Cookie Deletion: How It Affects Digital Media Planning?

Digital has come a long way now. More and more brands are recognizing the might of internet/digital planning. Technological advancements have enabled the marketers to move from carpet bombing the TG to hyper-target the audience through digital.  Online Cookies have been instrumental in feeding marketers back with user behavior & user media consumption habit.

 This is how COOKIES are defined on Wikipedia: ‘A cookie, also known as an HTTP cookie, web cookie, or browser cookie, is used for an origin website to send state information to a user’s browser and for the browser to return the state information to the origin site’. Cookies get stored on the users system when a request is sent from user’s browser to the site server. This cookie is being looked up when a user re-visits the site, and if found, same gets updated with the recent visit. Cookies can give access to data like: Authentication of identification of a user session, User’s preferences, shopping cart contents, or anything else that can be accomplished through storing text data on the user’s computer.

Ad Serving, Retargeting or Remarketing, Behavioral targeting techniques use cookies as a tool to identify user and then serve desired communication accordingly. So, cookies are very critical for internet planning per se.

“But people delete cookies”. That’s the thought which immediately comes to the mind. But before looking at the effects of cookie-deletion, let’s look at how cookie deletion can happen:

  1. Users can choose to delete the cookies manually.
  2. Users can turn off the cooking saving through their browsers.
  3. Security programs or Anti-viruses can delete the cookies.

How Cookie Deletion Affects Internet/Media Planning:

Scenario 1:

 

Day 1 : ‘X’ Visits ‘Yahoo.com’

 

Day 2: No Visit

 

Day 3: No Visit

 

Day 4: No Visit

 

Day 5: No Visit

No of Unique Visitor: 1

Total Visits: 1

 

Scenario 2:

 

Day 1 : ‘X’ Visits ‘Yahoo.com’

 

Day 2: No Visit

 

Day 3: No Visit

 

Day 4 :  ‘X’ Re-visits ‘Yahoo.com’

 

Day 5: No Visit

No of Unique Visitors: 1

Total Visits: 2

Scenario 3:

 

Day 1 : ‘X’ Visits ‘Yahoo.com’

 

Day 2: No Visit

 

Day 3: No Visit

 

Day 4 : Delete The Cookies

 

Day 5: ‘X’ Visits ‘Yahoo.com’ again

 

Day 6: Deletes The Cookies

 

Day 7: No Activity

 

Day 8: ‘X’ Visits ‘Yahoo.com’ again

 

Day 9: Visits ‘Yahoo.com’ again

 

No of Unique Visitors Reported: 3

Total Visits: 4

In scenario 3, same user visits ‘yahoo.com’ 5 times but is counted as 3 Unique Users in the report. In reality, it is the same user which has visited the same site four times in 9 days.  This is where overestimation/underestimation of data happens. This will affect you campaign depending upon how you have configured the frequency settings. Frequency capping is the setting of a maximum number of times an internet user can be served an advertisement within an agreed time period.  The capping level (e.g. 3 impressions) and capping time-period (e.g. user session, day, week, month or campaign duration) is negotiated SEPARATELY with EVERY media owner and ad network used.  If you are using frequency capping of 3 site wise, your ad will be shown to a user’s at the max 3 times. But since, there is an overestimation of Unique Users; your ad is being shown to the same user, as they visit other sites in the media plan, more no. of times but not more than 3 at any point in time. In reality, your frequency is higher than you bargained for.

If you are using capping at an on overall campaign level, there should not be any problem on showing more impressions. But there are other issues here. Consider the following:

  • Capping makes it harder for media owners to deliver impressions targets and therefore it is not popular with them.
  • Media owners prefer to cap at higher levels (e.g. 3+ or 4+ rather than 1+) over shorter periods (e.g. user sessions rather than campaign durations).
  • High prestige media owners may refuse to cap altogether.

But in either case, if cookie is deleted, the problem would persist.

This is not it. There are other factors which can change the numbers. If a same user is using two different browsers and is visiting the same site, he/she would be counted a ‘2 Unique Users’. If you are using two different logins on your system, you would be considered ‘2 Unique Users’ if you visit the same site.

