Magnetic Blog

LOS ANGELES, February 04, 2013, A SHOOT Staff Report — As in years past, SHOOT sought feedback from creatives such as Day whose agencies did not have any commercials on the Super Bowl so as to get an unvarnished, apolitical assessment of the advertising. We asked them what resonated, what fell short, what trends–if any–they observed. Here’s a sampling of what they had to share:

Hugh McGoran, Chief Revenue Officer, Magnetic, NY

The Superbowl is a uniquely American event, having emerged over decades to take on an almost national holiday significance. It combines two American favorites: football and advertising (a proxy for capitalism). So it’s no wonder that the spots that really showcased “Americana”–our soldiers, farming and horses–were so well-received this year. In my opinion, Dodge, Jeep and Budweiser all pulled at our heartstrings by showing us our idealized America–making for truly successful spots.

[Regarding spots that missed the boat]…In my opinion, the “squirm factor” for the GoDaddy model/nerd spot was just too far-fetched for my taste. I understand that their “thing” is to be a little edgy, but that was just too hard to watch.

[As for trends] I actually think that there is a missed shared experience of seeing the ads at the same time with your friends–compared to watching them “leaked” days in advance. I have to admit that it felt a bit anti-climactic to see the ads a second (or third or fourth) time, by the time I saw them live at the Super Bowl. I missed the feeling that I had in years past, where I was afraid to leave the room for fear that I would miss the best ad of the Super Bowl. I am actually curious to see what the incremental list was as a result of the pre-viewing of the ads. Personally, I’d prefer to keep the embargo and be surprised on Super Bowl Sunday.

I didn’t feel that there were and huge standouts this year. I think that Apple’s landmark “1984″ ad, Coke’s Mean Joe Green “towel” ad or Chrysler’s Clint Eastwood’s “Halftime in America” spots were all fantastic. Perhaps last night’s spots need some time to gel, but I don’t think that there were many standouts like we’ve seen in years past.

Cameron Day, Creative Director, Barnhart, Denver

I spent the first half of the game feeling dread. Not just for the 49ers, but for my industry. All the same tired formulas took the field. The entire first half’s commercials seemed as lackluster as the game. I did go to the chasecoke.com URL out of curiosity just long enough to discover they dropped their meat in the same dirt that Jack-in-the Box did in a past Super Bowl spot by rewarding the visitors with a site that had crashed due to volumes. That was only the first blackout of the night. I also saw E*trade jump the shark with their once-hilarious talking baby campaign. Ouch. If there was anything worth noting, GoDaddy ran the least obnoxious spot in their storied history of Super Bowl schlock.

Then came halftime…I never dreamed I’d say so in public, but Bud has finally run a Clydesdale spot that was a perfect slice of Americana, albeit a lift from the movie Warhorse. Nonetheless, I thought it was well done. The very next spot was from the NFL promoting their telecast of the NFL Draft, starring Deion Sanders as “Leon Sandcastle. It was very well done, too. Then, just a few commercials later, the spot of the night played. It started with the words “Paul Harvey” over a still image. My TV screen flashed a series of de-saturated stills of America’s farmlands, animals, calloused hands, combines and dawn-lit mornings. It was startling, beautiful, reverential and poignant. Then it revealed itself to be a tribute to farmers from Dodge trucks. There was not a single stereotypical truck shot in the entire spot. It was my Clint Eastwood moment of the night, and the production, sound design and narrative all coalesced into the most compelling truck commercial I’ve seen in years. Samsung, Tide, Kia, Sodastream and Mercedes all followed with more spots that I found rather interesting. But since there can only be one winner of the Super Bowl, I give my props to Dodge. And to the Baltimore Ravens. The only difference being that Baltimore almost got beaten. Dodge won by a mile.

