The SVP, Director of Planning & Affiliated Media Services talks about how an increasing number of clients are buying into the Internet, and about the barriers still there.
As SVP, Director of Planning & Affiliated Media Services at Horizon Media, Ruby Gottlieb oversees the Media Planning, Interactive Media and Out of Home business units, supervising those responsible for developing the media solutions that impact and achieve client marketing goals. A particular goal of hers is ensuring that Interactive media strategies get incorporated into planning at the start of the process. We talked with Gottlieb recently to get her views on the interactive industry.
iMedia Connection: What’s one of the most successful campaigns your company has executed recently, and what made it successful?
Gottlieb: A campaign for a program called The Ship for the History Channel. The campaign was a success from the Internet’s perspective because of the amount of consumer interaction it encouraged.
iMedia Connection: What are the details of the campaign?
Gottlieb: It was a multi-unit campaign including an over-the-page ad unit, which ran for two weeks in October to promote the mid-October program. The ads ran on male-oriented sites like Maxim, The Sporting News, specific content areas of About.com, etc.
Within the rich-media unit, there was a ship that floated across the page which left a leave-behind of a ship’s steering wheel. Clicking on each spoke of the wheel led to a different activity on the back-end site—there was some video, some behind-the-scenes information, a Meet the Crew element (a character recap), an opportunity to sign up for the History Channel newsletter, a game, and a sweepstakes. Overall interaction rate was about 7½%, with about 500 hours of viewing to various sections of the site. The game garnered the highest involvement with 30% of the people clicking through to it. But all other areas and units had high click-through rates as well, above industry average. The only portion that didn’t do as well was the viral portion.
Aside from tune in to the program, a goal was to get users more involved in THC programming overall, and it certainly accomplished that. Also, the creative itself was voted as one of the best campaigns of the quarter by Media Magazine.
iMedia Connection: Can your company point to evidence that suggests online advertising and marketing are contributing positively to branding metrics?
Gottlieb: We’re doing our first Dynamic Logic study as we speak and we should have results by January.
iMedia Connection: In this post click-through era, what kinds of new metrics are emerging as the new measurement standards?
Gottlieb: We’ve been consistently measuring back-end activities, which provide us with lots of learning as to the kinds of things consumers want to do on a site. Many of our clients are entertainment-oriented with goals of developing consumer relationships with the brand. So anytime you can get people involved with the content or sign up to a newsletter, or that type of thing, those are important metrics that allow us to continue our relationship with them past a particular effort.
iMedia Connection: So it sounds to me that the issue of relationship marketing ties into the future of online marketing for you?
Gottlieb: Yes, tremendously. It’s one of the largest issues affecting us in every aspect. When the Internet first launched, somebody said it was mass marketing one person at a time, and that’s exactly what it is. It enables advertisers and brands to connect with people one to one. It’s not a medium like other forms; it is more a part of consumers’ lives. I don’t think consumers consider it a media form, but rather think of it as a tool. Therefore, we need to approach it differently. Even the people that go to it for streaming video, they’re not looking at it as a “medium” but as something they do with their time. It’s like saying that going to the movies is a media form. I don’t think consumers would consider that a media form. They think of it as a hobby, a pastime, something to do, just like going to sporting events – same thing.
iMedia Connection: Have you piloted any early Reach & Frequency planning on behalf of your clients?
Gottlieb: No, and I’m having a real hard time believing in it. I’m not sold yet on the methodologies. Fortunately, my clients aren’t asking for it, so I’m not feeling the urgency to push it down their throats until I’m confident I agree, and our Research Director agrees, with what we’re seeing.
iMedia Connection: Will day-parting become known as one of the Internet’s best practices, or is this perhaps more hype, than hope?
Gottlieb: Absolutely, certainly for the entertainment category. It’s going to grow, in order to compete with TV and radio being sold that way. It’s a natural thing to happen. It makes sense -- whether you think of the Internet as a tool or as a medium, people use it differently at different parts of day and that has to be taken into consideration. It also makes sense to schedule that way when you’re coordinating it with other media types that have usage patterns at varying times of the day.
iMedia Connection: If the industry chooses to regulate itself, who should be responsible and what sort of guidelines should be implemented?
Gottlieb: It should be companies that already exist and are already accepted. That makes the battle easier to fight.
iMedia Connection: Are you recommending Gator and its technology to your clients, or is there a certain amount of angst?
Gottlieb: Not yet. We haven’t yet had the opportunity. And yes, there is angst.
iMedia Connection: Are your clients increasing their interactive spend over time?
Gottlieb: Yes, but also the interest. Even for clients who are not yet spending, there has been tremendous growth in interest. Clients who weren’t willing to listen before are now listening, and for the ones who are spending, once they get results and begin to feel more comfortable, they’ve been increasing their spending.
Because this is a new medium, people are willing to accept some lack of success for the learning experience. Clients are willing to learn and, with little successes, are willing to put their toes in further each time. Also, the reduction in the number of vendors has made it an easier business to be in. The industry is still earning its legitimacy, though. It’s like what the cable industry went through. An advantage the cable industry had was that it offered the same ad units as TV so it wasn’t a stretch for advertisers. Here, it’s a different landscape, conceptually; it offers another form of segmentation and targeting and we’re still learning how to use it. Clients accept that and are willing to figure out how to use it, to try different creative techniques to see what works and what doesn’t work. It’s still a young industry – we have to give it time to mature. No big news here.
iMedia Connection: What remains the industry’s biggest stumbling block?
Gottlieb: I think there are two things. One is developing creative that makes an impact without being uncomfortably intrusive. Rich media works better for initiating response, but you have to question how much to use it -- what does its overuse do to a relationship? The Internet is more personal, which presents more risks. That’s a big problem right now, finding creative that works for both clients and consumers.
Secondly, feeling the need to justify every dollar spent. We dug our own grave at the beginning by saying everything was measurable. Now we’re being held to that. So there’s now the feeling that we need to be able to prove the value of the medium every step along the way, as opposed to accepting that it works, like an outdoor board, a radio spot, etc. It’s that dichotomy that’s troublesome for me.
iMedia Connection: What knowledge can you share to bridge the gap on how to better serve marketers’ needs in the online world?
Gottlieb: Education. I find the more we talk to clients, show them case studies, results, new research, etc., the more turned on they become; especially when we show them what’s working for competitors, what they’re doing, how they’re spending, and then communicate how it can work for them. Education is key.