Download Roberts_IM3e_IM_ch05 - Dr. Robert Davis (Ph.D) FCIM (UK)

Chapter 5
Online Branding and Video Marketing
Learning Objectives:
By the time students complete this chapter they should be able to:
 Describe ways in which consumer media habits are changing.
 Discuss how and why online advertising and promotion is effective.
 Define major branding concepts.
 Understand how marketers are using online techniques to build and reinforce brands.
 Describe ways in which consumers are consuming video.
 Identify the types of videos businesses can use to reach both consumers and business
customers.
 Discuss the elements of video marketing strategy.
 Identify key video marketing metrics.
 Explain why video marketing is valuable to small as well as large businesses.
Chapter Perspective
In the third edition the organization of the chapters has been changed to focus on the tools of
Internet marketing instead of customer acquisition and retention per se. The chapters in this
section cover a wide variety of tools. In each discussion we will illustrate examples of using the
tool for acquisition, lead management and conversion (new to this edition), and retention. Some
tools are best used in one or more strategies—display advertising and search for acquisition, and
email for conversion and retention, for example, and that is emphasized in the respective
chapters.
The Chapter 5 of the previous edition, which covered data from several perspectives, has been
eliminated. As you already know, third-party data about the Internet and its users was briefly
covered in Chapter 1. The section on types of data for the customer database has been
eliminated.
The new Chapter 5 covered two subjects—brand development on the Internet and video
marketing, the latter being new to this edition. It is definitely a candidate for splitting into two
class sessions. Branding is important and video is so engaging it is hard to get through both in a
single session.
There is a great deal in the video section that makes great live classroom material; that’s one
reason it is so hard to get through. There is less in the branding section, but there are good
assignments you can make that will lead to good classroom discussion of media and branding.
You can also make good use of Interactive Exercise 5.1 in the classroom.
If you want to emphasize media use, you can assign students to keep a diary for a week; even
just for a weekend. That will be enlightening to individuals who may not have thought much
about their media use patterns. When members of the class compare their media-related
behaviors it should reveal some differences that are worth talking about.
If you want to emphasize branding strategy, Internet Exercise 2 as written or with your own
revisions will work to stimulate discussion. If you want to add some Internet-based research to it,
especially a search of recent news for that brand, that would add useful perspectives.
Marketing Effectiveness in the Age of New Media
This is a short but important section. It should be used to consider the drumbeat of the
importance of strategy, metrics for tracking effectiveness, and the continuing change that seems
to be baked into the Internet. The overall point is that managers want to know whether the
marketing dollars are well spent and the good marketer will be prepared to answer the resulting
questions.
Customer Media Habits in the Internet Age
This is a great place for discussion on the media habits of the students themselves—where do
they get their news, how do they communicate with friends and family, do they create content on
the web, do they pay attention to user generated content (UGC) like product ratings and blog
posts? Most of them are probably Gen Y, who are active in the new media scene and really can’t
identify with anything else. It is also worth asking them how many of their media habits are also
true of their parents and grandparents. That is an important reminder about age segmentation in
media usage, which is still a factor. However, it is always interesting to ask students whether
their parents and grandparents are on Facebook and, if so, why. Keeping up with them?
The current media environment includes:
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Video on multiple screens
Time shifting
The importance of content, including news, across many platforms
Mobile devices—cell phones (especially in developing countries), and smart phones and
tablets in developed economies
Increasing amounts of time spent on social networks including mobile access to them
BRANDING SECTION
The Effectiveness of Online Advertising and Promotion
This section summarizes the Ford F-150 case history from the IAB XMOS project. Continued
focus on this data has pros and cons. Yes, it is old. But that alone says something positive; even
in 2003-2004, Internet advertising and promotion had a powerful impact. The impact would have
been greater if marketers had used the optimal amount of Internet marketing. The reach and
power of the Internet has only increased since then.
If you wish to use another example the case studies and presentations from IAB’s XMOS (Cross
Media Optimization) study can be found at http://www.iab.net/news_article/26384.
Figure 5.2 is a rather complex presentation of the effectiveness of different media in different
states of the branding process. Note that a second slide highlights the main findings, although it
is worth focusing students on the data.
The MSLO digital magazine project is worth spending some time on:
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The launch video: http://www.themarthablog.com/2010/11/the-launch-of-boundlessbeauty.html.
This page has all the apps and promos for current content:
http://www.marthastewart.com/apps. None of the apps are free. Students should think
about that.
