The Internet's an easier sell, but standardization issues still plague the industry.
Maria Mandel is VP, director of interactive marketing, Draft Digital New York. She offers clients brand management and both traditional and interactive advertising agency experience. In her current role, she heads account services for Draft Digital New York, where she oversees clients such as Unilever, Jose Cuervo International, Johnson & Johnson, Verizon Wireless and Audi. See her case studies from these and other clients.
iMediaConnection: What's your biggest frustration these days?
Mandel: Where media is being spent. The bulk of money is still going to traditional mediums despite skyrocketing rates and the Internet is receiving just a small portion of the media spend.
iMediaConnection: What's easier this year than last?
Mandel: The Internet is an easier sell. We've gone over that hurdle of showing potential, and can prove results. This year it's more about figuring out what to do -- selling programs, not the medium.
iMediaConnection: What's one of the most successful branding campaigns your company has executed recently, and what made it successful?
Mandel: Last year, we did a full-screen Unicast ad for Snuggle Botanical Bliss. It was the first full-screen ad done in the industry. It was extremely successful, due to the format. The full-screen ad came up when someone first entered a site, or went between pages -- so it wasn't intrusive, but impactful. The other thing that contributed to its success was that it was a truly interactive ad. We didn't just stream a TV commercial. We used the Internet to its strength, which is interactivity. There was a "push me" button on the screen. When pushed, flowers came raining down on top of the Snuggle bear. So it engaged consumers with the ad itself. Results were tremendous: 71 percent lift in brand awareness, 46 percent lift in brand favorability and 32 percent lift in purchase intent. We also tested annoyance level, and it tested below what has been reported for TV commercials. Those were all great findings for us.
iMediaConnection: So, obviously, your company has evidence that online advertising and marketing are contributing positively to branding metrics?
Mandel: Yes, we have lots of examples. For example, for Cuervo, we've run a number of campaigns that have shown success in building the brand online. This is significant because Cuervo is already well known, so the baseline awareness level was extremely high. But we were still able to show a 7 percent increase in brand awareness and a 24 percent increase in purchase intent.
We've been able to move other needles as well. Cuervo wanted to reposition the brand and attract a younger demographic. Given the nature of online media, we have been able to attract this target audience and to move the needle on Cuervo as a cutting-edge brand.
iMediaConnection: What's one of the most successful direct response campaigns your company has executed recently, and what made it successful?
Mandel: I have two examples. One is for a telecom, a B2B campaign for Verizon Freedom for Business. The online media budget was less than 15 percent of the overall budget, but the online campaign contributed to over 50 percent of overall sales.
The other example is for a CPG: a Snuggle sensitive skin product. We did an online sampling program. In a period of six weeks, it generated more than a half million requests for samples. Out of the people who received the sample, more than 88 percent used the product and 22 percent followed up with a purchase within a month.
iMediaConnection: Those are astounding results. Have any of your clients successfully utilized any emerging technologies, such as IM, wireless, iTV, etc.?
Mandel: A lot of clients are beginning to get interested, so we're keeping a close eye on it all. I think it's going to be our year to start doing programs in this space. One of our clients is likely to launch a wireless campaign this year.
iMediaConnection: Are you working with search and local search for your clients? Why? And how's it going?
Mandel: Yes, we're using both a lot for direct response with a lot of success -- cost efficient conversions.
iMediaConnection: What are you telling your clients about rich media?
Mandel: We communicate the key benefits to rich media. We like to be technology agnostic and talk more about what it can do for you than about particular functions. Impact and interactivity with your ad and messages are the key benefits of rich media.
iMediaConnection: What can't the Internet do, as much as we wish it could?
Mandel: This year everyone is talking about behavior-based targeting, but I don't think we're quite there yet, where we can target across the Net. Some companies and publishers are starting to provide certain behavior-based applications, but there's a lot more potential.
iMediaConnection: How is the agency-seller relationship these days? How could it be better?
Mandel: The key areas for improvements are standardization in ad formats, pricing and measurement techniques.
iMediaConnection: Are you having issues with Terms and Conditions?
Mandel: In terms of media buys, it has gotten better. Sellers are more flexible with pricing models, terms and structuring deals.
iMediaConnection: Are you working with your clients' non-interactive agencies? How are you perceived -- as a partner or still as an oddity?
Mandel: There's been a pleasant change over the last year, as we have achieved more success and shown more value, that has elevated us into partner status when we work with our clients' other agencies. That's across the board -- we're considered more of a partner than a support function.
iMediaConnection: What's the one thing you wish clients would understand?
Mandel: There are actually two things. One, we would like them to start viewing the Internet as a mainstream channel. When they're looking at doing a branding campaign, they should be considering TV, print and online. For direct marketing, they should use direct mail, TV and online. And so on. Interactive should be viewed less as a separate discipline and more as another media channel.
Two, they need to understand that communication is very different online than offline. Creative is more passive offline, while online it can be interactive. It provides opportunity to engage and interact. It's a 2-way communication.
iMediaConnection: What's the one thing you wish publishers would understand?
Mandel: They have to understand their value for advertisers and be flexible on having high-impact placement to get noticed. They need to push themselves to allocate more space for impactful advertising placement, while not taking away from consumers' experiences. I understand it's a tough challenge.
iMediaConnection: What remains the industry's biggest stumbling block?
Mandel: Standards. Whether you look at clients, agencies or publishers, a lack of standards in pricing, ad formats and measurement is a stumbling block. It makes it confusing to all three groups. The more standardization we have, the better we'll be in the long run.
iMediaConnection: What are you reading these days?
Mandel: A combination of more traditional media along with trade pubs: iMediaConnection, IAB Smart Brief, MediaPost including Media Daily News, AdWeek, AdAge, DM News.
iMediaConnection: And finally, tell us something we don't know yet, but that we will this year.
Mandel: I'm going to go out on a limb and say we're going to see a lot of RSS email aggregation, like Google just announced with its email service that enables you to search your email with search terms. This provides a new realm of possibilities that's very interesting. It's going to revolutionize email. Google is the first to leverage it, but there are others in the marketplace, not as big or well known, already doing this stuff.