Greg Smith, Chief Creative Officer, The VIA Agency, Portland, ME

Tide’s “Miracle Stain” was hands down my favorite. Not only did it repeat P&G’s seemingly real-time execution from the Summer Olympics, it was also just incredibly well done, from the writing to the casting to the pacing. I thought Go Daddy finally made a good ad driven off a key insight about how we all think we have these unique ideas, but actually they tend to be more universal, so it’s best not to procrastinate. The Samsung ad was entertaining, if for no other reason than the fact that Paul Rudd and Seth Rogen are both so likable. And surprisingly, I liked the ad with Kaley Cuoco, who I didn’t think would come across as well as she did. While it was nothing groundbreaking, it was just a really good ad. Well crafted in every way. Speed Stick’s ad was so obvious it was offensive, right down to the interruption of “branding” halfway through the narrative. Cars.com, after that ridiculously fake teaser focus group retread, gave us a spot that was weak and so forced it made you wince. Finally, to whoever made the Pepsi ad, we’ve all seen it. Twice. And better rendered. It’s called Cocoonand Cocoon 2.

[As for creative trends] beyond all the integration of social media and replayed themes like crowdsourcing and user gen, I think two things struck me. One is that we are getting closer and closer to “live” ads on the Super Bowl. We live in a real-time culture where people wanna comment while they watch. I think not only the comments will be in real time in the future, so will some of the ads. Second, there were more examples of guys acting like complete morons than ever. I mean, there’s always a lot but this year was off the chart.

On the whole I’d say it [the 2013 crop of Big Game ads] was about the same [as recent past years]. I don’t think there was anything really game-changing this year like “1984″ or Monster’s “When I Grow Up” or “Halftime in America.” That said, there were some great ads, some good ads and some terrible ads. So I’d say it was just another Super Bowl.

Bill Winchester, Creative Director, Lindsay, Stone & Briggs, Madison, Wis.

First let me say creating a great Super Bowl spot is a miracle. The clients are nervous, the creative director is nervous, the producers are nervous. It’s a recipe for disaster and overall, this year there were very few disasters. Kudos to everyone who endured the pressure cooker of making a Super Bowl spot.

One of the things that makes for a great commercial is tension. Spots that have people asking what’s going on? Who is this for? This makes them want to watch the spot for the whole 30 seconds. In other words, you can only create attention when you create tension. With spots costing 4 million dollars wouldn’t you want to hold people’s attention for 30 seconds? But ironically, this is one of the hardest things for an advertiser to pull off. “Whaddya mean? We’re NOT going to show the product until the last five seconds? Are you crazy? It’s 4 freakin’ million dollars!”

All this pressure has created a few huge temptations. The first temptation is to borrow from movies and even past commercials. The Pepsi Next commercial is a perfect example. This commercial is so predictable. Did the guys who made the movie Project X sue Pepsi for this rip-off? Or the Got Milk commercial with the Rock. Very reminiscent of the Nike Y2K commercial of a few years back. So, when exactly does the statute of limitations expire on this stuff?

The second is to resort to a formula. Like the “something goes horribly wrong” formula. The Toyota wish commercial is an example. Or the Doritos goat commercial, which by the way, made me laugh. The Samsung Seth Rogan spot did a great job of reprising almost every formula for Super Bowl commercials. And because of the “inside advertising” nature of it, was funny. This points out a problem. Humor requires a somewhat formulaic structure. But there are so many extremely entertaining commercials online that have been produced within these formulas that it has created an almost impossible bar to get over.

The overall result is a mélange of sameness. Same formulas. Same results. Sure, a few stand out. Like the Oreo ad or the Audi Prom Night ad. The overall takeaway is yes, lots of pretty good commercials, but I feel like I’ve seen it before. Except for the advertisers that are willing to go another way. Produce a commercial that isn’t funny, but heartfelt. That isn’t formulaic humor but relies on the tension of filmic emotion. That uses the craft of film in a different way.

Like the Budweiser “Brotherhood” commercial which is totally linked to the brand and beautifully crafted. Or the Jeep “Whole Again” commercial. Or the Dodge “Farmer” commercial. No, they’re not funny, so at the end of the day, they won’t win the “funniest commercial of the Super Bowl” award. But they’re different and memorable. To some of us in advertising, we’d call it cloying, but then we tend to be a little more cynical than the rest of the world.

Maybe the best thing about the Super Bowl commercials is that there are a lot of pretty good or even great commercials in the span of about three hours. Isn’t this the way television should be ALL the time?

