Measuring the links between online and offline advertising is difficult, but increasingly search usage is being used as a proxy to gauge the effectiveness of traditional advertising.
“Search provides a perfect bridge between offline and online,” says Peter Hershberg, managing partner at Reprise Media. “We know people do not randomly end up in a search box, and by measuring search after a commercial we can measure how much brands are resonating with consumers.”
Seven ways to bring the corporate website to life
■Print publications. Companies spend millions of dollars producing in-house publications, reports and catalogues or magazines for their clients. Once checked for topicality, accuracy and copyright, articles and pictures can be re-used on websites, perhaps grouped together in themes or with other relevant content.
■Conferences. The specialised conferences that companies organise for internal purposes or for clients often produce expert material that can be used as a theme within a website. When speaking at conferences, check whether you will be able to reproduce video or audio of your company’s contributions on its website.
■Sponsorship. Any corporate sponsorship of arts, sports, music and other events should be used to the full. Ensure the right to re-use content is part of the deal. Photographs can be used on the web, for example through the creation of slide shows, and music and video can help liven up a website.
■Corporate art. Investments in arts and antiques can be good for more than just decorating conference rooms. Photographs, combined with history, can create an interesting slide show or be used to illustrate other parts of the website.
■Archives. Sometimes corporate archives can be a source of interesting content – all owned by the company. Examples include a timeline of patents or a selection of photos of important moments in the company’s history.
■Old advertisements. Just as people like watching television programmes based on old advertising campaigns, or specials about the 1970s, 1980s or 1990s, old publicity material can provide interest by tracing the path of a company’s branding or product development.
■Employees. Chances are that among your employees there are plenty of amateur video enthusiasts, musicians and photographers. Ask them for ideas on content and presentation. If you want to test their ideas before going public, try it out first on the corporate intranet.
==
Treasures in the company attic
By Aline van Duyn
Published: January 29 2007 17:36 | Last updated: January 29 2007 17:36
Not long ago, one of the biggest software companies in the US decided it wanted to take the plunge into the digital world and spend a much larger part of its budget on online advertising.
The process quickly ran into a problem. Once people clicked on the search results or the online banner ads, they were directed to a website. The snag was that there was no money to create new content for this site; most of the software company’s budget had been spent on a snazzy, 30-second television advertisement which would not hold the interest of web users for long.
In desperation, the advertising executive in charge of the account walked around the company’s US headquarters in a hunt for content. He found a room full of tapes of footage of every speech ever given at a conference by senior executives; he also found a store of magazines that were being published for company employees and its clients.
“These parts of the company never had to talk to each other before,” says the advertising executive, who did not want to identify his client. “Finding this was just what we needed, though. After getting rid of content that was out of date and after finding out what we did and didn’t have the rights to use, there was enough there to create a very interesting website. Companies sometimes have more content than they realise.”
This story is being repeated across the globe as companies increasingly put the web at the centre of their advertising strategy yet struggle to find content to put on their sites.
It is already clear that media consumption is changing. The widespread use of high-speed internet connections allows people to watch video on the web and exchange video, pictures and text with others online. PwC, the consultancy, estimates that 187m households around the world have broadband internet access, up from 30m in 2001. Within three years, the figure is expected to reach 433m worldwide.
Advertising and marketing campaigns therefore have to adapt. “What was once a one-way, static dialogue with the consumer is now a network of dynamic conversations,” a recent report on advertising by PwC concluded. “Campaigns built entirely around broad messages, faceless audiences and mass distribution are becoming a thing of the past.”
In addition, the lines between traditional advertising and online advertising are blurring. Traditional ads, which lack the interactivity of the internet, are increasingly being used to encourage people to visit websites, where they can get more information or be urged to buy something.
A good example is an online initiative by advertisers such as Doritos, Alka Seltzer and Chevy cars ahead of next weekend’s SuperBowl, the American football final, which have one of the world’s biggest live audiences with an estimated 90m viewers.
These companies are attempting to generate excitement with websites seeking entries for amateur ads that will then be aired on TV (plopplopfizzfizz.com and chevycollegead.com). The advertisers are hoping that people will return to the web to look for the ads after seeing them broadcast.
Measuring the links between online and offline advertising is difficult, but increasingly search usage is being used as a proxy to gauge the effectiveness of traditional advertising.
“Search provides a perfect bridge between offline and online,” says Peter Hershberg, managing partner at Reprise Media. “We know people do not randomly end up in a search box, and by measuring search after a commercial we can measure how much brands are resonating with consumers.”
