Arrange for Ad Age to publish YouGov BrandIndex's Olympics halfway point perception data

Olympics Ads Reverse BP Brand Perceptions

YouGov BrandIndex Examines Olympic Marketers' Ads

By: Brian Steinberg Published: August 08, 2012

The Olympics, it would seem, can turn an advertiser's reputation from tarnished to sterling.
BP, the widely vilified oil company whose reputation took a drubbing in 2010 for the Deepwater Horizon spill in the Gulf Of Mexico, has seen negative perceptions of its brand reversed during the first part of the Olympics, according to a survey conducted by YouGov BrandIndex.

YouGov BrandIndex interviews 5,000 people each weekday from a representative U.S. population sample, conducting more than 1.2 million interviews per year, according to the company.

Respondents are drawn from an online panel of more than 1.5 million individuals. The margin of error is plus or minus 2%.
 
For its survey on Olympic-advertiser perceptions, YouGov asked respondents, "If you've heard anything about the brand in the last two weeks, through advertising, news or word of mouth, was it positive or negative?" It derived scores ranging from 100 to -100 by subtracting negative feedback from positive. A zero score means equal positive and negative feedback.

BP saw its score go from a negative 5.9 in the week prior to the Olympics to a positive 2.6 during the first week of the games. Only Visa saw its brand perception rise more during the time period, according to the research. "We have seen the recovery with BP over the last year and a half," said Ted Marzilli, global managing director for YouGov's BrandIndex service. "But I think its association with the Olympics is showing benefits."

Meantime, some Olympics advertisers are seeing a decline. General Electric, Holiday Inn and BMW have seen brand perceptions decrease by small amounts.

Samsung and Coca-Cola are enjoying the most positive receptions, according to the survey.

 

Develop and place Tenthwave's "Shopification" op-ed in Advertising Age

 

 

It's Time to Gamify Online Shopping

Games Let Brands Reach Far Wider and for Much Longer Than Traditional Coupons

By: Eric Schwamberger Published: July 30, 2012

Brands and retailers have always supplemented marketing plans with promotional games, contests and sweepstakes. The most-popular loyalty programs use points and group mechanics to reward and motivate the most-valuable audiences. 

Now it's time for the next level of play: gamification of the shopping experience in retail, consumer packaged goods and e-commerce. We call it "shopification." This means inserting game dynamics into shopping behaviors to make thinking about shopping a regular activity that puts products top of mind and makes the shopping experience more rewarding. 

What motivates the gamer inside us? Solving meaningful challenges, gaining and demonstrating status, getting special access and expressing individuality. Those same motivations are embedded in the culture of shopping, and we're finding new ways to unlock those motivations in shoppers. 

How does this look in practice? One example is a campaign by Birds Eye and Birds Eye Voila! in which the brands are rewarding website members with badges, points and coupons for participating on the site and in its social activities. Included is a "Here's One, Share One" program, where members received a coupon for themselves and an additional one to share with a friend on Facebook. During a 10-week launch, which is nearly complete, Birds Eye expects to distribute the same amount of coupons as a traditional national insert, but with the new-media benefits of improved customer relations and countless brand mentions and referrals for its products. 

These sorts of techniques have five big advantages over traditional coupon marketing. 

1. Through social-media outreach, we can distribute the same amount of coupons as with a traditional free-standing insert -- many times at a higher redemption rate -- with little effort and no required media costs to the brand. 

2. We can put the brand message, product idea or discounts in the hands of highly targeted consumers, based on demographic, interest, geographic and behavioral triggers. 

3. As opposed to the singular anonymity of the traditional coupon-clipping experience, the engagement that accompanies shopification rewards consumers for taking desired actions such as sharing coupons, learning about a product or making recommendations. It makes the brand and the coupon more valuable, through that trusted referral. 

4. As downloading the coupon can require being a fan, follower or member of a customer-relations management (CRM) program, shopification can dramatically grow your brand's Facebook following and CRM databases. Every coupon distributed through shopification tactics can minimally equal a fan or CRM member. And every fan or member should mean hundreds of branded impressions and program activations per year. 

5. Unlike traditional programs, the sharing generates branded message impressions for those who do not participate, when they see their Facebook friends' activity. The best part is that the message being shared isn't "our brand is discounted." It's an endorsement of your brand by their friend, accompanied by a gift they will feel more obliged to try. 

Shopification tactics for many brands will not provide as immediate a gain as the quick free-standing insert, but that can change easily if they are dedicated to growing a social following. As the community grows and becomes engaged with a brand by participating in fun and rewarding social games, agencies will be able to deliver immediate results with zero lead-time, no media investment and no required effort other than directing customers to act and download. 

Even at a smaller scale, the value of shopification does not end in the weeks following the activity. With the additional Facebook fans and CRM members gained, the brand has hundreds of opportunities a year to remind shoppers about its products' benefits and uses. This can drives purchase frequency, friend recommendations and customer trials for years to come. 

It's impossible to predict how shopification will look in five years. But it's hard to imagine a future for brands without it. 

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Eric Schwamberger is partner-strategic services at Tenthwave.

Break client Talenthouse's arrangement with Virgin Mobile in Ad Age, Mediapost and Mashable

App-Happy Brands Bypassing Facebook to Build Content on It

Marketers Rely on Third-Party Technology and 'Preferred Developers' Liked by the Social Network

by Edmund Lee
Published: February 14, 2011

NEW YORK (AdAge.com) -- When Ron Faris was looking last year for a way to build out a Facebook page for Virgin Mobile USA, where he is the head of brand experiences, he didn't contact Facebook.