Originally published by Shoot on 1/04/2013

This past week Magnetic brought the Attribution Revolution Roadshow to the West Coast, making stops in Los Angeles and San Francisco. Attendees closed out the day with cocktails, hors d’oeuvres and a lively panel discussion with some of the greatest minds in digital ad measurement.

The panel, which included industry experts from Google, Adobe, C3 Metrics and Adometry, provided a deep dive into the probing questions that surround media measurement in today’s digital age. Panelists shared insight as to how measurement varies across branding and direct response campaigns, background on viewable ad impressions and ways to make attribution actionable.

“Attribution has recently become a heated issue as brands, agencies and digital companies work to determine which ads have the most impact – and who should receive credit for consumer purchases,” said James Green, CEO of Magnetic. “With more brands shifting their advertising dollars to digital, evaluating the performance of each media channel is becoming increasingly important.”

Chicago is the next stop! Stay tuned for more details on how you can attend the Chicago Attribution Revolution event in March 2013.

Click here to view the full panel discussion from the NYC Attribution Revolution >>

Be sure to check out some of the event pictures below!

The Attribution Revolution Los Angeles! Awesome views and a great panel at The London West Hollywood

Magnetic’s marketing team at The Attribution Revolution San Francisco, which took place on Hotel Vitale’s tented terrace!

The ‘90s – the good old days, when the Internet was new, IPOs were easy, and $50 CPMs were normal. Unfortunately, from the height of the ‘90s we saw display CPMs crater in the post bubble pop that followed. Many predicted the demise of the “banner” ad and consequent death of display, but thankfully, things have turned around in recent years.

Now, display is growing at a healthy rate. I recently attended the AppNexus Summit in New York City where Joanna O’Connell, Principal Analyst at Forrester, shared insights predicting programmatic buying revenues will continue to increase through 2017. Not bad!

The average CPMs have also been increasing – a recent MediaPost article cited Forrester predictions of CPMs rising from an average of $3.17 to $6.64 by 2017.

Lets dig a little. Why have CPMs risen? Why is display suddenly back in the spotlight? As I look around at our industry, I see a number of reasons for this re-emergence. The rise of exchanges has enabled a more “robust” market. New targeting options, which are sensitive to concerns about consumer privacy, have brought a wealth of data to the exchange ecosystem. These targeting options provide the savvy advertiser new and unique ways of reaching their target audience.

In my opinion, this is the most important reason for the resurgence of display: the increasing realization by many marketers that display is not search and shouldn’t be measured by the same “click” based yardstick.

The Difference Between Search & Display Metrics

Search marketing is a complex topic, and has developed into a rigorous discipline. Keyword search marketing is very similar to the ads in the Yellow Pages. In the ‘70s, if you wanted to find a business, everyone went to the Yellow Pages. The larger the ad in the Yellow Pages, the more calls that were generated. You could readily measure how a larger ad performed for you by monitoring call volume. If you got the sale, great, and if you didn’t, then you either put the ad in the wrong place or the interaction with the consumer was wrong.

Unfortunately, the easy metrics in search advertising have convinced many marketers that they should apply the same measures to display based advertising. Those marketers are now realizing that display is about reach, awareness and moving the customer into the purchase funnel as well as helping them through it.

Imagine a billboard you see on your commute to work everyday – no marketer would dream of measuring the response the same way that the response is measured for ads in the Yellow Pages. The mediums are different and the ways they are measured should vary.

Traditional media is all about audience; everyday we are realizing display is, in many ways, similar to traditional media. Consider search retargeting for example. While it is a display targeting strategy built of innovative technology, it is also very audience-focused.

If you look at my search history over the last seven days, I might fall into the category of an international traveler, tech savvy consumer and even an in-market car shopper. I might be the perfect candidate for a new car ad, international hotel deals and the latest Apple gadget.

However, aiming to get a consumer to stop what they are doing and take another action because of an ad isn’t realistic in all cases – just the way an advertiser does not expect a television viewer to stop watching their favorite show and immediately take action. Display, especially ad targeting, should be held to its own set of metrics.