Also, users tend to log on to website from various devices they own. Again, the user is same but you may still be counted as a different Unique Visitor as you use different devices.

So, when sites come and say they have “x” unique users in a month, think again. Are they telling you “Unique Visitors” or “Unique Cookies”? To arrive at the real number, “X” given by the site needs to divided by the “cookie deletion rate”. One study says cookie deletion rate is more than 4% for Asia Pacific.  Then the number needs to be adjusted further to tackle multiple location & devices problem.

This is easier said than done. It requires meticulous research and thinking. One of the solutions which come to my mind is to use mechanism which could be attributed to users than to cookies. I do not know what could be this mechanism. Cookies have so far really helped the digital marketing cause. I am sure research is on somewhere to get around this issue. Hope the solution comes fast.

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When & How Not To Use ‘Facebook’?

There is much Gung-Ho about how brands can use Facebook. So much so that for some brands social media strategy is Facebook only. FB has given business to a lot of small tech-shops who once were doing sites, and now call themselves social media experts. Clients also have been swept by the FB wave. They also blindly & randomly use FB as their social media strategy.

I thought of putting my thoughts on how to avoid these mistakes. Hence, here are my points on ‘How & When’ not to use Facebook:

  • If facebook is your only social media strategy, you must have a backup plan. Take a look at the following data pulled from comScore:

Media

Total Unique Visitors (000)

Aug-2010

Oct-2011

% Change

    Total Internet : Total Audience

39,958

45,930

15

    FACEBOOK.COM

22,357

37,600

68

    ORKUT.CO.IN

18,931

8,843

-53

At one point in time, Orkut was the market leader in India. But slowly, popularity of Orkut is waning, thanks to Facebook. Orkut has lost more than 53% of its visitors while FB has gained 68%. I am sure a lot of you either have unsubscribed from Orkut or you still have the ID but don’t use it. This makes my point. What if Facebook is no more tomorrow (not suggesting it is going anywhere). What if Google+ takes over (assumption) or any other site comes up? Users could be very fickle.  You can always shift to new platform if at all the new platform allows it and whenever it allows (G+ has recently opened it for brands). But there is bound to be spillage. Hence, it becomes necessary to revisit the strategy and consider using other social media channels for your brands. You can use FB, Youtube, Twitter etc driving traffic to each other at times.  This helps you to minimize the damage.

  • Facebook is not a replacement of a microsite. Many clients have told me that they will not create a site/microsite but rather put an app on FB. I am not saying there is anything wrong in doing this. But one should know what’s one missing in doing so. It’s becoming increasingly difficult to reach users in social media space because of newer security settings. Also, it limits the concept to FB only even if you drive the traffic to FB page, thereby missing out on considerable traffic.  Client’s logic behind this thought is that this will allow more VIRALability. Truth be told, not every concept/campaign goes viral. When was the last time your campaign took the web world by storm? If a concept/campaign is good, it will go viral itself, irrespective of whether it is there on FB, Twitter or on a microsite.

Have you experienced this? Do share!!

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Frequently Asked (read Annoying) Questions (FAQS) in Digital Media Planning – Series 1

Q1.  I am not able to see my banner? I tried refreshing the page too.

I am sure every digital planner has faced this question at least once. I want to put this possible reason for it in black & white for all clients who don’t understand the reason behind it and for everyone else who needs a readymade answer for the same.

Here are the some of the possible reasons (when you buy on CPM):

  1. You might not have bought sufficient no. of impressions as compared to what the selected site delivers and what other brands might have bought. This happens usually when there is a budget constraint & clients still insist on buying high traffic sites with choosing some presence versus no presence.
  2. Impressions might have been spread thinly over a longer duration making your SOV (per day basis) too low.
  3. Check the frequency cap in case you are trying to see the banner again.
  4. In case you are running on an Ad Network, it’s difficult to control where and when your ad would appear.
  5. Try clearing your Cache (CTRL+F5).
  6. Check if there is a road block or a fixed buy running for that particular day by another advertiser.

If all the above things are in order, do check if your campaign is really live. This question really ranks high of annoyance, especially when you have made the presentation and secured the media approval.

Q2. What is our SOV on digital?