"The beauty of Facebook is its open nature," he said, referring to the company's publicly available software that allows anyone to plug into its site, also known as an API. Virgin's Facebook page at the time was set up to function in a more workaday manner, responding to customer queries or complaints, but Mr. Faris wanted to broaden Virgin's presence by incorporating participatory features like polls and calls for content, work that not too long ago would have gone to an ad agency.

Instead, Mr. Faris cold-called a small New York-based startup called Buddy Media that specializes in Facebook applications, which set Virgin up with the aforementioned features. Tellingly, even though Mr. Faris considered Buddy an agency in this regard, the company, in fact, does not think of itself this way.

Virgin Mobile's Live Facebook page.

"We're not an agency," Buddy Media CEO Mike Lazerow said. "We don't strategize; we don't service clients or anything like that. We do enterprise software. We do social technology." It's a distinction that underscores the blurring and, according to some, tension between advertising agencies and technology companies around the social network, especially as Facebook has increasingly become the primary destination for a large portion of the online audience, and thereby a crucial media outlet for advertisers.

The hordes of brand-focused companies looking to tap into the largest social network, like Mr. Faris, have had to go through third-party technologies to carry out their social-media plans instead of going directly to Facebook. This removed contact, so to speak, is in fact a point of pride for the company and is an unaffected result of its open nature, said Ethan Beard, Facebook's director of platform product marketing. "We really want to be the technology that allows our users to connect and share with friends and family," he said. "We're not the media; we're the technology."

It's an ethos that has resulted in a third-party economy around Facebook in which major companies are contracting marketing work with a select group of software developers. The Palo Alto, Calif.-based internet giant has actually started to vet these outside developers under the designation "preferred developer consultant," which at current count numbers 48. At issue, according to one industry insider, is the fact that web campaigns had for so long started with a blank slate, often resulting in what the industry calls a microsite, or a one-off web page that would be left unattended or taken down after the life of the ad campaign. Still, it offered a lot of work to agencies focused in digital.

Facebook's fixed structure, however, does not require as much ground-up building, and much of the marketing can be done with off-the-shelf software. Context Optional, another preferred developer, says most of its work comes directly from brands, instead of through agencies.

"Eighty percent of our revenue comes directly from the brands," said Context Optional CEO Kevin Barenblat. "But we also work with agencies -- it depends on whether the company works more closely with their agency or whether they want to manage their social media themselves."

Mr. Barenblat pointed out that social media is different from advertising. "Brand messages typically come from the companies themselves," he said.

It's a view that other preferred developers also hold, and given the rising interest in social-media plays, WPP recently took a $5 million stake in Buddy Media, suggesting that technology companies may have a bigger role to play in marketing, whether within agencies themselves or directly to big companies looking to manage their brands within Facebook. But Mr. Lazerow warned, "We provide the underlying technology to any client, whether it's within WPP or not," he said. "We're not going to steal anyone's customers."

In fact, for a forthcoming Facebook campaign, in addition to Buddy Media, Mr. Faris has also brought in Los Angeles-based agency Talenthouse to drive Facebook users to Lady Gaga's "Monster Ball" tour, which Virgin Mobile is sponsoring. Talenthouse has set up a submission page where Facebook users can submit short videos to become one of 10 official bloggers for the tour. It's an effort to drive both "likes" and content that keeps Facebook active.

Talenthouse founder Amos Pizzey said his company specializes in influencing this kind of collaborative content, which he said had been missing from precious social-networking plays. "In the early days on MySpace, bands got huge numbers of fans, but it didn't do anything," he said. "They just sat there. They became a dead community."

Mr. Pizzey said even in the age of Facebook it's not enough to just feed people with random content. "You have to draw them in," he said. "Don't care how cool it looks, it has to be gripping, they have to want to do it."

But part of what drives users to company's Facebook pages, however, is straightforward advertising, which has exploded on Facebook. The company took in $1.86 billion in ad dollars last year, based on estimates from eMarketer, with $1.12 billion coming from the company's self-serve model. That product is similar to Google's long-standing system, which lets advertisers plug in to an auction-based bidding platform to buy ad space.

That can come at a significant cost. While anyone can make use of the company's self-serve system, big advertisers looking to buy in bulk have to use yet more third-party software, such as one from New York-based Blinq Media, which allows media buyers more control over the system than Facebook's native interface allows. Costs for every thousand impressions on Facebook run around $1.00 within the self-serve marketplace. But advertisers looking to buy on Facebook's famed home page have to go directly to the company's in-house sales team, which has exclusive rights to that space. According to insiders, the company charges around $5 for every thousand homepage impressions.

Mr. Faris, however, does not buy any media. "The world of brand experiences is not about advertising," he said. "It's all about conversations. About building relationships with your consumers. Your fans. That's what's exciting about Facebook. It's not about my agenda; it's about the consumer's agenda."

Virgin Mobile Looks To Lady Gaga For 'Likes'

by Aaron Baar, Monday, February 7, 2011, 8:00 AM Virgin Mobile has set a goal of reaching one million "likes" on Facebook by the end of the year, and it's hoping Lady Gaga and 10 lucky bloggers will help the company do it. It is announcing Monday a contest in which 10 bloggers (nine from within 100 miles of one of the pop star's upcoming "Monster Ball Tour" stops and one international winner) will be selected as official "tour bloggers," with special VIP access to the show and the venue. "Virgin Mobile's goal is to substantially increase its Facebook 'likes,'" Matt Wilkinson, VP Brand Relations at Talenthouse, the Los Angeles-based social media marketing company enlisted to run the contest, tells Marketing Daily. "Our program is fully integrated into Facebook to help make that happen." Throughout the contest, Talenthouse will collect video submissions from contestants and post them on Virgin Mobile's Web site www.virginmobilelive.com as well as other sites, and ask the public to vote on the submissions. When people do so, a pop-up will appear asking them to like Virgin Mobile on Facebook. Based on previous similar contests, each submission will draw between 50 and 100 votes, Wilkinson says. As the contest gets underway, Talenthouse's 25-person marketing department (along with Virgin Mobile's social media team) will reach out to blogs, Web sites and other media to promote the contest, he says. Virgin Mobile is a presenting sponsor of Lady Gaga's Monster Ball tour. Virgin Mobile has been increasing its entertainment offerings. Last week, the company announced a deal with independent film studio Relativity Media and its Virgin Mobile Live Facebook portal, which will include exclusive video and music as well as product placement in Relativity Media films. ++++