It’s also worth looking at the list of blogs, which, of course are free and which offer a
huge amount of content. It’s also worth noting that Martha blogs herself, frequently and
in a personal way. How many billionaire CEOs do that? Should or shouldn’t they?
Students need to understand that creating a brand—offline or online—is a demanding, timeconsuming and expensive process. Figure 5.4 helps make that point by showing some of the
many types of marketing effort that are possible and the effect they have on what McKinsey calls
the consumer decision journey. The brand development process is also one that can be severely
damaged rather easily. The strength of the brand is expressed by the brand equity, which is more
a financial concept than a marketing one. It is very similar to “goodwill” in accounting. Brand
image—its strength and its favorability—is the concept that should be familiar from basic
marketing courses.
They need to understand the stages of developing a brand, described in Figure 5.5 as awareness,
familiarity, positive imagery, and completed transaction. You will also note that these stages are
not exactly the same as those used in Figure 5.2 but they seem to make good sense from a
marketing management standpoint
The branding considerations (best practices?) listed give an opportunity to talk about the
importance of disciplined marketing/marketing planning in general. They are:
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Ensure best possible customer experience (May be the first mention of customer
experience which is obviously broader than the Internet. It will be discussed in other
contexts throughout the text.
Understand the target audience.
Set specific, measurable branding objectives and brand (including logo) use policies.
Permission must be obtained to use an eBay logo, but they have a good set of basic
guidelines for external users:
http://pages.ebay.com/help/policies/everyone-ebayipuse.html.
Establish a consistent message.
Creative must carry out the message.
Balance the online and offline media mix, which includes the website and social media
pages.
 On the PPT I suggest one example:
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In November 2011 my students attended an in-store event that was an
excellent example of putting traditional online (in this case email) together
with social media (website and interactive Facebook tab) and a real world
event that was well staged. I provided information and some links http://diymarketing.blogspot.com/2011/11/timberland-aces-social-media.html and you
would find more on the web by searching for the Timberland Sundance event.
This is a great example of integration.
Create and disseminate relevant content. We will discuss content marketing in various
contexts in other chapters.
Engage with customers and prospects. Does your school have blogs or social media
pages? Do the administrators do a good job of monitoring and responding?
Brand social media monitoring centers are interesting. This post has links to the video of
the opening of Dell’s center and some other images http://mashable.com/2010/12/08/dellsocial-listening-center/#5941Dell-Social-Media-Listening-Command-Center. You can
find updates by searching.
Continue brand development activities.
Brand community is one tool for brand development. Many observers have noted the number of
inactive communities across the web, testimony to the effort required to have a viable marketermediated brand community. The HOG community is a great example in several respects. Links
are given in the PPT.
VIDEO MARKETING SECTION
Video Marketing
Students are intimately familiar with video, so it is probably a good idea to point out at the very
beginning that this is about video marketing, not video as a past time. You can take a few
minutes to discuss the impact of video on political life around the world; that begins to make the
point about its critical role in modern life.
That role is growing rapidly, so you could consider updating the statistics given by looking on
eMarketer or Marketing Charts. Specific links are given in the end notes and especially
important ones on the slides. All of it will add up to time spent consuming video on multiple
screens (Table 5.1) and the numerous ways listed in the text that video is affecting the way
marketers think about and do their jobs. The global importance of video is highlighted in Figure
5.7. Video advertising expenditures are increasing rapidly, although it is not clear whether they
are keeping up with the multiple ways in which we all consume video.
If Ad Age is keeping up the video poster in Interactive Exercise 5.3, that is a good way to update
the statistics in the book. It is also a nice way to present detailed data:
http://adage.com/datacenter/videoposter2011. Notice there is a poster for mobile also.
The types of videos listed in the chapter only scratch the surface. You could ask the students for
an example of each:
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Slideshows
Product demonstrations
How-to and tutorials
Case studies and testimonials
Social videos (branded videos designed to promote viewer sharing)
Vignettes or series
Scribing (animated storytelling using cartoon-like graphics, also called RSA animation
and whiteboard animation.)
Branching videos (essentially links embedded in videos that open new videos on
mouseover).
Most are pretty straightforward. I love Robert Reich’s 2 minute whiteboard explanation of
what’s wrong with the economy (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JTzMqm2TwgE).
Branching videos also are not terribly common in marketing, although they do appear to enjoy
frequent use in the elearning industry
(http://community.articulate.com/tutorials/courses/branching-video-scenarios.aspx).
The discussion of video marketing strategy is necessarily lengthy. One way to help students keep
it straight is to duplicate the strategy elements slide and put it before each section.
