Tempest Voice - Online advertising news from Tempest Media

Online Presents Big Opportunities for Savvy Advertisers!

A new report from Media Screen is just another reminder of the importance of online in the ever changing media landscape. According to the report, broadband users spend 48% of their spare time online in a typical weekday, and more than half of that is spent accessing activities related to entertainment and communication.

Here are some key take outs from the research brief:

• Search engines and social networking sites are gaining in popularity influencing an equal number of people as magazines and newspapers.
• 48% of younger users say they learn about new entertainment through community, review and video sharing sites and blogs.
• Only 25% say they learn about new entertainment through television.
• Broadbanders spend 27 percent of their overall time online, or about one hour and forty minutes, on leisure and entertainment.
• According to ZenithOptimedia only 7% of advertising resources are devoted to online. This is insignificant relative to it’s value when you consider that according to Crandall "consumers, on a typical weekday, spend more than 40% of their time consuming media online..."

So what can we take away from this? Opportunity! This presents big opportunity for savvy advertisers who are quick to capitalise on this undervalued media.

Linked to from Marketing Vox: Report: 48% of Leisure Time is Spent Online

Banner ads are effective - Regardless of click through!

According to the forth coming issue of the Journal of Consumer Research, “Regardless of the click through rate banner advertising may still create a favourable attitude toward the ad due to repeat exposure”. Researchers have discovered that even in circumstances where the content of the ad could not be recalled, repeated exposure led to familiarity and positive feelings towards the brand.

Not only did the research show that the positive responses towards the targeted banners ads increased with frequency, the participants also showed high levels of tolerance for banners ads which they were not directly focused on. “Even after 20 exposures, common wear-out effects were not apparent."

“Our results suggest that the fluency resulting from frequent passive exposure and the consequent spontaneous affective reaction provide a crucial link between exposure and positive impressions,” write the authors. “Such spontaneous affect influenced evaluative judgments through a more complex process, likely by coloring the interpretation of the fluency experience and the nature of resulting metacognitions relating fluency with liking.”

Reference: Xiang Fang, Surendra Singh, and Rohini Ahluwalia. “An Examination of Different Explanations for the Mere Exposure Effect,” Journal of Consumer Research: June 2007.

'Visits' could replace the 'Page View'

According to an article on ClickZ today 'Visits' could be the new 'Page View'.

"In an attempt to provide advertisers with a new way to measure site traffic and engagement, comScore has added a new metric to its Media Metrix subscription reports: the visit. A visit measures the number of distinct times people visit a site per day, with at least 30 minutes between each visit."

For the full details check out the press relase comScore Announces New “Visits” Metric For Measuring User Engagement

Previous posts on the Page View Metric: Page View Metric RIP ; Two More Interesting Posts on the Page View Metric; Ajax & the page view metric?

Page View Metric RIP

According to conversations online the ‘page view’ is dying a slow death. Typing ‘Death Page View’ into Google will give you an idea of the amount of discussion that is taking place, and rightly so. Page views are a metric that we have depended on for far to long and their relevance is rapidly diminishing.

With the increasing push for more dynamic content and better usability delivered through technologies such as Flash and AJAX, there is a growing debate about the accuracy of data provided by the likes of comScore and Nielson//NetRatings. As Tom Hespos points out in his post “Death of the page View” both Flash and AJAX “can significantly wreak havoc with the notion that one page view equals one request for content.” He goes on to state that “The page view, as we've come to understand it, is no longer a reliable surrogate for audience engagement”.

His post goes to the root of the issue, the inability of the page view metric to accurately measure a sites reach and the extent to which its audience’s attention is engage. So what’s the solution?

With the dynamic content push coming from industries leaders such as Yahoo7, and channel 9’s My Home, it is yet to be seen whether such publishers alone can bring about a change in how we measure traffic online. What is needed is rigorous debate and meaningful consensus from publishers, advertises and agencies alike.

Previous posts: 
AJAX and the Page View Metric
Two More Interesting Posts on the Page View Metric

Two More Interesting Posts on the Page View Metric

As we mentioned in our previous post Ajax& the page view metric? there are a lot’s of people posing the question ‘what will happen to the page view metric?’. Is it out of date, what will replace it? Here are two more posts by Max Kalehoff  and Steve Rubel  respectively that make some interesting points on the subject.

• The Web’s Imperfect Method of Measuring Audience Attention & Value
• What Will Replace the Almighty Page View?

Aussie online advertising spend: Into the Billions

Interesting article by Asher Moses SMH: Online ad spend tops $1 billion

Highlights:

'Australia's online advertising market grew 61.5 per cent last year, with the full year spend just topping the $1 billion milestone.'

'...newspaper, magazine, radio and free-to-air television...2004-2005 growth rates of 5.1, 9.3, 6.6 and 2.4 per cent respectively, the PwC report said.'

PwC report: Australian Entertainment & Media Outlook 2006-2010

Australian online advertising: Serious growth ahead!

According to Robert Lerwill the worldwide chief executive of Aegis communication group (one of the worlds biggest buyers of online advertising) Australia has a lot of catching up to do in regards to its online advertising spend.

In a article by Paul McIntyre titled ‘Online boom far from over, say Aegis boss’ Lerwill illustrates this by stating that “Total [internet] advertising share here is mid-single digits while in parts of Europe and the UK it's 12-13 per cent already. In the US it's over 10 per cent."

Here are some interesting stats:

1. TV gets 40% of the ad spend compared to 5% online.
2. On average worldwide people spend 20 hours watching TV and 20 hours surfing online.

While some of theses figures are worldwide averages, they do illustrate how undervalued the online media space is, especially in Australia.  We know we're pointing out the blatantly obvious but there is some serious room for growth in the immediate future.

Get ready for a big 2007!

Yesterday an article from the Australian by Michael Sainsbury caught our eye ‘Majors crank up web wars’. In it Sainsbury talks about how traditional media companies are vying for the dominance of the online classifies market, reportedly worth $300 million. Here are some interesting snippets:

• Automotive classifieds was worth around $560million in 2006 with only $50million being spent spend online.
• Carsales.com.au, controlled by PBL Media, is the leading car classified site, Sensis's Trading Post group is second. Carsguide and Fairfax's Drive.com.au are neck and neck for third place.
• News Limited has appointed Ed Smith to run CARSguide.com.au.
• The next big move is expected to be PBL's property website Myhome.com.au, which will challenge the dominance of News's realestate.com.au and Fairfax's Domain.

With the competition heating up 2007 is going to be an intersting year in online!

Ajax & the page view metric?

Ajax websites are popping up all over the place, with their clean designs and powerful functionally it is obvious that usability is the big winner here!  The question that beckons is ‘what will happen to our beloved page impression metric?’ Here are a few articles that may shed some light on this subject for you!

• Page Views Weaken As Metric, But Won't Die in 2007
• 2007: The End Of The Page View