Virgin Mobile Seeks Bloggers for Lady Gaga Tour

At the moment, about 40,000 people “like” Virgin Mobile on Facebook, but the brand hopes to hit 1 million by the end of the year using a tie-in with Lady Gaga.

The telecom brand is working with social media talent marketing firm Talenthouse on a new program that hopes to transfer some of Lady Gaga’s 27.7 million Facebook fans over to Virgin Mobile.

On Monday, Virgin Mobile is launching a contest to find 10 official bloggers for new dates in Lady Gaga’s “Monster Ball” tour. To enter, bloggers are encouraged to send a short video to Virgin Mobile Live’s Facebook page displaying their “best work.” Then the public votes via Facebook. Every submission will be housed on Facebook and will require a “like” to be submitted.

Amos Pizzey, president and founder of Talenthouse, says that although Virgin Mobile has a goal for its “likes,” the brand understands that certain fans have disproportionate influence. “They want the right ‘likes,’” says Pizzey. “They want people who are there to consume content.”

The deal between Lady Gaga and Virgin Mobile comes after the pop star inked a deal with Polaroid to develop a new line of photo-capturing gadgets. Lady Gaga began the Monster Ball tour in 2010, but decided to extend it in 2011, starting this month.

Break BrandIndex's politics and brands charts all over Ad Age, Gawker, CNBC, NY Post and Brandchannel

Consumers' Hearts Bleed Red -- and Blue

Top U.S. Brands Favored Much Higher Among One Political Party or the Other, Survey Finds

By Nat Ives
Published: October 25, 2010

NEW YORK (AdAge.com) -- Forget red states and blue states for a second. Is your brand a red brand or a blue brand?

Many of America's top brands rate much higher among one political party or the other, according to an analysis of YouGov's BrandIndex survey results.

Google is the top brand for Democrats, according to an index incorporating consumer impressions of its quality, its value, their satisfaction with it, its reputation, their willingness to recommend it and their general impression of it. Google doesn't appear in Republicans' top 10.

Republicans, on the other hand, rank Fox News tops; Fox News, perhaps not surprisingly, doesn't appear on the list of Democrats' favorite 10 brands.

JetBlue is the third-ranked airline brand among Democrats, but doesn't crack the top five among Republicans, the BrandIndex analysis shows. Republicans rate Aflac among their top five insurers, while Democrats make room for Progressive.

Although consumers aren't usually buying a big brand because they think its owners are actually on their political "side" -- potential exceptions such as Ben & Jerry's aside -- marketers may well benefit from knowing how political partisans view them.

Target says it didn't suffer any bottom-line damage after gay-rights support

ers and some customers protested its $150,000 contribution to a group supporting a candidate opposed to gay marriage. But it might have avoided the whole mess if it considered its perceived political image first. Target is the fourth-ranked retailer among Democrats, according to BrandIndex, but is nowhere in the top five for Republicans.

Many brands perform well among members of both parties: Cheerios, UPS, FedEx, Craftsman, J&J, the History Channel and the Discovery Channel have appeal across political divides.

Source: YouGov BrandIndex

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Red & blue voters on own brand w

agons

By S.A. MILLER, Post Correspondent


WASHINGTON -- It's more than politics dividing the country -- Democrats and Republicans also split on which top American brands they buy.

A top-rated airline for true-blue Democrats is -- you guessed it -- JetBlue. And when choosing an insurance company, Democrats lean toward Progressive, a survey by YouGov's BrandIndex found.

Republicans don't even list JetBlue among their top five airlines and they prefer Aflac as an insurance company, the survey showed.

When it comes to beer, great minds drink alike. Both parties reach for Samuel Adams and Heineken as their two favorite brands and include Michelob in their top five.

But Republicans also chug Budweiser and Coors, while Democrats prefer to knock back Corona or Guinness.

Ted Marzilli, global managing director for BrandIndex, said sometimes the appeal of a brand is as simple as a name that resonates with one group or another -- such as "progressive" having a positive ring for liberals.

Other times, he said, it's more complicated.

"When you look at a brand like JetBlue scoring well among Democrats, is it because 'blue' is in the title and 'blue' is more associated with Democrats than Republicans? I'm not so sure," he said.

"JetBlue is also home-based in New York City and it doesn't have a national footprint, so it may have more exposure among cities or locations that tend to be more Democratic than Republican," Marzilli said.

Other divergent tastes included Democrats shopping at Target and drinking Peet's Coffee but Republicans shopping Best Buy and drinking Caribou Coffee.

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political brands

Red Brands, Blue Brands: Dems Love Google, GOPers Favor Fox News

Posted by Dale Buss on October 25, 2010 03:05 PM

Does the current polarized political climate in the U.S. even extend to favored brands? A new survey of brand preferences by political affiliation suggests the answer is, well, yes and no.