Publishing
Effectiveness is always a thorny marketing question. However, remind students that Internet
marketing permits tracking of behaviors, and marketers can certainly look at basic metrics like
the number of views and monitor the number of referrals to the website from video material.
Specific metrics are discussed later in the chapter. This section is primarily to remind students
that it really doesn’t matter whether they like a video or not—what matters is whether it is
effective in eliciting desired attitudes and behaviors on the part of the target market. As Figure
5.9 demonstrates, marketers do believe that videos do work, along with other types of social
media marketing.
The content grid shown in Figure 5.10 is the first specific discussion of content marketing. There
are suggestions for using it on the PPT slide. It does make clear that there are several kinds of
videos that are particularly useful in B2B marketing. It’s not clear that the types would differ
greatly in B2C applications, but it is a question you might want to ask your students.
The importance of storytelling may be a new concept to students raised on mass media
marketing and Internet advertising, although it is certainly not new to accomplished advertisers.
The footnotes give more detail and good examples.
The parkour videos from Red Bull are well worth including in your presentation. They can
stimulate a discussion of creativity and it is worth pointing out that they are “branded content”
even though the brand appears only briefly.
Optimizing for Search and Sharing
You will quickly recognize that the basics of optimizing for search follow general optimization
guidelines. One thing that surprised me in dealing with this material was the recommendation
that the marketer post the entire text of the video. Who would want to read that? Answer: the
search engine spiders. Remember that the spiders cannot see, and therefore cannot index, video
content.
Sharing is, of course, getting viewers to email, post on Facebook, tweet, and so on in an almost
endless list. It is necessary to include the sharing icons, but probably not sufficient. People have
to really care about the content to share—the reason so few videos go viral. Reminding,
encouraging them to share helps, but in the end it is the relevance and perceived value of the
content that determines the amount of sharing. You might want to include the infographic that
documents Zuckerberg’s sharing prediction:
https://docs.google.com/a/marylouroberts.info/document/d/18f2YxsxX0CQSYzVBQ21yAYfZ5
pyP5zn4YyxuQIS4MI8/edit. There is at least one video (probably a lot more) if you search
Zuckerberg’s Law of Social Sharing.
These data certainly make the point about the importance of encouraging sharing.
Promote
This refers to paid promotion, which may or may not be less valuable than the type of promotion
achieved by optimization. Any marketer who uses many videos should have a channel, if only to
organize them and make them easier to find. Videos should also be posted on all other relevant
owned media from website to blog to Facebook page, to whatever. The marketer, especially the
B2B marketer who has formal business partners, should reach out to them to encourage posting
of videos. We will discuss outreach to bloggers, especially ones who serve the B2C market, in
Chapter 9.
Notice that promoting your informational/educational videos is different from engaging in video
advertising.
Analyze
This section makes the point that owners of a YouTube channel now have Google Analytics
available for their channel. That puts powerful metrics in their hands. The platforms also provide
metrics that are specific to video like the number of completions. This is a good time to begin
making the point that there are the general metrics supplied by Google Analytics and all the other
‘traditional’ metrics platforms and there are platform-specific metrics for things like videos and
social media networks. This is a topic to which we will return frequently.
Video Marketing for Small Business
We often say that Internet marketing creates a more level playing field for all types of business,
but specifics are too rarely discussed. Video marketing provided a good opportunity and the
incredible success of Gary Vaynerchuk (he’s now a corporation) a great example. He’s all over
the web so you can add as much to what is in the chapter and the suggested links on the PPT
slide as you wish.
Video Marketing Best Practices
Once again, this list of best practices highlights the importance of disciplined marketing,
whatever the channel. They are:
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Set social goals, not financial ones. Videos are one part of a content marketing strategy
and, as such, are impossible to link to specific financial goals like sales; this is, of course,
the age-old dilemma of communications objectives vs. sales objectives. Internet
marketers do have a better chance of tracking behaviors like referrals from a video
through to a transaction.
Have a marketing plan.
Have a social media presence, which gives you channels to distribute your video content.
I don’t know of published research on the subject, but there is evidence that people are
more apt to share content from people they know and like.
Include sharing options in your video posts and marketing campaign activities like
emails.
Encourage commentary and respond as needed.
Measure results.
Look at video as a relationship building tool more than as a direct sales generation tool.
Monitor what people say about the campaign in other channels (Facebook, Twitter, trade
industry publications, for example). The subject of monitoring will be discussed in detail
in Chapter 9.
