After nearly two years of campaigning, umpteen focus groups, myriad polls, and lively discussions about plumbers, wardrobes, flag pins and, yes, even the economy…we are approaching the finish line. In the end, though, the only thing that really counts will be counted on Tuesday, as Americans head to the voting booth. But while we still could, Nielsen Online took a look at online metrics around the campaigns - including site traffic, video use and buzz. And while we eagerly await Tuesday’s outcome, we are already wondering how the 2012 campaigns will differ as it relates to the Web, video and social media in particular. We’ll be measuring!
Tags: election, mccain, obama
Alas, one of the great news papers, The Christian Science Monitor, has announced that it will be ending its print publication as of April. We’ve seen the decline of the print newspaper industry for some time – but this one is really a shame. It will maintain itself as a web property, but this really signifies a turning point for print. As we move into a more challenging advertising market, we’re quite likely to see others take the same route.
The good news is that at least their site is doing pretty well:
Tags: christian science monitor, newspaper, online advertising
We have a perfect storm at the moment with historically high gas prices (though on their way down), a plunging stock market, tight credit, and a growing demand for more fuel-efficient vehicles, but a lack of fuel-efficient vehicles on dealers’ lots.
How will the “Big 3″ that we know today fare in the future, given this environment? Online, consumers discuss how GM, Chrysler and Ford rely heavily on trucks and SUVs, and how they themselves are struggling with how to off-load their current vehicles in order to purchase smaller, more fuel-efficient ones. The recent $25 billion government auto loan has spurred a heated online debate with most hypothesizing how Detroit would look if a potential merger were to occur between GM & Chrysler and what vehicles would survive.
GM has a lot riding on their much-anticipated electric car, the Volt, which Bob Lutz has promised will be available in 2010. The Volt is only one of many topics swirling around GM lately, while mergers, government loans, plant closures, the UAW, GMAC, and their 100th anniversary also drive buzz.
What are your thoughts on a GM & Chrysler merger?
Tags: chrysler, detroit, gas prices, GM, volt
I found myself at our client meetings last week in San Francisco, Seattle and LA, repeatedly making the point that CPGs had been increasing their online ad spend. This was based upon conversations that I’d been having with folks in the CPG space and the intense interest that we’ve been seeing lately from CPGs in online advertising. As I had a few spare minutes today, I checked AdRelevance to make sure that I was right about this. I was relieved to see that online ad impressions among Food and Drug and Personal Care categories had indeed increased by 32 percent over the past 12 months (Oct 06 - Sep 07 compared with Oct 07 - Sep 08). Interestingly, there is a big difference in the growth between the two big subcategories within CPG. In the most recent 12 months, impressions did not grow relative to the same period in the previous 12 months in the food and beverage category. In personal care, on the other hand, impressions grew by 87 percent.
What happened? Well, when we dig into the data, we see that it’s mostly a story about a few big advertisers significantly curtailing their online ad budgets with many others showing modest increases. During the two periods that we measured, Coca Cola’s ad impressions dropped from 276 million impressions to 50 million. Miller Brewing’s impressions dropped from 184 million to 52 million. On the personal care side, though, we saw the big advertisers generally keeping their impressions up.
Is this about personal care, or about food and beverage? I don’t think so. I think that it’s mostly about the immaturity of the media in tough economic times. As one big advertiser pulls back, we’ll see many others plodding along with modest increases in the online ad budgets, reflecting even greater increases in the allocation of ad dollars to the Internet. Given the tough economic climate that many advertisers are going to be operating in, I think that this is the story that we’re going to be seeing for another year or two. Some big advertisers will scale back significantly, a rare advertiser will dramatically shift dollars to the Web, and many others will continue to execute a modest shift of dollars from traditional vehicles to Internet.
Tags: beverage, cpg, food, personal care
There are two types of word-of-mouth occurring online: conversation resulting from natural interactions between consumers regarding a brand experience, and conversation resulting from a specific campaign or event that encourages it. WOMMA classifies these two types of conversations as Organic versus Amplified word-of-mouth.
As a long-term strategy for building brand buzz it is important to focus efforts on organic word-of-mouth. According to a Nielsen Online survey, the majority of consumers state that they post information online because they use the product and either like it or don’t. In general, organic WOM stimulates 78% of consumer messages online while 22% stem from marketing activities (amplified WOM). Accordingly, to grow buzz it is essential to focus on the consumer’s brand experience. This can be done by enhancing product performance, employee training and customer service.
Tags: buzz, WOM, word of mouth