Google is the favorite brand of Democrats, an analysis of YouGov’s BrandIndex survey results found, while Fox News topped the brand list of Republicans. Maybe Democrats feel at home with Google’s inherent techie elitism masquerading as populism; and clearly Republicans appreciate a brand that treats their opposition like a foreign occupier.

Interesting questions abound. JetBlue is the third-ranked airline brand among Democrats, for example, but doesn’t show up in the Republican top 10. Could be JetBlue’s strong presence in

liberal coastal cities mean that its cabins are filled with Democrats, flying blithely over heartland Republicans (who can’t see the JetBlue logo from their conservative small towns).

And why is Aflac ranked among Republicans’ top five insurers in the YouGov survey, while Democrats favor Progressive? Is it because Progressive’s strong online quoting and marketing platform make it naturally appealing to young-skewing Democrats, while Aflac – known a disability insurer for small businesses and the self-employed– caters to the entrepreneurial streak of Republicans?

There’s more. Target is the fourth-ranked retailer among Democrats – but is nowhere near the top five for Republicans, even after the chain incurred the ire of ultra-liberal political action committee MoveOn.org for contributing $150,000 to a group backing an anti-gay-marriage Republican candidate.

Also interesting but harder to explain are the marques that get high marks from both Republicans and Democrats. With some parenthetical theories as to their appeal, these universally embraced brands included: Discovery Channel (giving hope that maybe there is such a thing as non-partisan knowledge out there); Johnson & Johnson (everybody hurts); Craftsman (even liberals need tools); and FedEx (everyone’s been burned by the Postal Service). Perhaps most intriguingly, Democrats and Republicans both rank the History Channel in the top 10, suggesting that, if there’s one thing partisans of all stripes seek, it’s to ground their present-day battles on a solid historical foundation. They may both be watching the same

shows, but, one suspects, they’re drawing different lessons from that programming.

A less jaundiced eye might view these areas of overlap as signs that great brands do strong work in appealing to everyone. Another political aisle-crossing brand was UPS, leading one to speculate: Can Americans both red and blue find common cause in what brown can do for them?

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Study: Democrats and Republicans Love Lots of the Same Brands

We all know that Democrats love Starbucks and Hustler, while Republicans love Skoal and Soldier of Fortune. Or do they? A new study of the favorite brands of liberals and conservatives show some surprising agreements.

Nat Ives breaks down the latest YouGov BrandIndex numbers, showing which brands are most beloved by members of the two political parties. Observe:

Only Democrats love: Google, Sony, Amazon.

Only Republicans love: Fox News, Fox, Lowe's.

Both love: Discovery Channel, History Channel, Craftsman, Johnson & Johnson, UPS, Fedex, Cheerios.

So America, let's lay back with a bucket of tools and some Tylenol, watch a nice WWII documentary, and ship boxes of cereal across the country­together.

[Ad Age]

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CNBC VIDEO

Break NBC Universal's INVIDI investment in Wall Street Journal and Advertising Age

• October 4, 2010, 9:00 PM ET

NBC Invests in Targeted TV Ads Business

By Jessica E. Vascellaro

A company that delivers targeted ads to television sets has scored another endorsement.

Getty Images

NBC Universal plans to announce Tuesday an investment in Invidi Technologies Corp., according to the companies. Terms of the deal aren’t being disclosed. A NBC Universal spokeswoman called the investment “small.”

Google, Motorola and WPP’s GroupM are already investors in Invidi, which targets ads to set-top boxes based on the geographic location of the box and other data.

Ed Swindler, executive vice president and chief operating officer for ad sales at NBC Universal, said the company made the investment to be able to test future advertising models. “We would anticipate doing some testing as soon as it becomes possible,” he says, adding NBC hadn’t worked out any details.

The promise of the technology is big: allowing advertisers to show multiple ads during the same commercial slot. It is the kind of targeting that Internet companies continue to brag they can pull off online but hasn’t been possible in the TV world.

Invidi, along with other technologies companies like Visible World, are trying to change that. But progress has been slow. Invidi was founded ten years ago and has raised around $90 million in financing to date.

Its system works like this: Advertisers specify which audiences they want to reach, like women in the market for a car; then Invidi serves their ad to the set-top boxes of people it believes are likely female car buyers. Invidi can target ads according to gender and age inferred from data about the types of viewers who generally watch a show, without knowing what the show is.

Advertisers can also target users – say customers who have purchased their products recently — based on household purchase behavior from third-party databases. In those instances, television operators permit the data provider to program the set-top box with data specific to each household, like whether there’s a pet in the household or the family frequently travels. When it’s time to run ads, the box “votes” for the most appropriate ad based on how it has been programmed as well as factors such as the time left in the advertisers’ campaign. Invidi doesn’t see the data.

If a commercial slot is a pizza, Invidi can “take that pizza and slice it up in very very small slices,” says Michael Kubin, Invidi’s executive vice president.

The company has landed a few partnerships. Verizon’s FiOS TV service began targeting ads to specific geographic zones through Invidi in March and Dish and DirecTV are planning to start selling Invidi-targeted ads in the first quarter of 2010, Kubin says.

NBC’s investment comes as Comcast is close to closing a deal to acquire control of the company from General Electric– a partnership that could provide some interesting ad-targeting possibilities.

“Comcast has a large set-top box infrastructure that would be helpful to all these technologies,” says Swindler, referring to TV ad-targeting tools in general. But “we have to wait for the merger and see what comes of it.” He says NBC’s decision to invest was made independent of Comcast’s bid to acquire control of NBC Universal, and that NBC hadn’t discussed the company with Comcast.

For its part, Comcast last year tested Invidi’s technology in its Baltimore market through a partnership with Starcom MediaVest Group. The viewers who saw targeted ads were less likely to change channels by about a third when compared to viewers who saw non-targeted ads.

