted of the company’s first-quarter results, which were slightly ahead of analysts’ expectations, and its recent crop of “innovative products and services that really move the needle and make a difference for our users and customers”:

Acquiring Maven Networks. Launching Buzz, OneSearch 2.0, voice-activated mobile search, video on Flickr, Shine. Previewing AMP! from Yahoo! and SearchMonkey. Addingmore Newspaper Consortium members. Establishing our New R&D labs in India and Israel.

SearchMonkey—a method to open Yahoo’s search engine to outsiders—is interesting. The AMP! Platform and Newspaper Consortium represent anemerging strategy to build out Yahoo’s display advertising business…

NEWS: Media execs size up video’s future on the Web

Media execs size up video’s future on the Web

LOS ANGELES–Video may be the next content revolution on the Internet after text and photos, but it’s still unclear how to sell it best to advertisers and Web surfers. And that’s even for a Google executive.

“The challenge in the future of video is how to find video…and maintaining that sense of discovery,” said Jordan Hoffner, head of content partnerships at YouTube, which is owned by Google. “Sharing and tagging video is a start.”

Hoffner was speaking on a panel here Tuesday at the Economics of Social Media 2008 conference, along with executives from online media outfits FastCompany.TV, Seesmic, Revision3, and Veoh Networks.

Later in the morning on a separate panel, an executive from MTV, whose parent company Viacom is suing Google for copyright infringement, mirrored Hoffner’s sentiments, saying it can be difficult to help people find relevant video among archives on sites like Comedy Central, for example. That’s why MTV is tagging video in a way that helps build a recommendation system, according to Erik Flannigan, digital media vice president at MTV.

As to the question of making money from video, Hoffner said he couldn’t predict how successful Google’s new advertising service for video would be. But he highlighted an inherent challenge for media companies when it comes to video advertising online. With major TV networks, advertisers have a sense of scarcity in inventory, and that drives pricing up. But online, they have thousands of choices to advertise, and that produces the opposite effect.

YouTube also must cherry pick among its user-generated videos for the content that’s legal (for instance, it doesn’t use a copyrighted music clip) as well as popular among visitors.

“The format is great for users, but I’m not sure it’s great for advertisers,” Hoffner said.

When it comes to editorially produced video, the picture gets clearer–at least for the executives behind new ventures like Revision3.

Jim Louderback, CEO of the Internet TV network, is bullish about online video advertising. He said his company is building smaller, but loyal, audiences for its online programming, including shows like Diggnation and GigaOm.

Rather than focusing on building a “hit” show with millions of viewers in the broadcast model, Louderback said he’s happy with a bunch of shows that have half a million people watching online regularly. Advertisers are willing to pay as much as $80 per thousand impressions (CPM) to reach those loyal audiences, he said. (In contrast, ads on social networks can run at about 20 cents per CPM.)

Revision3 also produces programming at a 10th the cost of what traditional broadcasters spend, he said. “This new model is viable,” Louderback said.

Hoffner echoed that sentiment by giving an example of what the Associated Press has done with video. He said that the AP has posted tons of video online–and each of its clips gets roughly a few thousand views. Rolled up together, however, the advertising dollars amount to a “nice chunk of change for them,” he said.

Robert Scoble, managing director of FastCompany.TV, said that his technology-focused show has a following of about 80,000 people, and he hasn’t had a problem attracting advertisers. Seagate sponsors his show to the tune of seven figures, Scoble said.

“It’s a Homestead Act for video…it’s untapped for so many niche areas.”

Ed: Branding is missing at Youtube.