So how should a compelling company site be built? The most effective include different kinds of content, including video, audio and interactive features.
Cisco, the US maker of network switches and routers, says it has recently “significantly increased” its spending on the web, and it has begun posting more video and audio content on technology subjects.
“We are embracing the web as our basic platform for all our communications,” says Kelly Hemmingway, senior broadcast producer at Cisco. “Two years ago, webcasts were a combination of PowerPoint presentations and audio. We have changed the model . . . and introduced a [video] news-style format last September.”
As well as news-based video reports, Cisco is putting up regular podcasts. These audio recordings, which can be downloaded on to iPods or other portable music devices, are available on Apple’s iTunes website for free, meaning that Cisco can reach an audience previously beyond its reach.
“We have set up our own broadcast network for customers, which aims to demystify technology . . . It is extending our reach with a new engaging type of content,” says Maureen Hands, new media broadcast producer at Cisco.
The video services also showcase one of Cisco’s products, which it calls “a YouTube for enterprise”. Last year, its audience for news@cisco exceeded 1m, and the company reports a good response to the podcasts, which started in September.
One of the features of the Cisco initiative is to get staff involved, and executives have been surprised how many of the company’s programmers enjoy doubling up as reporters and editors.
At Intercontinental Hotels, the staff are already part of its advertising. But now, concierges in 134 countries are going to be the stars of the company’s web-based videos. Currently in production and due to roll out in a few months, the hotel group hired an outside company to make videos, which will cost $5,000 to $7,000 each.
“We have noticed a big focus [among our customers] on digital media because of the emergence of broadband,” says Jenifer Zeigler, senior vice-president of global brand management at Intercontinental Hotels, which spent $10m on training concierges for their new role.
“We had to strengthen our website because people have much higher expectations, and making these videos is a really cost-efficient way of doing that.”
Other sources of content are Intercontinental Hotels’ sponsorship of the Aston Martin racing team, which generates photos and video material, as well as its sponsorship of National Geographic photoshoots, which allows the hotel group to use the photographs on its website.
Even for companies that cannot take on such ambitious plans, there might be more available than they realise. For example, many banks and larger companies decorate their headquarters with impressive corporate art collections. These can be used to create a prominent visual feature online.
“Especially when companies join efforts with someone who has experience in presenting content, like a media company, they can do a lot with the information or knowledge they already have,” says Eric Bader, director of digital at MediaVest Worldwide, a media services agency.
Some inevitably get it wrong. Earthlink, the internet service provider, last year decided to re-use material from its radio advertising campaigns as content for podcasts. The initiative created such a storm of protest that the company decided to make fun of itself and start a competition for the worst possible podcast.
But there are ways to avoid looking out of touch. Cisco, for example, uses professional journalists to ensure its programmes do not contain too much jargon which often seeps into company-specific conversations, and to make subjects intelligible to new audiences.
“It is very costly [to create content] . . . but professional talent helps to raise the bar,” says Ms Hands.
Seven ways to bring the corporate website to life
■Print publications. Companies spend millions of dollars producing in-house publications, reports and catalogues or magazines for their clients. Once checked for topicality, accuracy and copyright, articles and pictures can be re-used on websites, perhaps grouped together in themes or with other relevant content.
■Conferences. The specialised conferences that companies organise for internal purposes or for clients often produce expert material that can be used as a theme within a website. When speaking at conferences, check whether you will be able to reproduce video or audio of your company’s contributions on its website.
■Sponsorship. Any corporate sponsorship of arts, sports, music and other events should be used to the full. Ensure the right to re-use content is part of the deal. Photographs can be used on the web, for example through the creation of slide shows, and music and video can help liven up a website.
■Corporate art. Investments in arts and antiques can be good for more than just decorating conference rooms. Photographs, combined with history, can create an interesting slide show or be used to illustrate other parts of the website.
■Archives. Sometimes corporate archives can be a source of interesting content – all owned by the company. Examples include a timeline of patents or a selection of photos of important moments in the company’s history.
■Old advertisements. Just as people like watching television programmes based on old advertising campaigns, or specials about the 1970s, 1980s or 1990s, old publicity material can provide interest by tracing the path of a company’s branding or product development.
■Employees. Chances are that among your employees there are plenty of amateur video enthusiasts, musicians and photographers. Ask them for ideas on content and presentation. If you want to test their ideas before going public, try it out first on the corporate intranet.
Copyright The Financial Times Limited 2007
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