The process of writing a feature about using blogs as marketing tools for publication in New Media Age magazine:
Technorati Tags: journalism, blogs, upyourbudget, advertising, marketing
I submit this piece, on the day of the deadline, by email pasted under my email signature. I add the final word count and a suggested boxout. The raw copy, probably not exactly what appears in NMA, is pasted below:
Feature: 1126 words
Boxout campaign facts: 58 wordsAs newspaper advertising decreases and online advertising increases is blog advertising the answer for online marketers?
Levis, Nokia, Audi, MSNBC and Budget Car Rentals are well-known companies with one thing in common. They all ran advertising campaigns on blogs in 2005. Audi spent 0.5% of its advertising budget for a campaign using BlogAds, the US-based blog advertising company with 900 blogs on its books. The ads drove 29% of traffic to Audi’s site. A blog advertising campaign like Audi’s costs less than one banner advert on a mainstream site like Yahoo!
In October 2005, Budget raised the blogvertising bar. It launched an online/offline treasure hunt called Up Your Budget. Participants had to follow daily video clues posted to the Up Your Budget blog and find sixteen stickers placed in public locations throughout sixteen US cities. The total prize money on offer was US$160,000.
Using treasure hunts for advertising is nothing new. What is new is that this campaign was advertised solely on blogs and relied partly on spreading virally from blog to blog as bloggers joined in the treasure hunt and wrote about it on their own blogs. “I wanted to promote Up Your Budget only through bloggers, advertise only on blogs and let it accelerate virally from there,” explains B.L. Ochman, the blogger hired to create the campaign. “I wanted to prove that we could operate entirely without traditional media and still build brand awareness with a campaign that was not overly commercial.”
There was no traditional press release. The campaign was first reported on by the AdRants and MarketingVox blogs. US$22,000 was spent for advertising on 177 blogs and generated 50% of the campaign's traffic at a cost of US$0.25 per click.
“The cost of the campaign - including prizes and ad spend – was less than a 30-second spot on a highly rated primetime TV show,” says Budget Car Rental’s Executive Vice President of Marketing, Scott Deaver.
This low cost, blog-based campaign garnered some impressive results. Bloggers wrote hundreds of posts about the campaign resulting in as many as 20,000 unique visitors an hour to the Budget blog and well over 1 million unique visitors over the four weeks of the campaign. “Several thousand people registered to play the game and to have author privileges on the Treasure Hunter blog. This is the first commercial blog project with so many people contributing content,” says Ochman. Ochman tweaked the blog and the advertising as the campaign progressed. “The beauty of blog advertising is that you can test, change and learn in an hour.” In relation to other blog advertising campaigns Budget’s was also deemed a success. “UpyourBudget was in the upper quartile of campaigns in terms of clickthroughs,” says Henry Copeland, founder of BlogAds.com.
Together with the low cost there’s a certain coolness factor associated with blogs and blogvertising. “We really wanted to try something new and different for our brand,” Scott Deaver explains. “We had heard about the power of viral marketing campaigns and wanted to see if this was a way to cut through the clutter and do something totally new.”
There are risks with viral campaigns. It’s impossible for marketing departments to control a message disseminated through social media. “To be asked to sit back and just let the viral marketing campaign "do it's job," was a complete leap of faith for us. But, we're very happy with the way it worked out,” adds Deaver.
Steve Hall of Adrants.com, an advertising and marketing blog, says it’s easy for brands to fail in the blogosphere, “It’s very easy to mess up because the space is very vocal. If you don't blog, it's very likely you will look stupid entering the space without in depth knowledge of it. Anyone interested in doing something in the space should work with a blogger.”
That’s a sentiment Henry Copeland agrees with, “Most of the best blogad campaigns have at least one blogger involved in the process, either as the buyer, the creator or the designer. We'll see more and more of these "blogger conceived" blogads as blogging grows, as bloggers advance in their organizations and as the folk who are doing cutting edge work today get recruited into more campaigns. These are the people who see the new dimension of the "actors not audience" paradigm shift.”
According to a December 2005 report by investment company Piper Jaffray online advertising “receives 5% of total marketing spending, up from 3 percent two years ago. However, online is on its way to a 10% share much faster then we anticipated.” A report by Park Associates, also published in December, puts the increase at 14% over the next five years. Some analysts believe low cost viral campaigns like Budget’s could further threaten the reliance of advertising agencies on TV and print media to market products and services. “It’s a huge wake up call,” says Steve Hall. “For relatively no dollars, these blog based campaigns have been extremely effective. It won't be long before we see more like this one.”
