Here is the first time I could catch up my blog after the move. I will update you with some conferences I attended first.
Kelsey Group Conf - March 27, 2006
Summary of day 1
This is my first time to attend Kelsey Group conference. Overall, I felt this conference is more advertiser targeted based on my first day experience. Maybe this is due to the fact that I attended more advertiser focused sessions. I learned about upcoming advertising opportunities in video space. How national advertiser think of local advertising opportunities. These info would be beneficial when thinking of the monetization piece of local search.
It seems personalization/social search such as reviews/rating is still a hot topic for this conference. I did not catch a dedicated session today, but Eric Chandler’s (a VZ VP) dedicated quite some time for this topic and I liked his keynote talk. Since VZ launched review last year 83% of review is service based. VZ is also struggling to figure out how to attract people to provide their reviews. Other interesting thing to know: VZ recently signed deal with Google to provide content.
Some detailed notes from sessions
Mass Media to MyMedia: Profiling the New ‘On-Demand’ Consumer
The Internet, on-demand video, wireless phones and iPods are creating a new global and local media universe which is highly personalized, customizable and not tied to time, place or even a single medium. The Kelsey Group presented the consumer research that outlines this emerging consumer paradigm and discuss the most significant implications for advertisers (national and local) as they try to reach these new, more empowered consumers.
Broadband usage increases
Proliferations of my media devices
Some stats
Broadband penetration 70% household
Broadband growth means the growth for news, video and some life Events: Job, Cars and Real Estate (2% in 95 vs 55% 2005)
Proliferations of “My Media” devices
Disruptive Devices
Slingbox
PC
Mobile Phones (more mobile phones than land lines, 2.5b wireless subs globally, 400m in China)
Emergence of the “My Media” Generation
Research based on US 12-17 years old top online activities by time spent (reverse order)
Sports
Community
Gaming
Kids enter
Auction
Online gaming
Retail
Chat
Email
IM
Viacom (sports
Intuit
Wells Fargo
eBay
EA online
Facebook.com
MSN
Yahoo
My space
AOL
The new Media Universe
Multitasking during consuming TV, internet. Internet is competing with TV
Local Buying vs E-commerce (2.5% vs 75%)
The Broadband Juggernaut: Slowing Down or Speeding Up?
David Payne, Director, Development, EarthLink Municipal Networks
He thinks broadband growth is slowing down as we already have 60-70% penetration rate
Om Malik, Senior Writer, Business 2.0 Magazine
Constant connectivity is mislabeled as broadband. Though we will have infrastructure for WiFi in 5 years, will people actually have all things needed (e.g. laptops/computer) to use it? H He thinks the cell phone access is much easier than laptop using WiFi.
Brian Jurutka, Director, Marketing Solutions, comScore
Chuck Haas, CEO, MetroFI
It is an affordability, not availability issue. Are we going to have free Wi-Fi nationwide? It will be there in 5 years in major cities. It is a scalable solution.
Why do you think ads can sustain free WiFi.
1. The cost for WiFi is much less than broadband. The disruptive low cost is a enable factor
2. Just as free newspaper sustained itself
Who will gather the ads?
1. Local ads network
2. Google Yahoo
What will be impacted by Broadband?
1. Online virtual community
Keynote address from Safa Rashtchy, Senior Research Analyst - Internet Media & Marketing, Managing Director, Piper Jaffray
The world of advertising is changing
- Consume what they like
- Consume when they need it
- Consume where they want it – at work, at friend’s house, in the airplane
- Consume from the device of their choice – TV, ipod, laptop
Half of the advertising is wasted –
The new role of Search
- 9.6 billion worldwide in 2001, 19.5 billion worldwide in 2005
The Growth path of Search
- Google enters
- Overture enters
- Googling is a verb
- Search as a new Media users explore ideas through search
Search became the trusted Medium
The Growth path of Search from Advertiser
- The original 15k, the pioneer, small biz
- GM
- …
The Growth path of Search from Advertiser
- Google Maps and Yahoo Local were major forces, pushing local search further
- The current count of about 500K online advertises could reach 2-4 million with local search over the next 5 years
- The final phase will be addition of real-time inventory (RFID)
- Ultimately, local search could consume as much as 50% of all purchases online
- YP listing -> paid search->RFID
How local search could replace e-commerce
- Media is Fragmented
- Brand building is very difficult
- Advertisers are challenged on how to reach the young audiences
- The traditional/promotion ways are not working
Opportunities for search – Search will become the central element in a highly fragmented media mix
- The trusting role of search
- The efficiency of search
- Cross media application of search
Conclusions
- The role of search is changing, from a DM model to a full media platform
- We expect the best application of search to involve corso media campaigns
- Local search to become real and to change the advertising landscape.