For CPM Deals:

This question is result of too much traditional media (TV & Radio) exposure for clients. In offline media, inventory is limited. You have content and in between you have Free Commercial Time or FCT. This FCT is available to brands. So out of 24 hours, only X time is allocated for commercials, which is limited. Demand is more than Supply. Hence, SOV becomes a good measure of presence. Compare this to online media. Most of the cases, Supply is usually greater than demand, especially for high traffic sites.

Website

Daily Possible Home Page Impressions

Bought Impression By Brand On Home Page

Duration

Day Wise Impressions

SOV%

Cost With CPM (150)

Yahoo.co.in

                 8,000,000                   6,000,000  30 Days

(6,000,000/30)= 2,00,000

(2,00,000/8,000,000) = 2.5%

9,00,000

Refer to the above dummy plan. Due to budget constraints, you are able to buy only certain amount of impressions only on a particular site.  Unless you have sufficient bought inventory on Yahoo, given the duration of the campaign, SOV will be very low.  Here, the planning tradeoff is whether to consolidate on yahoo (high traffic) buy leaving out on similar sites or choose relatively lower sites than Yahoo to improve the visibility.

Key take out: In case of impression buy (CPM), unless you have enough monies, SOV should be avoided. If your client wants visibility, look for Fixed Properties.

Q3. Deciding on search (sponsored) spends based on SOV & the market share of our brand, let’s call it, AB

This is the one of the craziest question I have ever heard from any client. Here is how the conversation went:

C: We need to arrive at the ideal search spend basis our SOV on search & our market share (40%)?

A: We can only get to SOV of AB queries (hence impressions) out of total category query universe. That should tell us about popularity on AB in SEM space. Since, search is on Click basis, budget allocation can’t be planned on impressions.

C: We need to have equal amount of Search Share as our Market share. How much money is required?

A: Search queries can rise while your Market Share comes down (or goes up). Search SOV can change rapidly which may or may not be consistent with the Market Share of AB. Plus, search does not operate on impressions. It is a click based deal. We can decide on the budget on average daily clicks and decide on no of daily clicks we would want & accordingly allocate budget. Impressions would be free of cost any which ways.

C: Let’s do one thing; let’s fix the first position on Google for our brand.

A: WHAT?? Google works on bidding model.

C: Ya, they can carry on with their bidding on all other positions except for 1st position which is fixed for us.

With such conversations, it is difficult to get clients to see the point.

Q4: If someone is searching for competitor’s brand, why show him our brand ad?

Simply, because there is an opportunity to be present while the user is evaluating other options. You have the chance to influence him to get to your brand.

Q5: Let’s plan for 4% CTR.

It’s difficult to plan on CTR’s simply because it’s is difficult to ascertain users mind.

CTR(f)= Media Selection + Creative Treatment + Brand Proposition.  Different people will respond to brand differently. It is possible to change media selection & creative to optimize the campaign but it is not possible to plan on CTRs.

What’s your favorite question, huh?

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Changing Times for Agencies: Challenge or Opportunity?

What does Google, Apple, Facebook have in common? They are amongst top 10 brands of the world. Yes, they are. But, what’s more interesting about these brands is that they have become top brands without spending anything/legible on advertising. Everyone has heard about Groupon, fastest growing company to touch a billion dollar mark ever in this history.

I recently read about Groupon’s approach towards Marketing. I am quoting it for discussion sakes: “Groupon’s approach reflects a bit of the transformation of markets and the way in which advertising agencies have to respond. Because the marketing appeal is built into Groupon’s product, it doesn’t have much need for what Madison Avenue specializes in: the creation of brand images and strategy, and distribution of them through paid media”.  Brands are not built only through Advertising. Groupon has certainly proved it.

HP, in the US, is piloting an activity where they are directly working with media owner skipping the agency altogether. Google stayed away from advertising for a long time.