Steve Rubel, Senior Vice President of New York PR firm CooperKatz & Company and a popular PR blogger agrees, “I do feel that the Budget campaign is indicative that marketers are warming up to blog marketing, albeit slowly. It requires an entirely different set of skills than traditional PR/marketing because it's mulitdirectional. Very few people right now have these skils, but they're getting there fast.”
However traditional advertising agencies that have engaged with social media have had mixed results, “Social media totally mystifies them. That's why you see them creating garbage like the Captain Morgan Spiced Rum fake blog and others of its ilk,” says Ochman. The Captain Morgan blog was widely derided throughout the blogosphere and although it still exists it hasn’t been updated since April 2005.
“Successful agency involvement with blogs as an advertising vehicle depends on whether agencies and clients can make a big shift in their thinking,” says Jamie Warde-Aldam from Cravens, a Newcastle based advertising agency that does not advertise on blogs. “Things will really change when a major client switches its advertising activities from TV, posters and press to social media. You can be confident that some agencies will make idiots of themselves and a few will think about it properly and do exciting stuff. In short, business as usual.”
BlogAds.com expects to increase the number of blogs running advertising from 900 to 5,000 by the end of 2006. Budget will run another blog-based campaign in the Spring of 2006. With the growth of BlogAds and the relative success of the Budget, Audi and other campaigns it’s doubtful whether blog advertising space will remain as cheap in the future. “You can bet US$0.25 per click won't be the price for long,” says Ochman.
Up Your Budget Boxout
A $200,000 blog based advertising campaign for Budget Car Rentals. Campaign created by blogger, B.L. Ochman Advertised on blogs. Illustrated by blogger Hugh Macleod. Published using Movable Type blog software. First reported on blogs. Campaign spread virally by other bloggers resulting in over 1 million unique visitors in four weeks.
The finished article is listed in NMA's new website, but it is behind a pay wall and you need to subscibe to NMA to access it online.
Technorati Tags: journalism, blogs, upyourbudget, advertising, marketing
Technorati Tags: journalism, blogs, upyourbudget, advertising, marketing
New media stories are great to do - I find the subject matter fascinating - how the internet, media and advertising are colliding right now - madvertising or madvergence - as I think I've just coined it. Not only fascinating, but the people working and thinking in this field are quite a responsive bunch. Within hours of my first emails, the replies begin to arrive.
As you can see, if you squint, it's the Americans who arrive first, Steve Rubel followed by BL Ochman with Steve Hall coming up the rear. I always offer to Tel/Skype/AIM or email interviewees. I don't mind which method respondents prefer to use, although recording Skype calls on a Mac ain't easy. Emailed answers solve any time difference problems and they're obviously far easier to cut and paste as I build the feature. Having said that, for in depth features face to face, or at least Skype, is the only way. For a story like this, email's fine and quick. Here's a way to record Skype calls on a Mac which I have started using since I worked on this article.
Technorati Tags: journalism, blogs, upyourbudget, advertising, marketing
I go back through my bookmarks and see how the New York Times story played out in blogdom and I add a few more bookmarks . Why bother bookmarking socially? I do it to see who else is bookmarking, and possibly talking about, the same stories. Follow other bookmarkers, find other sources. Them's my theory.
Next I create a Google Alert for the keyword "upyourbudget". Google will now automatically email me whenever the term crops up on the net. Following that, I subscribe to the Technorati RSS feed of blogs mentioning "upyourbudget". These two simple steps - that take just a couple of minutes to do - allow me to follow all - OK 'most' - of the developments on the story without the need for further legwork.
Then I compile a rough working list on paper - so freakin' quaint - of players and agencies.
With the basics out of the way, it's time for the gym/sauna. I often formulate questions and ideas in the sauna. Think it's something to do with how the heat and steam affects my brain. I either dictate thoughts into my phone apres sauna or, like today, I write more notes in the locker room.
Back in the office, I stick something non too abrasive on my my iTunes, re-browse bookmarked material, re-read my notes and decide who I need to contact.
Then I jot questions into a text editor. When coming up with questions. I keep referring to the Editor's brief - can't do that too often, in my opinion. I decide to stick with my initial list.
Technorati Tags: journalism, blogs, upyourbudget, advertising, marketing
