The typical consumer’s online purchase behavior has skyrocketed in complexity over the past few years. We can attribute this to an ever-growing number of online channels (e.g. microblogging, social networks, video, web apps, etc.) and in particular, an associated explosion of compelling and highly influential peer-generated content. The dramatically increased number of touchpoints and venues for interaction between consumer and brand has in turn has provided marketers with a mass of new opportunities to better identify, target and align with consumers and their interests – but not without also creating new challenges.
Whether it’s learning to juggle priorities or better understanding the vagaries of each new channel and the effect they deliver not just on the consumer, but on other channels as well, marketers are tasked with simultaneously building their brand and also driving response in this fluid and near-real-time environment. With this new world order, I believe that the Hegelian dialectic of Brand v. Direct Response in online marketing is ripe for redefinition.
For consumers at any stage in a purchase funnel, this increase in number of channels and associated purchase influences has not necessarily resulted in shorter, less concentrated or less meaningful and engaged interactions. The core effect has instead been realignment. Consumer purchase behavior is now Read more »
Ending several weeks of subdued speculation, Apple finally announced the iPhone 4 at the annual WWDC last Monday. The device’s front-facing camera and higher resolution display serve as the two tentpoles in Apple’s pitch to drive consumers to make the iPhone 4 their next smartphone of choice. But what appealed most to us online marketers was a little detail overlooked by many and dissected by few: Jobs’ claim of Apple dominating 48% of the mobile ad market by the end of 2010. Considering both his previous predictions and recent headlines surrounding the company, one has to wonder how grounded in reality this claim really is, and just what Steve would do to try to accomplish it.
(A little crib note history – Apple purchased Quattro Wireless this past January for $275mn, ostensibly to counter Google’s earlier $750mn purchase of AdMob, which itself signified the search giant’s determination of dominating the mobile ad space. These purchases were both result and precursor of several months of public Apple/Google spats, and they also helped contribute to the rise of a tech rivalry unseen since the days of, well, Apple and Microsoft.)
Corporate drama aside, the question at hand is: can Apple beat Google at its own game and dominate the mobile ad market in just six months? It sure looks like it – but at what cost to its P&L, brand perception, and relationships to other tech and ad companies?
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Seems like every week there’s a new story about the “death” of ad networks. Yes, the increasing number of industry reports has given us reason to doubt the sector’s long-term viability, especially considering the tales of “cookie cutter” networks struggling to emerge intact from the recent economic recession. Yet, there seems to a silver lining as the ad networks are showing strong signs of a comeback, due mostly to a focus on efficient pricing and delivering new service offerings from continued investments in technology.
Comscore’s March 2010 report indicates that Microsoft Media Network increased their unique visitors by over 33% in the last year. Could anyone have predicted this in early 2009, at a time when sale forces were cold calling and knocking on marketers’ doors every day in a desperate attempt to hold onto their jobs?
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