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:

No of Unique Visitor: 1

Total Visits: 1

Scenario 2:

No of Unique Visitors: 1

Total Visits: 2

Scenario 3:

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.

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:

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!!

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.

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 1^st 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?

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.

]]> http://brandstreet.wordpress.com/2011/09/07/changing-times-for-agencies-challenge-or-opportunity-4/feed/ 3 MP http://brandstreet.wordpress.com/2011/08/28/anna-hazare%e2%80%99s-anti-corruption-drive-what-can-brands-learn-from-it/ http://brandstreet.wordpress.com/2011/08/28/anna-hazare%e2%80%99s-anti-corruption-drive-what-can-brands-learn-from-it/#comments Sun, 28 Aug 2011 15:04:21 +0000 MP http://brandstreet.wordpress.com/?p=85 ]]> After 65 years of its independence, India has again seen unwavering and unrelenting movement in the form of “anti-corruption movement” led by a 74 years old guy, Anna Hazare. The movement saw people from all walks of the life coming forward in full support of Anna. Nature of this movement is different from what we saw in Egypt and recent struggle in other Middle East nations. It being a Non-Violent movement, world stood to see how World’s Largest Democracy responds to such an emotional wave. It looks like people of India have won this round of battle.

These movements (India, Egypt etc.) have something for Marketers trying to speak to their consumers. I am putting some of the things Marketers can learn from it

1. Vision:

Anna Hazare had or has a very strong vision of being a Corruption Free country; the vision which resonated with each and every one.

Brands also need to have clear vision of what they want to achieve. It is imperative to be always guided by its objective. We have numours brands who keep on changing what they stand for. Hence, they end up doing too many things without having any direction.

2. Clear Plan of Action:

Team Anna always anticipated actions by the govt against them. All along they knew what they are going to do. They responded with Jail Bharo movement when Anna got arrested, Anna fasted in the jail itself when the place to fast was not available, Kept on fasting until the parliament debated and agreed on the demands.

 Brands also follow a very clear and well drafted plan of action which is in line with overall brand vision. Be very clear in communicating the same with your consumers.

 3. Stick to Your Words:

Anna Hazare stuck to his words (going on fast on 16^th Aug incase the bill not passed) when he ended his fast in April. He stuck to his word of fasting even when he was in jail until government relented and surrendered to his demands.

One of the most important concerns of consumers against brands is this only, brands not living up to their promises. Never betray your consumers and never act smart with consumers.

4. Keep Your Audience Engaged:

Beauty of this campaign is in how Anna Hazare egged people on by his small talks throughout. He managed to mobilize people across country.

Brands should also figure out a way to keep their audience engaged. This gives people the assurance that someone is out there for them.

5. Don’t Take Anything For Granted:

This movement amassed so many people simply because politicians of this country took its people for granted. They never expected people to one join the movement in huge number, two; they expected this movement will die down at its own.

Perhaps this is the most important lessons brands can learn from this movement. Never take your customers for granted. You will never know when they will turn against you. Nestlé’s social media goof up is a classic case in point.

Very nice ad.

“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?

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?

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

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

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.

Source: Vdopia*

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

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.