Let’s look at another example. Suppose you get a brief from your client. You have exactly a week’s time to get back with your ideas. How many ideas you will get back to client with? Two, Three, Four or Five at the max(rarity). Imagine a client getting 50 different ideas to choose from. If you happen to work in an agency, you would be shocked to hear this. But, now think as a client. Would you not be happy to get 50 ideas from your agency? Hell yeah. That’s what ideabounty.com does. Clients post their briefs on their site and they get back to client with various ideas. Ideabounty works on the concept of crowdsourcing. They solve Business Problems for their clients. Client can pick and choose the idea they like and pay them far lesser than they would pay their agencies. Brands are taking more and more ownership now.

Agencies need to take notice and think as to why brands are doing that. Is it that brands think agency is not adding as much value as expected from them? Is your agency offering TVC for every business solution? Is it that agencies lack the expertise in handling new media? Is it that agencies are still stuck with old forms of media? All of these could be reasons. So, whether it is a media agency or a creative agency, it’s high time to do this introspection.

But, what is driving this change? In my mind, it is the innovative ideas with technological advancements which are responsible for this change. I have put few points on how technology is affecting how brands will communicate with consumers.

  1. Media Is Becoming More Portable:  Today, it’s easier to reach out to people. Thanks to iPods’, iPads’, Tabs, Smartphones people are carrying. Technology has made media more addressable too. But, even with reaching out to so many people, it has increasingly become difficult to get people’s attention. The Challenge for Communication fraternity is to be relevant to users instead of blindly following him.
  2. Everything Is Searchable: Technology has made consumer more empowered. They have the ability to verify your claims anywhere & anytime. Be honest with what you have to offer.
  3. Media Is Becoming Interactive: New media is highly interactive giving marketers the weapon to get consumers to spend more & more time with their communication.
  4. Emergence of New Measurement Metrics: Marketers are moving beyond traditional measurement metrics. Digital is making traditional media more measurable. Digital OOH is a great example of how digital can provide more teeth to something so immeasurable. Marketers/Agencies need to move beyond traditional Reach Metrics (Reach, CPT, Freq, GRP) to Engagement Metrics( Buzz Potential, Receptivity, Viralibility etc)
  5. Media Usage Will Go More Social: Technology has brought this world closer to each other. All thanks to Social Networking sites. Challenge for brands is to give people something worth sharing.
  6. Fragmentation Will Increase: More channels mean more fragmentation. Brands need to ensure that they speak a consistent language across channels and to a precisely targeted user.

Above mentioned points throw a challenge to all communication experts. This scenario also presents a great opportunity to brands to be as closer to their users as it can get. Agencies certainly need to move up the value chain and regain confidence of brands (who see diminishing value add of agencies). It is easier said than done. But it’s not impossible.

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Guilt As Marketing Communication Weapon

I came across this ad which leverages “Guilt” as  marketing communication tool. It uses Guilt to evoke the emotional cord to bring home the rational point, a point usually known but not acted upon.

Very nice ad.

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How Digital Is Changing Brand’s DNA?

The term ‘Brand’ has been defined in various ways. Amongst all available definitions, the following definition would suit the thought I am going to pursue in this article.

“Brand is a CONNECT between consumers and companies”.  This is a very simple yet powerful definition.

This so called ‘connect’ has undergone a seismic change recently. This change can be attributed to continuous evolution of technology which has really simplified a consumer’s life. Brands are continuously finding it difficult to establish a connect with their consumers and more so in this digital age. Earlier, brands had fewer, what is popularly known as, “moment of truths”. Consumers didn’t have access to much information. Hence choices were also limited. Marketers hardly focused on their prospective consumers. Advertising was seen as a potent weapon as a brand building tool than customer satisfaction and other elements of brand building. Customers had very limited options to voice their feeling about brands.

Digital has had a transformational effect on how brand business is done. According to Interbrand.com, Google was ranked 38th in 2005 out of top 100 brands whereas in 2009 it is ranked top 7th brand of the world. Considering the fact that Google stared its operations only in late 1998, it’s a huge achievement. Brands like Google, iPod, Facebook & YouTube have proved the notion wrong that brands take a long time to become the top brands.

Digitization has empowered the customers with unlimited tools to make them heard. Abundant access to information, thanks to Google, has left little room for brands to act smart with customers. 

Brand touch points have increased in comparison to what they used to be. More interestingly, customers now have the power to make them heard at every such point through Facebook, Twitter, Orkut to name a few. Brands are now aware that negative word of mouth spreads faster than positive word of mouth. Hence, brands are continuously employing “Online Reputation Management” tools to cater to disgruntled customers.