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NBC Universal Invests in Addressable-Ad Concern Invidi

NBCU Wants to "Test" Future Models as Ad Business Grows Complex

by Brian Steinberg
Published: October 04, 2010

NEW YORK (AdAge.com) -- NBC Universal has made a strategic investment in Invidi Technologies Corp., a company that has developed software that enables marketers to send different commercials to different households via use of a set-top box. The alliance is a signal that TV broadcasters are growing more interested in the technology behind so-called addressable advertising, that could change the way in which media outlets conduct business.

"This is just one in a long record of things we've done with partners and advertisers and third-party technology providers," said Ed Swindler, exec VP-chief operating officer of NBC Universal ad sales, "with the goal of testing the future models for advertising as the environment becomes a lot more complicated, and to learn how the business model is going to change over time."

NBC Universal is the first TV broadcaster to join Invidi's ranks of investors, which also include Google, Experian, WPP and Motorola. NBC Universal and Invidi declined to elaborate on the amount NBC Universal invested or the size of the stake, but indicated the transaction did not make NBC Universal a majority stakeholder in Invidi.

Addressable advertising, in which a single piece of ad inventory can be "split" into multiple spots, each sent simultaneously to a group of households more likely to be interested in the particular message or product being conveyed, has long interested the ad industry. Yet even as the words crop up on executives' salivating lips, actual implementation of the technology seems to bob continually in the distance.

Invidi, which holds several patents for a system that distributes addressable ads and measures response to them, has begun rolling out in different systems, said Michael Kubin, an exec-VP at the company. Mr. Kubin said Invidi has installed software with Verizon's Fios system since March and expects to do the same with DirecTV and Echostar Communications' Dish Network in the first quarter of 2011.

"This is not an easy thing to figure out," said Mr. Kubin. "The technology is hard. There are a lot of barriers to implementation. Putting software into set-top boxes is not easy. There are a lot of barriers, but we have narrowed them down one at a time, and we are getting there."

NBC Universal has demonstrated in the past its interest in testing out new systems of advertising. In September of 2008, the company unveiled a partnership with Google that would allow the search-engine giant to sell pieces of advertising inventory on some of NBCU's cable channels. The theory at the time is that the pact would allow some advertisers to customize their ad plans to reach particular audience segments and also that the agreement might bring new categories of smaller advertisers to TV who might not normally by the medium.

TV broadcasters have reason to investigate the technology. One idea being floated around some ad-buying agencies is to have them buy up addressable inventory from sellers and then allocate it to their clients -- a notion that might upset TV programmers accustomed to controlling the advertising inventory that accompanies their well-known shows.

"Content owners need to make sure that the business model is respected so that we can continue to invest all the money -- the billions of dollars -- we invest in programming," said Mr. Swindler.

The pact with Invidi comes just weeks ahead of when Comcast Corp. is expected to complete its acquisition of a majority stake in NBCU. Comcast has in the past expressed an interest in using NBC Universal's programming to reach broader audiences and get them to test out emerging technologies such as video-on-demand and more. Invidi said its technology was recently tested in Comcast's Baltimore systems, where the addressable ads "proved to be 65% more efficient and 32% more effective."

Both Mediapost's Marketing Daily and Ad Age do AARP Media Sales/Denny's story

Denny's AARP Pact Is Generating Results

by Karlene Lukovitz, Wednesday, June 16, 2010, 4:58 PM

While it's still early in the game, Denny's is seeing "excellent" results thus far from its new program offering exclusive discounts to AARP members, according to John Dillon, VP, marketing and product development for Denny's Corp.

Denny's implemented its AARP discount program in late March, with two special member offers effective through 2010. Members who show their AARP cards at participating Denny's locations nationwide on any day of the week between 4 and 10 p.m. are eligible to receive 20% off the total check amount for themselves and their guests. In addition, the card entitles AARP members and their guests, on a 24/7 basis, to a standing price of $1 for a cup of coffee.

The move made Denny's the first restaurant chain to offer the association's nearly 40 million members dining discounts on an on-premises, show-your-card basis. Subsequently, on June 1, Denny's signed a three-year agreement with AARP committing to offering AARP members exclusive dining benefits through the agreement's term, although it is not yet determined whether the current discount offers will be continued or whether other deals will be offered starting next January.

Denny's elected to promote the launch of the initial deal offers with a full-page, four-color ad in the May/June issue of AARP The Magazine -- which was received by readers about the same time the deals became effective -- to reach the magazine's 23.5 million subscriber circulation rate base (the largest magazine circulation in the U.S.). While Dillon declines to discuss the cost, the publication's rate card lists a full circulation run, four-color full page at $532,600.

That's no small out-of-the-box marketing investment in and of itself, but the prominent, direct exposure to the association's membership was key in generating what are so far proving to be "very encouraging" results, Dillon confirms. The offers "are clearly resonating with AARP's membership," he says. "We're seeing redemptions increase week by week in these initial stages, and we've gotten great feedback from the members."

Denny's had been considering a partnership with AARP for some time, notes Dillon. The restaurant brand has long had a "strong relationship" with diners in the 50+ demographic, who are already an important part of its customer base, and the rapid growth of this population segment represents opportunities to build on this dynamic, he points out.

"We want to ensure that we are paying attention to and meeting the needs of this valuable customer base," Dillon sums up. "The AARP partnership provides a clear opportunity to foster loyalty and repeat business."

Clearly Denny's, along with many other restaurant chains, also has an eye on attracting first-time 50+ diners who can be won over as regulars.

While Denny's is still finalizing its overall marketing plans for the AARP discount program, Dillon says that efforts will definitely include "more communications to the AARP membership," as well as on-premises awareness-building activities such as highly visible register-toppers promoting the deals.