Have a formal debriefing at the end of the formal campaign to assess effectiveness and
pinpoint things learned that will make future campaigns better. In other words, learn from
the program, which is always good marketing advice!
Discussion Questions
1. Think about your own Internet use habits. Have you changed your use of other media?
Why or why not? How do your own habits fit the media use attitudes and patterns
described in the chapter?
The answers are usually, “Yes,” “Convenience,” and “Pretty Closely.” Most of our students
watch little TV, although that may not represent a change for them. Few read newspapers indepth, although they may be heavy consumers of the local newspaper’s website. It seems that
they get most of their news through a combination of TV and Internet. They may also admit to
multitasking when it comes to media. It’s interesting also to ask how many of them do things
like read blogs, contribute content to one or more sites, have a MySpace page, etc. Why they do
and don’t use certain media makes for a lively discussion.
2. A businessperson who is not an Internet expert asks you whether the Internet is useful
for branding. What answer would you give and how could you support it with
examples?
It makes sense to start with the concept of awareness. The Internet may not be the best medium
for building awareness, TV is probably still that, but exposure does create and strengthen
awareness and familiarity. The information associated with ads, especially if one clicks through
and gains additional information is important in building positive imagery. Also as in the offline
world, presence on a major portal like Yahoo! or MSN or on the site of a respected brand like the
New York Times or Wall Street Journal may have a halo effect. One could also point to the 1 to
1 marketing strength of the Internet in building and strengthening customer loyalty. In other
words, the special strengths of the Internet can be brought into play at each step of the brand
development process. You might wish to go live to Yahoo! or MSN as part of this discussion.
You might also wish to bring in a good email newsletter as an example of brand development.
3. What are the special tools and techniques that enterprises can use in their brandbuilding process on the web?
The branding tools are:
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Brand awareness
Brand recognition
Brand image
Brand community—building groups of users is a big thing these days. MeetUp is slightly
different from the usual community building activity and is quite interesting.
4. Do you believe that online advertising has more potential to engage viewers than mass
media advertising? Why or why not?
5. What is a branded community? If you are a member or one or more branded
communities, what has your experience been? If you are not, why have you not joined
communities for products or services that you like?
6. Think about your own consumption of video. What kinds of entertainment and
informational videos are you most likely to view? Why? Do you often find yourself
viewing marketing videos? Why or why not?
7. Add some of your favorite videos to the business/marketing, entertainment/information,
and viral videos shown in Table 5.2. Is there another category that would be useful for
marketers studying the video space?
8. What are the elements of video marketing strategy? Why is it important that marketers
have a strategy for their use of videos?
9. What is meant by “branded content?” Are you aware of recently seeing branded
content on the Internet? How much and what kinds?
10. What makes a marketing video effective?
11. Why are optimizing for search and sharing important parts of a video marketing
strategy?
12. What are some of the key metrics that are used to measure the effectiveness of
marketing videos?
Internet Exercises
1. Internet Career Builder Exercise.
2. Visit one or more of the websites you have been following. Think about the nature of
their brand, whether it is a tangible product, a services product or a nonprofit
organization, in which case the brand is likely the organization itself. How are they
going about brand-building on the site itself?
3. Do several searches on YouTube, some using very popular topics of products, some
using more unusual, even esoteric, ones. Do you ever fail to come up with videos? What
do you see in terms or promoted videos in these searches?
4. EyeView Digital is a producer of personalized video advertising. It has a quiz that tests
your ability to determine which videos are likely to be more effective. Try the quiz and
see how you fare: http://www.eyeviewdigital.com/video_marketing_quiz.htm.
Key Terms
ad format the way an ad is displayed on the publisher’s site; the specifications that cause an ad
to be displayed properly.
brand a name, term, design, symbol, or any other feature that identifies one seller's good or
service as distinct from those of other sellers (American Marketing Association definition).
brand equity the value of a brand, measured in financial terms.
brand image advertising metric that measures the type and favorability of consumer perceptions
of the brand.
brand recognition/brand awareness advertising metric that measures the ability of target
consumers to identify the brand under different questioning scenarios.
branded content any type of content over which the business has total control of production and
distribution; the corporate identification may be highly visible or low key, depending on purpose
and audience.
content marketing creating and sharing content that users find valuable and relevant, driving
visitors to the website.
high involvement a purchase situation in which the consumer performs an information search
and undergoes an extensive choice process.
low involvement a purchase situation on which consumer spends little time or thought.
roadblock the purchase of all ad units on a page for a specific period of time.
video marketing the creation and deployment of videos that help create brand awareness and
favorability.