Digital has proved that brand building need not be an expensive activity. Brands are constantly exploring the power of ‘viral videos’ which are rather cheap to create and still give the brands great mileage. The recent “Real Beauty” campaign, Dove Evolution, by Dove on YouTube has close to 1 million views so far and still counting.

PR seems incomplete without ePR. Upsurge of blogs and review websites have made people trust their peer group more than the advertisements. Worse, users may give more credence to feedback posted by a stranger on a website more than what a brand is communicating.

Today, marketers are in a better position to understand online behavior of the users that visit their sites. Web analytics tools can be of great help in understanding what pages are most visited by users, what is the path traversed by users before making some purchase on your website, how many users are coming through paid media versus how many users are coming organically etc. Never have brands got so many insights to serve their customer better, all thanks to this Digital Age.

Brand building has become more comprehensive today wherein customer satisfaction, customer experience, customer delight get equal, if not more, weight age which probably only advertising once enjoyed. Digital empowerment has changed the rules of the game. It has opened up a bag full of opportunities for the brands. It has taken brands a step closer to their customers. And the good news is that you can be a top brand in few years if you are updated about the game. You are closer to your customers than ever before. But the point is: Are you listening?

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Digital Marketing Question Series: Is SOV based on Impressions or on Unique Users?

Hi Friends. Very recently I came across some interesting questions which required knowledge of offline or Traditional media as well as Digital media. One example being, will priciple of Optimal Frequency hold good for a campaign(digital) wherein the Objective is SOV? I had put this question on my Facebook and few of my friends in the industry replied to my question. I am thankful to them for putting forward their interesting views. Following is the discussion that happened on my Facebook. Hope you will find it intriguing & useful. Do shoot your feedback/queries/questions.

Question Was: Is SOV based on Impressions or on Unique Users?

Ajay Gupte                                                                                    

Impressions. SOV (share of voice) is the share of the noise made and not share of the users reached.

 MP Singh

Is it possible in traditional space to figure out how many unique users can be reached at an SOV of, let’s say, 30%?

 Bharat Wadhwa

I think it’s important to know SOV in UU as well because you may not want to show your ad again and again to same individual. MP it depends on your goal what do you want to achieve.

MP

@bharat: need more explanation on your last line? 

Ajay Gupte:

@MP. No… The 30% SOV can only tell you the number of impressions generated.. That is if you know the total impressions generated by the competitive set… Once you have the number of impressions, you can find out UU if you know the average number of times (AOTS/Avg.Freq.) the ad has been seen. Impressions/Freq=UU

 MP:

@ajay sir: In online, Freq is under my control. So I can figure out optimum noise I need to make based on UUs.
Also, I was wondering if “Optimum Frequency” principle holds good when objective is SOV?

Ajay Gupte:

@MP: See SOV is dependent on 2 things

The noise you make and the noise everyone else in the category makes. Noise is equal to GRP or Impressions

GRP is nothing but impressions expressed in percentage terms of the size of the Target audience.  An SOV target is based on how much you believe you should be heard in relation to your competition.  Therefore in real terms you are not talking UU here. Here u are more concerned that your impressions are more than that of competition of course you will optimize these impressions of yours in a way that you get optimal UU (reach) and Frequency.

So therefore take an example your category is doing 10 million impressions a month. You want to have at least 50% SOV. so you need 5 million impressions.  Now suppose your target audience is 5 million people.  You may now say that i will achieve 5 million impressions by getting everyone to see the ad once. So you fix the max number of impressions at 1 and keep waiting till the 5 million UU is achieved. Alternatively you can say that the max no. of times the ad should be seen is 5 and you keep serving till approx 1 million UU is achieved.

 

So Whats Your Take?

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Microsoft Yahoo Search Marketing Deal

There’s been lot of buzz around new Microsoft-Yahoo Search Marketing Deal. Deal is making waves in digital industry. As experts are saying, it is move to counter the search giant called Google. Both, Microsoft & Yahoo, are touting it a great move to break the monopoly of Google and offer users a better search experience.