Questions
- Next wave of local search is inventory-based. Will the transactions mostly be online or offline? _ offline
- How to deal with the offline sale after extensive research? _try to close the loop by call-tracking or something else
- What will be your advice for YP companies? _Search companies has better leverage due to its trust brand, it doesn’t mean no opportunities for YP companies.
- How do you find the small business and convince them? _Franchise will be the ones to move this first.
1,000,001 Channels: But Is Anybody Watching?
Suranga Chandratillake, CEO and Co-founder, Blinkx
Bradley Inman, Chairman and Founder, TurnHere, Inc.
May/Greg Demetriades, CEO, WhiteBlox
Boland
Tim Tuttle, VP, AOL Video, Co-founder Truveo.com
How do you generate revenue when video is so fragmented?
- Bring the emotion of the Hollywood into the conversion of transaction
- Provide local merchant low-production ads
Would the short-length be dominant or full-length?
- Short form will not replace the full-length film, but will change the way people consume the video.
What media would proliferate most?
- Multi-tasking nature of the next generation seems to prove various media will grow together
Should I invest in this space?
- The barriers to upload the content are much lower compared to 12-18 months ago. E.g. Youtube.com
How do you deal with the user generated contents?
- As long as you have some control of what contents to be published on the site, this should be fine. Turnhere.com vs. myspace.com
Conclusion
- Keep your eyes on this space as there will be a lot of changes in this space
- The cost of entry for this space is not low enough yet
- Test and experiment the video
Local Search: Nationals Lead the Charge
This panel of national advertisers discussed their online and localization strategies and how their view of the advertising and marketing landscape has changed.
Roy L. Beatty, Vice President, YPMG (ServiceMaster)
Dan Martin, VP, Business Development, HomeGain, Inc.
Henry M. Vogel, Chief Revenue Officer, Quig
Todd Swickard, CEO, Auto Dealer Traffic Inc.
Sonia Carreno, General Manager, DAC Group Digital
How is local advertising changing?
- Geo-targeting is effective, but it is expensive
- Local search does not have enough volume. National search still drives 30% the traffic for homegain.
What is the most cost-effective ways for advertising?
- Internet YP, Printed YP, direct mail …
- Phone calls are more valuable. Customers from phone calls are more valuable.
- It is clear IYP perform
Do you see a lot of replacement of online ads for offline?
- Real Estate doesn’t see a huge shift, but the market could change
- You need to do both online and offline advertising.
- Carmax is an example which tried to completely replace offline print ads. But in general, it is incremental rather than substitution for online vs offline
Where is the mobile ad going? Where is it at?
- Rely on the publisher to carry the torch.
- For DAC group digital, not quite on national advertiser’s radar yet
- For real Estate, using SMS, mapped all neighborhoods.
What triggers the call?
- For Real Estate, it is the nice rebate of closing the transaction
Which one generates the best ROI?
- Google, Yahoo
- The total online volume is not that significant. IYP and PYP, direct mail are still the major mechanism.
Keynote Address
Eric Chandler, President - Internet Division, Verizon SuperPages.com
Verizon has 3.5 billion revenue. 2nd largest YP provider globally.
The evolution of IYPs and Local search
- Co-opetition
- Create an interactive community/personalization
- Willingness to change/risk-tasking
Compare IYPs and Local search
IYP vs Local search
Search:
highly structured less structured
Categories Keywords
USPS-defined geo areas, neighborhoods, etc
Listing
Merchnat-based products, brands, services
Products
Fixed fee performance based
User Experience
Industry Growth Trends
Critical factors for growth
Local customer relationship
Quality Traffic
Robust Content
National Footprint
Full services (to non-tech savy customers)
What are we focusing on?
- Pay for calls
- Increase contents
- Leverage print distri. To drive calls to online PFC advertisers
- Patend-pending PFC print distribution network
Co-opertition – Take the competitive Advantage
- Fragmented Market
- Leverage strategic partnerships
- Improve search experience for users
- Bring greater ROI to advertisers
VZ just signed a deal with Google
Superpages.com+ google = more leads
&n