Many types of companies -- financial/insurance, travel, car rental, retailers and others -- offer exclusive product/services deals to AARP members through the association's two commercial services subsidiaries, AARP Services Inc. and AARP Financial Inc.

However, up to this point, restaurants have made their offers only through an online Restaurant Discount Center on AARP's site, where members can locate participating restaurants (from among about 15,000 nationwide) by geographic area and buy dining certificates at a discount of 70% or more.

These third-party companies are responsible for their own marketing plans/media costs for AARP offers -- meaning their product/services relationships with AARP do not include or require buying ad space in AARP The Magazine or its other publications (AARP Bulletin and Spanish/English-language magazine AARP Viva), according to Jim Fishman, SVP, media sales for AARP.

In line with restrictions on nonprofit entities, AARP limits mentions of commercial partners to the organization's online member benefits listings area and squibs highlighting a few third-party services companies that run occasionally in its print publications, Fishman says.

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Denny's Embraces AARP Audience to Combat Sales Slump

Once Known as 20-Something Late-Night Hangout, Chain Faces Increased Competition Across Dayparts

By Emily Bryson York
Published: June 18, 2010

CHICAGO (AdAge.com) -- Denny's, the All-American 24-hour-dining chain, is casting about for an identity. And while a decade ago it was the late-night safe-haven for 20-somethings, it's now making a bet on the AARP crowd.

Starting this month, Denny's will offer $1 coffee to AARP members and 20% off their meals between 4 p.m. and 10 p.m. Bill Ruby, Denny's VP-media and field marketing, said the strategy is simply to reach out to consumers more than 50 years of age who have loved the brand their whole lives. He noted that Denny's itself is 57 years old.

"We're embracing -- because we're open 24 hours -- [that] different dayparts lend themselves to different segments," Mr. Ruby said. "If you look at AARP offers, they're primarily during the week." Weekend late-nights, meanwhile, are intended for young partiers.

Jim Fishman, senior VP and group publisher-AARP Media Sales, in a statement said, "AARP's boomer-plus membership is more likely to visit casual-dining restaurants on a weekly basis than the general population. It makes total sense for AARP members to build a strong relationship with one of the biggest restaurant chains in America, since everybody benefits."

Late-night competition
Only two years ago, Denny's launched a "All Nighter" menu, with items like "potachoes" and dessert nachos, for middle-of-the-night diners with the munchies. But same-store sales have suffered at Denny's, disproportionately to peers, during the recession. This year, the chain is battling shareholders over its spending, in particular its recent Super Bowl advertising promotions. The chain in the past two years has promoted free Grand Slam breakfasts following the game. Denny's is also searching for a new CEO in response to investor unrest.

The chain seems to have slipped with younger consumers in recent years, as fast-food chains have promoted late-night hours and menu items, and brands such as Buffalo Wild Wings have expanded. The wing chain, for instance, offers a full bar, dozens of TVs for any imaginable sporting show and even gaming.

Darren Tristano, exec VP at Technomic, noted that the chain also faces increased competition from upstart breakfast-and-lunch chains such as Egg Harbor Cafe and Five Guys Burgers and Fries, now one of the fastest-growing chains in the restaurant industry.

Sales suffering
Last year, Denny's same-store sales fell 4% at company stores and 5% at franchised stores. During the first quarter of 2010, company-run and franchised restaurants both declined 6%. Although it was the worst year for the restaurant category in a generation, the loss might be particularly troubling to Denny's because the brand launched what was expected to be a brand reinvention around the Super Bowl, with then-new agency Goodby Silverstein & Partners. But despite a strong increase in overall brand buzz, the chain's same-store sales continued to decline.

Moving forward, Mr. Ruby said, Denny's will need to craft promotions and communications that are "laser focused." After all, he said, Denny's doesn't have to be "everything to everyone all of the time."

Mr. Tristano of Technomic described Denny's as a brand "without a clear understanding of what direction they're heading." He noted that Denny's, like other chains, has focused on operations and cost-cutting measures, "but in terms of marketing in order to get more customers in their doors ... it's a difficult time to do that."

Position Bleacher Report in leader of new content model in Ad Age

The 'Craigslist Effect' Spreads to Content as Free Work Fills Supply

Pro-bono Writing Trumps Pro-am, Helping Websites Such as Huffington Post, Bleacher Report Turn a Profit

by Edmund Lee
Published: June 28, 2010

NEW YORK (AdAge.com) -- After Andrew Brining took the bar exam two years ago, he had plenty of time on his hands, and he made a habit of perusing sports news online as he awaited the results. The 31-year-old San Francisco Giants fan, however, found the predictably captious nature of sports coverage frustrating. "It's perversely counterintuitive," he said. "You're interested in this to be entertained, right?"

On the hunt for more positive fare he stumbled onto BleacherReport.com, where anybody can apply to post an original sports article. So he contributed a post. Then another. And another. In the past two years, Mr. Brining has written more than 500 articles for Bleacher, a prolific output that is more stunning for another fact: He wrote them all for free.

Sports-news website BleacherReport.com boasts more than 3,600 unpaid authors.

He is one of more than 3,600 Bleacher authors who willingly write without remuneration, and their gratis efforts suggest there's a major adjustment going on in the economics of content. Despite the attention around search specialists such as Demand Media, Associated Content and Examiner, a growing group of sites is betting on something better than cheap content: free content.

