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| APRIL ISSUE | 2010 |
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New Media Strategies, Celebrating a Decade of Social Media Excellence
As an industry pioneer and market leader in social media marketing and measurement, New Media Strategies (NMS) recently surpassed a decade of growth and social media excellence. The record speaks for itself. NMS has handled more than 1,500 word of mouth campaigns in over 60 different industries; an unparalleled experience in this fast moving online industry. Based in Arlington, Virginia,
With a list of high-profile clients, from Burger King and McDonalds to New Line Cinema, Paramount Pictures, Pepsi, Coke, American Idol, and ABC (to name a few), New Media Strategies has helped some of the world’s largest Fortune 500 companies and prominent movie studios, create buzz and increase engagement with their brands and products among their target stakeholders and influencers. NMS’s expertise lies within four distinct practices: corporate, entertainment, Latino, and public affairs. In essence, NMS’s job is to protect the bottom line for its clients during times of crisis and help them understand how their brand is being perceived and discussed by members of the online audience. Other NMS services include search engine optimization, blogger engagement, digital PR, and Wikipedia management.
It all started back in 1999 when Pete Snyder, NMS’s founder and CEO, decided to quit his prior job and incubate NMS from his Capitol Hill apartment. That July, he secured his first investor and in December 1999, NMS was able to sign Burger King as its first high profile client. In March 2000, NMS opened its first official office in Washington, DC, followed shortly after by its first intelligence and social media campaign for a presidential candidate.
It was some time during that summer of 1999 when Pete Snyder, now named one of the Best Bosses in America by Fortune Small Business, walked into TriVision Studios and ordered his first NMS business cards. From there on, as both businesses grew, so did their relationship. Aside from providing printing services for the firm, TriVision also did design services for NMS's logo, brochures, business
Throughout the nearly 11 years of working together, TriVision has watched NMS expand from a one man operation to over 60 employees strong, and still growing. TriVision continues to provide design and print services for New Media Strategies and hopes to maintain this relationship as the company reaches new heights and expansion. In addition to its headquarters in Washington, DC, NMS currently has satellite offices in Los Angeles, New York and Chicago.
To learn more about NMS, please visit them on the web at www.nms.com.
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Ariana Insurance and Financial Services
Ariana Insurance and Financial Services, Inc. is a leader in providing quality protection for hundreds of individuals, families, and business within the Washington, DC metropolitan region. Offering superior customer service and affordable insurance rates, Ariana Insurance Ariana Insurance’s independent status enables it to match each customer's coverage plan with companies that best serves their needs and budget. The agency provides time-saving services by researching and shopping for different insurance carriers on behalf of the customer. This not only saves the customer time but also provides them the best comparative rates in purchasing insurance, be it for auto, home, life or business. Ariana Insurance partners with leading insurance carriers, such as Travelers, Progressive, and Hartford who have great reputations for fast, fair claim services and customer service.
When Ariana Insurance was looking to recharge its marketing efforts, it turned to TriVision for help. TriVision was able to produce the agency a modern, clean TV commercial, in addition to designing and printing its marketing materials, which included business cards, postcards, business stationery and signage.
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Nielsen: Facebook's Ads Work Pretty Well
When Social Ads Collide With Stated Interests, Awareness Goes Up
BATAVIA, Ohio (AdAge.com) -- It pays to have fans on Facebook if you want your ads to work there too, according to the first public study to come out of the collaboration of Nielsen Co. and Facebook.
The study of more than 800,000 Facebook users and ads from 14 brands in a variety of categories shows a marked increase in ad recall, awareness and purchase intent when home-page ads on the social network mention friends of users who've become fans of the brand in the ad.
In short, so-called earned media generated when people mention or advocate brands makes the paid media considerably more effective, according to the study. Nielsen and Facebook plan to discuss results of the study in a session at Ad:Tech in San Francisco on Tuesday.
Increased recall Facebook-home-page ads on average generated a 10% increase in ad recall, a 4% increase in brand awareness and a 2% increase in purchase intent among users who saw them compared with a control group with similar demographics or characteristics who didn't.
But the increase in recall jumped to 16% when ads included mentions of friends who were brand fans, and 30% when the ads coincided with a similar mention in users' news feeds. Brand awareness saw similar bumps: up 2% from just a home-page ad, 8% with a "social ad" bearing mentions of friends who were brand fans and up 13% when a home-page ad appeared along with a mention of friends who were brand fans in the users' news feeds.
Earned and paid media One major takeaway from the research is that paid and earned media work together in ways that could have implications well beyond Facebook, said Jon Gibbs, VP-media analytics at Nielsen. "The market has been talking very much about how to buy paid media and earn earned media, but there's been very little attention to the types of hybrid impressions and hybrid experience that blends these two," Mr. Gibbs said.
While Facebook's social ads present a fairly unique way of blending the paid and earned impressions, Mr. Gibbs noted that it's not a totally isolated example. He cited rich-media vendors that allow for Twitter feeds, social commentary or other kinds of consumer input within their ads. But he said having specific friends linked to a brand, as Facebook does, appears to have more impact than just incorporating social commentary broadly.
Results 'unremarkable' Rex Briggs, CEO of the analytics firm Marketing Evolution, which has conducted numerous online advertising effectiveness studies, called results for Facebook's regular home-page ads "unremarkable and in line with banner ads [generally]," but he added that the results for social ads and the impact of organic mentions make for "a really interesting story."