When we think about what the re-emergence of displays really means, we should consider what it has become. While it is not the direct response world of search or large-scale awareness of a billboard or 30-second TV spot, it is quickly proving to be the best of both worlds. Simply put, display bridges the gap between awareness and audience targeting and is the channel that has forever changed the advertising industry.

Article originally published on Search Engine Land

Article Originally Published on Marketing Land

It’s been an explosive year for the ad industry, particularly in the online sector. From ad targeting’s important role in the presidential election, to Facebook’s recent IPO, online advertising is continuing to grow and evolve in our ever-expanding digital world.

As 2012 winds down and we head into the New Year, I have included a few predictions below as to what we might expect to see in the industry over the next year.

1. Facebook Will Allow You To Serve Ads Using Your Own Ad Server

Although Facebook began to allow other ad servers on its platform in certain circumstances in 2012, I expect that momentum will continue to build throughout 2013.

Third-party ad servers are the most basic platform for measuring performance across ad buys, and the lack of this ability is holding dollars back from Facebook. So, for the social networking giant to continue its success into 2013, Facebook will likely invite more ad servers to join its growing network.

Technically, this means that companies will be able to drop a cookie when serving a Facebook ad. Functionally, this means marketers will be able to measure reach, frequency and performance across their entire digital ad spend, including Facebook.

2. Google Will Continue To Restrict Access To Data

Google has an unprecedented amount of data about online users, which makes the company the best place for brands to advertise to their target consumers through online ads. Currently, Google has no viable competition in this space since they own the majority of the data, and I expect that this will likely remain the case in 2013.

In 2011, Google shut down open access to the “referring URL” (the search term that brought someone to your site). In 2012, Google unified its privacy policy so that whenever you are on Google, the company has the right to use your input and track you for advertising purposes.

If in the past Google has planted thousands of flowers and allowed us all to use them, in 2013 they are going to try to pull these together into a coordinated bouquet so that you are encouraged to stay connected to Google all the time. We should all expect the company to pull all of its products together in the coming year.

3. Apple Will Move To A Six-Month Product Rollout Strategy

And, in doing so will actually continue to boost company revenues and cash reserves. Expect some whining from Apple’s True Believers as the company takes more and more money from your pocketbook.

However, there is such a huge demand for Apple’s sexy devices that increasing the product rollout from one upgrade per year to two will increase the total number of units shipped for the company. So, as a few consumers whine, Apple shareholders will continue to smile as the firm maintains its position as the world’s largest company.

4. Microsoft Will Fail In Attempt To Become The “Third Mobile Platform”

Apple (iOS) and Google (Android) have incredible momentum within the mobile market and both companies continue to release upgrades with increased frequency.

While Microsoft has launched its own platform, it’s hard to imagine that it will be able to offer the same performance, reliability, breadth of offering and, most importantly, number of supported apps as Apple and Google currently offer.

5. Consumers Will Continue Trending Toward Tablets Vs. Laptops

Desktop computers have been on the decline for a while now, but are laptops next? With the explosive growth of tablets and the new iPad Mini, consumers are starting to choose tablets over laptops.

A combination of lower price point and higher portability makes them more attractive to many consumers. As a matter of fact, Forrester predicts that tablets will eventually replace laptops entirely as soon as 2016.

6. Increase In Mobile Will Continue To Erode Time Spent On Other Media

I’m an avid reader of The Economist, and once upon a time, I even read the print edition. Then, for a while, I read it online on my computer. But, when the tablet and mobile versions were released, I found that I was no longer reading the print or online versions.

Mobile has truly cannibalized all other media. In some cases, it expands the amount of time we spend online. Showrooming, the practice of looking for cheaper prices via a mobile device while in a retail store, is an example of being online at a time when we formerly were not. And, this trend is only going to continue to grow, as brands and marketers learn to take advantage of the new phenomenon.

All of these predictions relate to the online advertising space, which many predict will trump TV advertising in 2013. In 2011, TV was 42% of advertisers’ media spend, and digital was 37% — so, I look forward to seeing how this changes in 2013.

Here’s to an exciting year ahead!