I have another angle to talk on this deal.  Here are my points:

  1. Google remains top of mind of almost every net user. In India, Google has more than 70% share of the search pie. Rest is all scattered between Yahoo, Microsoft and other players. How is this deal going to topple Google from users Top of Mind is something would be very interesting to see? I think, this will decide about the efficacy of this deal.
  2. Let’s talk about User Experience. Both Yahoo n Bing, they don’t allow me to refine the search query whereas Google gives the user to refine their search results by using the Broad Match, Exact Match in search query etc .  Google also allows the users to search for something “within a particular site”. Something which is missing in Bing as of now.

The chart below shows traffic on various search engines in India. Google is way ahead of the race.

Search Volume In India For June 09

Search Volume In India For June 09

According to me, as of now, Google has a better product offering than any other competitor.  Incidentally, Google also allows the second highest search engine called “YOUTUBE” (it has beaten Yahoo in search volume; though the searches would differ on respective platform). It would be interesting to see how Google responds to this move. Keep watching.

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What Idiot Box Can’t Do For Commercials But Online Can?

This paper looks at exploring digital medium for the same commercials we see on TV.  Video is the hottest new format for online advertising. Thanks to emphasize on infrastructural development, no of high speed connections are increasing day by day. According to TRAI, no of people of using broadband connections were 5.65 million by end of JAN 09. TRAI defines a broadband connection a connection with a minimum speed of 256Kbps. This makes consumption of online video rather easy. That’s why the consumption of online videos has consistently going up. That’s why YouTube is such a success today.  Following table shows the last year video views and expected video views in this year.

  

 

 

Content Category

 

Views Per Year 2008

 

Views Per Year 2009

 

User Generated Video Content

 

2000 Million

 

5000 Million

 

Premium Branded Video Content

 

1200 Million

 

3300 Million

 

Non Premium Branded Video Content

 

600 Million

 

1000 Million

 

Total VIEWS

 

3800 Million

 

9300 Million

Source: Vdopia*

 

I have put a all possible points of comparison for everyone’s reference. And here is what they look like.

 

 

Comparison Between Commercial On TV Vs Commercial On Online Medium

 

 

Parameter

 

TV

 

Online

 

Reach

 

High Reach.

Moderate Reach but increasing steadily. Currently 40 Million people.

 

 

Frequency

 

Can’t be defined with before the start of a campaign with precision. Frequency is generally an average frequency.

 

 

Can be defined with precision before the start of the campaign. Frequency is highly controllable here.

 

Assurance of Ad Exposure

 

 

Audience may or may not see the ad.

 

 

Exposure is guaranteed.

 

 

Targeting

 

Channel mix is chosen with higher affinity of user with the channel but spill over can’t be completely ruled out.

 

 

Demographic targeting possible which ensures zero spillover.

Audience Involvement

Passive

Active

 

Scope Of Innovation

 

High with higher cost but zero interactivity.

 

High with relatively lower cost with high scope of Interactivity.

 

 

Primetime Concept

 

Cost for running commercials varies with Prime Time & Non-Prime Time.

 

 

There is no such concept of Prime Time. Internet is always prime time.

 

Who’s Watching Your Commercial

 

 

Your TG or your TG with the family. Thus, spill over.

 

Consumption is individualistic.

 

 

 

 

How Are Advertiser’s Charged

 

You get charged on no of spots you run irrespective of who saw & who didn’t see your ad.

 

Online give throw up an ad only when you request a webpage. Hence, more accountable. Online give you an option wherein you pay only when user sees your ad 100%. You don’t pay anything if someone leaves your ad in between.

 

 

These are some of the quantitative differences between the two mediums. There are qualitative differences also like most of the young working professional are in office most of their time. Hence makes complete sense to run your commercial on online medium.

 

Though this comparison is not to de-sell or to sell any medium, the purpose of this comparison is to throw some light on advantages on each medium to achieve the client’s objectives. With the growth of Internet, media fragmentation, slower rate of growth of TV(if not stagnation) and changing media consumption patterns of people, advantages of internet cant be ignored even though it’s might not be able to offer reach(in Indian scenario) as compared to TV.

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