Media Director Karen Anderson tells us what she believes the role of Interactive is in the media mix, and why she thinks behavioral marketing is where money should be spent.
Modem Media, founded in 1987, was the first interactive marketing strategy and services firm. The company invented many of the interactive strategies people take for granted today: It built the first online shopping environment, pioneered the integration of ecommerce with existing database systems and built the first consumer-product Website. Modem was also the first agency to place Internet ads and, a year later, the first to introduce an Internet ad-measurement model.
As Media Director, Karen Anderson leads various client initiatives including the strategy development and implementation of measurable acquisition programs, effective branding campaigns and synchronization with offline and direct marketing efforts. She established and manages Modem's relationships with ad serving, tracking and measurement partners across the company's worldwide network. Anderson joined Modem Media in 1995, after having spent 10 years in traditional media planning and buying positions. We spoke with Anderson recently to find out where she believes interactive fits into the media mix.
iMedia Connection: What has been the biggest change you have experienced in the online advertising industry over the past year?
Anderson: There has been a change in the topics of conversation. I’ve seen a dramatic move away from email being the primary topic of conversation in panels and at conferences to more talk about search marketing and discussions about integration and reach/frequency. Every year, the conversations migrate in terms of what’s being espoused as the silver bullet, what is really going to rock the industry. Yet what we really need to be talking about is a balanced way to use all of these tools.
iMedia Connection: So what do you think is the most effective component in interactive marketing and have we fully maximized its potential? If not, how can we?
Anderson: As I was saying, I don’t think there’s a blanket answer to the “most effective” question. No single tool is the Holy Grail, not email, not search, not rich media, not broadband. What’s important is the way we weight all of those elements and the amount of dollars and activities that go against each of those. How we make those decisions is clearly dependent upon a campaign’s objective, its target audience, how that audience uses different digital channels, and so on.
In terms of the second part of your question -- “Have we maximized the potential of the digital space?” -- no. I don’t think we can yet say that we know what the best use of this space is, which is why Modem approaches online media programs with a test-learn-optimize philosophy. I think if we, as an industry, had maximized the potential of digital channels then optimization wouldn’t prove to be as important a process as it is now.
iMedia Connection: What do you feel digital media’s greatest offer is for marketers?
Anderson: You’d probably get a different answer from every person you ask. At Modem, we believe the sweet spot for marketing on the Web is raising purchase intent and product consideration and in driving sales. For email marketing, we could make a strong case for the sweet spot being the post-sell activities – customer loyalty building, up-selling, etc. This, of course, leaves the first phase of the purchasing funnel – awareness – not fully addressed. However, I believe interactive can play a critical role in raising awareness and it’s incumbent upon us to figure out where it fits in with other awareness-associated media like TV and print. We don’t have an answer to that yet, but I think all agree that interactive media can impact that phase.
iMedia Connection: How do you evaluate media placements?
Anderson: It depends on the campaign objectives. Generally, we evaluate two ways. Before a campaign, during planning, when we don’t have historical information, we rely on syndicated research from MRI, @plan, etc., and information from the sites that they give us. That’s really for directional use in determining how one site looks relative to another. But we won’t know how valuable a site is until we see behavioral and attitudinal results. At that point, we evaluate largely on what happens from the perspective of post-click conversion. Then we can use that information to optimize the current program and make smarter decisions for the next plan.
iMedia Connection: Do you expect clients to make interactive spending more or less of a priority in 2004?
Anderson: As strategists and marketing partners, we should be helping our clients understand how their customers interact with digital channels and, therefore, where there are opportunities to enhance their presence. There are substantial revenue-generating and cost-savings opportunities to be had by expanding interactive marketing activities: It’s up to us to educate our clients and show them how prioritizing interactive spending can help them relative to their business objectives. I expect that if we do this job well then clients will make interactive spending more of a priority next year.
iMedia Connection: What are you, as an agency, doing to help move traditional advertisers online?
Anderson: That varies by advertiser, but all of our clients have bought into the digital space as part of the mix. The question is to what extent and against what objectives are they using interactive media? So we work with clients to expand their thinking when it comes to digital marketing. They might come to Modem Media with one particular objective for which they see digital media being helpful, but in the course of working with them, we show them how we can help them achieve other objectives, too. It’s really accomplished through education, testing, case studies and research.
iMedia Connection: What should we be doing as an industry?
Anderson: I think the industry is moving in the right direction in a number of ways. We’ve gotten beyond selling the Net as a standalone cure-all and have come back around to realizing digital media is just one element of a marketing mix. Our job is to figure out how to integrate it with other media and activities that our clients’ customers are taking part in. There’s a debate as to what extent online should be integrated and there’s no single answer, but the fact that we’re having those discussions and trying to work with representatives of other media and level set this space to make it comparable is a good start.
iMedia Connection: How have you integrated rich media into your campaigns and what kind of a response have you received from clients?
Anderson: For our creative teams, using or not using rich media is not a question any more. Everything uses some form of rich media. So at this point, the question is which technology can best enable us to get across the message and the type of interaction we’d like to have experienced with our messaging? The response has been very well received by our clients, and the industry, as we recently won four awards for our work with Delta Air Lines, Heineken, and Harrisdirect.
iMedia Connection: What recent campaign really proves the effectiveness of the interactive medium?
Anderson: We recently completed the Heineken “Headline Hoax” media campaign, which was a print execution that we extended and brought to life online by enabling consumers to actually play a hoax on their friends. What made this campaign so effective was that we essentially delivered twice the number of customer touches vs. what we paid for in media cost. This was due to a combination of the actual Hoax experience (requiring a “hoaxer” and a “hoaxee”) and the success of the viral element where hoax victims themselves could go on to hoax a friend. Furthermore, the program generated so much buzz that people are still visiting the Heineken site to hoax people, long after the media campaign ended.
iMedia Connection: What’s your current passion regarding this industry? What do you feel strongly about that you want others to know about?
Anderson: I’ve had the same hot button for years, which is a philosophy or belief that planning and buying digital media should be based upon customer behaviors – not just where consumers are surfing but also how that eventually translates into leads and sales. This information is much more valuable in evaluating online activity than R/F data. I’d much rather allocate my budgets to media properties that have proven that their audience’s behavior can translate directly to leads and acquisitions. Some companies like Engage were working on this years ago, probably ahead of their time. I’m glad the topic is coming back around again -- the industry is having discussions about it today and companies like Tacoda are offering behavioral targeting capabilities to publishers.