Nielsen appeared to employ a good methodology used since the first online ad effectiveness studies in the mid 1990s, Mr. Briggs said.
"It does what Facebook wanted to do, which is legitimize the advertising and business model of Facebook," he said. "What it doesn't do is give the cross-media understanding of how does this piece fit into overall marketing plans."
What Facebook also hasn't done, he said, is open its doors and data to a variety of research companies as others, such as Microsoft, Yahoo or AOL have done. That its internal data remain largely under wraps, and its template for creating fan pages remains relatively limited compared to what marketers can do with their own sites or other networks may also be limiting revenue for Facebook, he said.
Based on those numbers, it's still a lot easier -- if not necessarily cheaper -- to buy scale on Facebook than earn it by winning fans. It's also an indication to Mr. Gibbs that marketers need to focus on winning Facebook fans over the long haul if they want to improve their odds of success when advertising there.
Of the 18 million users exposed to the ads, only around 130,000, or less than 1%, "engaged" with them by clicking on them. But around 40,000, or around 4%, of users who saw organic mentions of their friends become brand fans clicked on those news items. The higher click-through on organic impressions is another indication of the power of earned media on Facebook, Mr. Gibbs said.
"I do think it requires a level of ongoing investment in social media," Mr. Gibbs said, as opposed to a series of short-term projects. He also said marketers who have large e-mail databases should probably be encouraging consumers in e-mail programs to join their Facebook pages.
The Nielsen BrandLift polls used to survey Facebook users was a "lightweight" poll, generally with only two questions, aimed at maximizing response rates.
Nielsen didn't incorporate actual purchases, as opposed to purchase intent, "because this is the first generation of this research," Mr. Gibbs said. "We wanted to stick to branding because it's language the market is very comfortable with. In next generations, I would assume we will start incorporating offline purchase and other transactional data as part of the analysis." Story Courtesy of Adage.com, Published: April 19, 2010
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iPad Poised to Revolutionize Retail Industry
Industry Insiders See Device Affecting Everything From Catalogs to E-Commerce
So far, few retailers have embraced the new Apple device even though many already have iPhone apps. Gap, Gilt.comand eBay are among the retail brands that have created iPad applications, while Pumais expected to add iPads to its stores late this year. "For first movers, they're going to provide a higher level of service, or perceived service, than those that don't offer this kind of capability," said Chris Davey, senior VP at SapientNitro, which counts Target, JCPenney, Barnes & Noble and Foot Locker among its
The first, most logical applications include e-commerce and interactive catalogs. But in time, the iPad could be used as a virtual sales assistant, allowing sales staff in the dress department to pull up coordinating accessories from the jewelry or shoe department. Car dealers could customize a vehicle, showing customers colors and finishes, all while standing in the parking lot. Transactions could be completed without visiting a register and special orders could be placed on the spot. Cumbersome, expensive kiosks could also be replaced.
Mr. Davey said that his agency has begun showing retail clients how they could use the iPad and has gotten positive reactions, though he declined to share any specifics. "They're all pretty psyched about the idea and want to prototype it," he said. "But it doesrequire some show and tell. ... Until it came out, people didn't know what to expect. Initially people were talking about it as more of a publisher platform, an alternative to Kindle."
"Without a doubt, the iPad will have a dramatic impact on the in-store retail experience," said Edward Brojerdi, president-MDC Innovation Partners. "There are some logistical details to get sorted out -- how do we make sure they don't walk out the door, that people aren't going to different screens -- before it becomes ubiquitous, but it will happen."
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The impact on awareness and recall is even more pronounced when a home-page ad coincides with what Facebook and Nielsen term "organic" social advocacy, i.e. an item in a user's news feed indicating a friend has become a fan of a brand.
Purchase intent was 2% higher among viewers of home-page ads vs. nonviewers, but got a four-times-bigger bump, up 8% either from social ads or when ads appeared alongside organic mentions of the brand in the news feed.
The recall levels for home-page ads on Facebook appear "slightly higher than standard norms we've done on other projects," Mr. Gibbs said. "What we've seen in both social ads and organic [mentions] are much higher than we've seen in other campaigns along these lines."
Paid media cheaper
In all, Nielsen projects around 18 million Facebook users saw ads measured as part of the study, of which around a million also saw organic mentions of their friends in social ads. Roughly another million saw organic mentions of the brands featured in the study without seeing the ads.
Mr. Gibbs said he doesn't believe Facebook's plans to move from "become a fan" to the more click-prone "like" as a means of joining brand pages would have much impact on the numbers in the study. And he believes, though it wasn't part of the survey, that users by now have been exposed to enough of Facebook's social ads to realize that when they become fans of a brand, they may also become endorsers in that brand's Facebook ads.
NEW YORK (AdAge.com) -- In the first weeks of the iPad launch, retailers have been largely left out of the conversation. But industry executives believe the device could have a major impact on everything from retailers' catalogs to e-commerce to enhancing the in-store experience.
In-store uses of the iPad are where the real opportunity is, said several executives, though expense will be ahurdle initially."We'll need to see the price come down before it gets to chain retail stores," said Kevin Ertell,VP-retail strategyat Forsee Results. But, ultimately, he said the iPad or another small tablet device could serve to replace manyof thetechnologies that have been touted at retail in recent years, from kiosks to magic mirrors to hand-held scanners used to check inventory. "It could wrap a lot of things up in a cheaper,more convenient way."