We've Moved!

Just a quick note - we have consolidated our blogs, and Online Advertising Voodoo will not be updated in the near future. However, feel free to visit our other active blogs for engaging content. Online Advertising topics will continue to be covered on Viral Voodoo, Gen Y Voodoo, and Online Marketing Voodoo as well as our marketing podcast, Internet Marketing Voodoo.

Widgets!

Millions of Myspace users create personalized pages with the help of free internet applications known as widgets. These widgets make it simple for users, allowing them to copy and pasta a designated code to add a particular feature to their page. Currently advertisers have been using these applications as a free way to advertise on the online giant. Myspace has become aware of this and is now banding widgets that contain any ads. One of these includes , a widget well known to the myspace community. It was recently taken down after the firm decided to include a “SpiderMan 3” widget as a part of it slideshow features. Another company using widgets as a part of their recent advertising campaign is Cingular. The digital campaign, “Cingular Sounds,” allows users to create music lyrics for their page with the help of widgets. Whether or not Myspace should allow for the use of advertising widgets is a hard question. They need to look out for their own good, but also must stick with their views on providing users with a social media space they can fully personalize.

Declare Yourself

As the presidential election nears, Declare Yourself created by Norman Lear kicks off its advertising campaign as an effort to get younger votes educated and register to vote for the 2008 presidential elections as well as local elections taking place. In order to capture the interest of this demographic the year’s campaign has a long list of online support giants, including Yahoo, MySpace, YouTube, Google and Friendster. Declare Yourself will be featured on MySpace’s Impact Channel featuring a link to voter’s registration making it simple for first time voters to find and fill out form. In addition it will help create content, video contests and special projects in this new channel aimed at people who are or want to be activists for various issues determined during the election time. Also supporting the effort is Clear Channel and Comedy Central, which will provide public service announcements, celebrity appearances and online efforts regarding the topic. Although Lear is using multimedia content to connect with this specific demographic his biggest priority in his efforts is with that of good corporate citizenship.

Let them do the advertising for you

Social Networking sites such as MySpace are full of young people (and some older) looking for new and innovative ways to personalize their “space.” Many MySpacer’s choose to personalize their page with images from their favorite movies, TV shows, bands, books, comedians, actors and actresses.

Sony Pictures has teamed up with Photobucket.com to create branded Spider-Man 3 skins for the Photobucket’s popular slideshow tool. The tool allows users to upload their own photographs, which are then organized into a slideshows and displayed in a Spider-Man 3 branded window. Users can post the slideshows on their own MySpace pages and blogs as well as on their friend’s pages.

Now social networkers, who are already searching for ways to associate themselves with their favorite products, can do the advertising for you. They are already looking for ways to showcase the things they love. This is a great way to facilitate the word of mouth advertising and hopefully create a buzz throughout the social networking space.

Consumers’ Choices Benefit Online Advertisers

A unique online advertising method benefits casual game players as well as advertisers. Players are allowed to choose the type of ads they will receive, using a technology called Sponsor Select. This helps the viewer, since they are not annoyed by ads that are of no interest to them.



The arrangement provides advertisers with viewers that are, by their own admission, interested in the type of products they are advertising. It is much more efficient to spend ad dollars on viewers who are already pre-qualified in this manner. Ads would seem much less intrusive since the consumer had, in effect, asked for them. This puts them in a more receptive mood, making a purchase more likely.

Additionally, viewers may feel a stronger connection and loyalty toward the advertisers when they are given this choice. Hello, long-term brand equity!

Off-line Ads Fuel Online Searches

A survey by the Retail Advertising and Marketing Association found that traditional forms of advertising sparked online product searches. The poll found that 47.2 percent of shoppers are more likely to go online after viewing a magazine ad, according to a MediaPost article.

This is great news not only for traditional forms of news and entertainment, but also for marketers. Marketers now know a starting point for reaching an audience. They need to not only focus on online advertising, but also should focus their attention on magazines, newspapers and T.V.

This poll speaks to the strength of having an integrated marketing strategy, one that reaches an audience from various types of media vehicles. Myopia in the marketing world is the shortest route to failure.

E! Uses Virtual Slots to Advertise Online

E! Entertainment Television is promoting its new reality show, Paradise City, by way way of an online "advergame," a game that resembles a Vegas slot machine. According to MediaWeek, the slot reels will feature cast members’ faces rather than fruit. Players who hit the jackpot will receive gossip and information on that cast member. Since Paradise City’s target audience includes young, web-friendly viewers, the game is a natural fit.

It is an interesting way to expose people to the show, and will allow players to form a bond with characters before they even view the show. A recent brand-impact study found that after playing a game, consumers are more likely to remember the brand and to associate specific brand attributes with it.

Advergames are a growing industry, with multiple benefits. If people correlate your product with fun and other positive feelings, they will be more likely to purchase your product in the future, or in E!’s case, watch its show.

Gone in Three Seconds

A great blog by Joseph Carrabis on iMedia Connection recently discussed the time users take to evaluate whether or not they will continue to look at a particular page.

NextStage conducted the research and found that the first 3 seconds are the most critical. This is called the “attraction” stage, in which users are deciding whether the information is interesting and want to continue perusing.

This is an interesting concept in relation to online advertising because this means that placement and ad content must catch the user’s eye within that 3-second time frame otherwise it will be lost. Knowing this will force advertisers to be more exact about where ads are placed on a page. It will also force them to be more creative about the content of the ad to achieve that "wow" factor.

And Then there was One

History has gone through cycles of consolidation and decentralization. The Internet world is no exception. News Corp. and NBC are looking to capitalize on their combined talents rather than go it alone. This joint video-venture site has yet to be named but it is going to be one of the largest ad platforms to hit the Web, according to a MediaPost article.

Extensive distribution deals with company like Microsoft's MSN and Time Warner's AOL will allow this site to reach 96 percent of the U.S. Web audience. This reason alone has got advertiser scrambling to become part of this phenomenon. For advertisers, the ease of going to just one site to reach the majority of a viewing audience will change the way advertisers do business.

The article also stated that it's unclear the roll that pre-rolled ads would play in this new site, but with so much hype surrounding it the possibilities are endless. When considering ad placement and media buying don’t discount this new platform.