Huffington Post is, perhaps, the mother of the model now with more than 6,000 unpaid bloggers bringing in an audience of 23 million people each month, according to ComScore. Not all of Huffington's content is produced without cost, of course. The company employs around 53 editorial staffers who edit and produce original writing. (The company employs a total of 124 people.) But its overwhelming army of bloggers renders a bulk of the pages, thus lightening the cost. After five years in operation, CEO Eric Hippeau said the company will make profit this year. "We're very confident that online news can be a profitable business," he said. "Advertisers are very interested in reaching our audience -- a very high-level, educated audience."

Though such a claim may draw its detractors -- where would the site be without source material for example -- there's little question an article on Huffington outshines an article from a low-cost purveyor like Demand, which does pay its writers. The average time a reader spends on Huffington is almost 15 minutes each month, according to ComScore. By comparison, the average time on a Demand property is just under six minutes.

Christopher N. Curtin, VP-digital strategy for Hewlett-Packard, says Huffington is considered a higher-end buy among marketers. "Their audience is a pretty attractive one," he said, "and it's the content that's drawing that audience."

It also underscores an emerging but difficult truth for professional writers. Free content can just as easily draw a higher-profile readership as expensive content, as well as high-end advertisers. Wikia, Jimmy Wales' for-profit venture, also harvests page views from freely contributing members, and the company has already proclaimed its profitability. The site functions much like Wikipedia but centers on entertainment -- for example, the "Twilight" Wiki. Mr. Wales said the site will continue to be profitable this quarter. Wikia has a monthly audience of 11 million, according to ComScore, who on average spend roughly 25 minutes on the site.

Despite a widespread jingoism among media watchers favoring new forms of journalism, some observers say no-cost writing is a disquieting trend. "I wonder whether we're seeing the 'Craigslist effect,' but for content," Newsonomics author Ken Doctor said, referring to how the free-listings site has vitiated the classifieds business. "You make the cost of content creation so much cheaper, but in so doing you are ruining the economics of traditional news publishing."

Indeed, publishers have caught on to this changing tide. Bleacher Report has inked content deals with major media companies, including Los Angeles Times, Chicago Tribune, San Francisco Chronicle, Houston Chronicle, SI.com, CBSSports.com, FoxSports.com and the ailing Philly.com, a property of the Philadelphia Inquirer, which, along with Philadelphia Daily News, was bought out of bankruptcy in April for $135 million. Bleacher publishes a page for each partner, which has the look and feel of the publisher's content but which entirely features Bleacher writers. The site splits ad revenue. An insider says Bleacher will be profitable this year. The company just appointed a new CEO, Brian Grey of Polaris Venture Partners and the former senior VP of Fox Sports Interactive.

"I'm sensitive to writers who say, 'What are you doing giving your writing away for free?'" said Mr. Brining, who after failing the bar three times decided writing was more than a hobby. He is supported by his family. "Yes, Bleacher Report is reaping the financial rewards of my work, but it's also helping me achieve my career. If I am good at this, the compensation will come."

Place BrandIndex's World Cup marketer research in NY Times, Advertising Age and Brandweek

Nike's Not a World Cup Sponsor, but It's Stealing the Show

YouGov Survey Suggests Athlete Relationships and 'Write the Future' Campaign Providing Brand Lift

by Jeremy Mullman

Published: June 22, 2010

CHICAGO (AdAge.com) -- Here's one more sign that Nik

e's epic "Write the Future" is fast becoming one of the most successful ambush-marketing efforts in history.

According to a YouGov BrandIndex survey of consumer perception in the U.S., U.K. and Germany, Nike has benefited from the FIFA World Cup more than any other brand despite not being an official sponsor of the event.

The footwear and apparel behemoth saw the largest uptick in positive consumer perceptions among measured brands in the

U.S. and the U.K., and it placed fourth in Germany, according to the BrandIndex survey. Nike has direct relationships with many star athletes competing in the World Cup, and it is using them in its TV and web video campaign, which appeared online three weeks before the World Cup beganThe survey asked 5,000 people daily in each country, "If you've heard anything about the brand in the last two weeks, was it positive or negative?"

In the U.S., the brands that saw the top increases in positive buzz were Nike, which is not a World Cup sponsor; ESPN and ABC, which show World Cup matches; and Sony and Adidas, which are official sponsors. In the U.K., Nike led again, followed by official sponsors Vis

a, Sony, Hyundai and Budweiser. In Germany, Coca-Cola scored the biggest increase on the strength of a highly integrated global campaign built around soccer celebrations, followed by Emirates, Adidas, Nike and Continental.

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Nike, Hyundai, ESPN Top World Cup 'Movers' List

June 23, 2010

Like other major sports events, th e World Cup is an opportunity for marketers to get consumers talking about their brands. That's exactly what Nike, Hyundai and ESPN have done. The three brands have received the biggest consumer perception boosts among U.S. consumers in the first week of the international soccer tournament, according to market research firm YouGov's BrandIndex report. Rounding out the list were ABC, Sony and Adidas.

The Brandweek Buzz Report by YouGov is a weekly consumer perception report that analyzes the most talked about brands based on buzz: The scores are based on weighing positive and negative perceptions of a brand. A +100 score is positive, a -100 score is negative, and a rating of zero means that the score is neutral.

YouGov interviews 5,000 people each weekday from a representative U.S. population sample. Respondents are drawn from an online panel of 1.5 million individuals.

For the World Cup "Top 5 Buzz Movers" report, YouGov focused on three countries: U.S., U.K. and Germany.

The key findings were:

• The U.S. has traditionall y lagged behind in terms of interest and support for soccer. However, the magnitude of improvement in buzz score during the first week of the tournament shows relative consistency across countries, indicating that the U.S. has been very receptive of the event, falling in line with Germany and the U.K.

• While not an official sponsor, Nike is an aggressive World Cup advertiser, having launched a campaign dubbed "Write the Future." Team sponsorship has also helped Nike's World Cup presence, since it has strong ties to the Brazilian team, one of the consensus favorites to win the tournament. Overall, the brand has been successful in improving its buzz score in each of the countries.

• When considering the net works broadcasting the World Cup games, ABC and ESPN have experienced considerable buzz boosts during the first week. The gains come at a time when regular programming is in a dark period.

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June 22, 2010, 4:11 pm

Marketers Have ‘Goals’ at World Cup, Too

By STUART ELLIOTT [EXCERPT]

The 2010 World Cup is the first to be played under the auspices, or maybe under the influence, of the social media. So companies that analyze data from Facebook, Twitter and other social media outlets are eagerly providing data on how advertisers — official and otherwise — are faring among soccer (or football) fans.

...Buzz for Nike is spiking in another survey, by YouGov, known as the YouGov Brand Index, which is being conducted in the United States, Britain and Germany.

The buzz for Nike rose by the most of any World Cup advertiser in Britain and the United States, according to the YouGov Brand Index, and was fourth in Germany, where Coca-Cola was the biggest “buzz mover.”

The improvements for Nike in Britain and the United States were greater than for any official sponsor, according to YouGov.

Break INVIDI patent story in Ad Age and Multichannel News

Long Quest for Addressable Ads Moves Forward

New Patents for Invidi, Company Backed by Google and Group M

by Brian Steinberg
Published: June 07, 2010

NEW YORK (AdAge.com) -- Invidi Technologies Corp. said it has been awarded a number of patents that give it the ability to license to others technology that delivers specific ads to particular households or viewers, as well as ascertains the response of the viewers who see them.

It's a sign that the long, sometimes grinding quest to deliver so-called addressable advertising is moving forward.

"Our technology is not limited to just cable television," said Bruce Andeson, chief technology officer at Invidi. "The patent is broad enough to encompass video on cellphones to regular television viewing to viewing on your computer." No matter how video is viewed in the future, he suggested, "the intellectual property would come into play."

The quest to make addressable advertising available for mass marketers has been glacial in its progress, but Invidi's patents suggest the infrastructure for a marketplace in the technology is gradually starting to form. Other entities also help marketers tweak ads for specific audiences, whether they are centered around a geographic location or age or gender demographic. But because delivering such advertising hinges on having a set-top box as the final link to the consumer, and because most cable, satellite and telecommunications video systems are built differently from one another, it has been difficult to assemble an efficient way for, say, Procter & Gamble to reach the millions of diaper consumers it needs.

Over time, said David Downey, president-CEO of Invidi, the company hopes to "target every potential view of every potential [commercial] break."

Google recently took a stake in the company, joining WPP's Group M on the roster of investors. Experian, a company that helps analyze consumer habits and purchases, also took a stake in Invidi late last month and formed a partnership under which the two will help advertisers measure the effects of television ad campaigns, among other efforts.

One adviser to the company believes the patents could prompt big TV-industry players, such as cable-service providers, to adopt Invidi's technology as part of their efforts to make addressable advertising available to marketers.

"The Comcasts of the world are so powerful, they don't really let startups flourish in their space," said Tracey Scheppach, senior VP-innovations director at Publicis Groupe's SMGX. "It seems to me the only way you can be taken seriously is to go after the patent protection." Satellite providers are already making addressable ads available in wider fashion, she added, so the big cable providers have some motivation for looking more deeply into addressable possibilities. "That's going to force the hand of the rest of the ecosystem, she said.

Invidi already licenses intellectual property to customers and partners, said Mr. Downey, and the company is "willing to consider license arrangements with other industry players under the right circumstances."

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Invidi Looks To License Patents For Addressable TV Ads

Firm Considers Licensing Deals For Recently Issued Patents

By Todd Spangler -- Multichannel News

Invidi Technologies said it will consider engaging in licensing agreements for two recently issued U.S. patents, which, according to the company, cover key aspects of its system for delivering addressable TV advertising.

As part of Invidi's distribution deals, "we license our intellectual property to our customers and technology partners and are willing to consider license arrangements with other industry players under the right circumstances," Invidi president and CEO David Downey said in a statement.

Invidi declined to comment on whether it plans to pursue litigation to defend the patents.

The New York-based company's customers include DirecTV and Dish Network, which intend to deliver targeted ads to subscribers by delivering different spots to their DVRs. Verizon Communications also is using Invidi's system to deliver ads at a zone level.

On June 1, 2010, the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office granted Invidi U.S. Patent No. 7,730,509, titled "Asset Delivery Reporting in a Broadcast Network." The patent covers the delivery of content that is targeted to users of a broadcast network based on signals from customer-premises equipment and selected from a collection of available asset options.

Another patent, No. 7,698,236, granted April 10, 2010, titled "Fuzzy Logic Based Viewer Identification for Targeted Asset Delivery System," covers certain "machine learning functionality" whereby data inputs from a current network user can be used to refine the selection of which targeted advertisement should be delivered to that user.

Invidi also holds Patent No. 7,546,619, granted June 9, 2009, titled "Voting and Headend Insertion Model for Targeting Content in a Broadcast Network," which covers a selection process for the delivery of targeted content based on parameters such as age, gender, income, locale and personal interest.

In addition, the company in 1996 and 1997 was granted Patent Nos. 5,515,098 and 5,661,516 (a continuation of the ‘098 patent) titled "System and Method for Selectively Distributing Commercial Messages over a Communications Network," covering household targeting and addressing advertisements to a subscriber terminal based on household data associated with the terminal.

Invidi's investors include Google, Experian, Motorola and WPP's GroupM.