A growing number of advertisers are realizing the potential of this medium for direct response as well as branding.
Major advertisers and their agencies are now leveraging the medium of instant messaging as a mainstream interactive vehicle. Less than two years ago, this publication wondered “Whether we see serious ad dollars start to flow through instant messaging platforms remains to be seen.”
Today, major advertisers including Volvo, Daimler Chrysler, Warner Brothers, United Paramount Network, NBC Universal, Procter & Gamble, Nike, Tysons Chicken and ING Direct participate eagerly in IM-related ad campaigns.
Media Director Ron Bromberg of Beyond Entertainment, the agency for several Warner Bros. brands, is a huge endorser of IM marketing. And Michael Soh, media director at Carat Interactive Los Angeles, says that IM has recently produced astounding results for him. Let’s drill a little deeper into this new megatrend.
Broadband enablers
Several underlying factors are responsible for the change. The preponderance of broadband is one. “Broadband users tend to be more active users of IM than dial-up. They send and receive more messages, stay on for longer periods of time, and are more responsive to advertising,” says Ron Bernstein, vice president of web properties ad sales for America Online. Broadband also enables more effective delivery of video in conjunction with IMs.
Probably just as important is the realization that IM now has a mainstream demographic; it's no longer restricted to teens. Adds Bromberg, whose agency is a division of Beyond Interactive: “Everyone uses it and we know this as marketers. Whether at home or work or a younger or older user, the user demographic is so broad we know that IM is a great vehicle to reach the mass market. The core demographic, according to Nielsen/NetRatings, is 18 plus, specifically 21- to 49-year-olds; this is usually the person we are looking to market to for our advertisers.”
Viral personalization
Soh leveraged instant messaging ads on several initiatives while he was at Genex in Culver City, California. At Carat, Soh recently deployed AOL Instant Messenger’s Video package for the launch of UPN’s TV show "America’s Next Top Model." “Online played a heavy role in promoting the premier episode of the season,” says Soh. “And we had the most successful premiere for the show since the series began.”
Both AOL’s Expressions and Yahoo!’s IMVironment enable users to personalize their instant message experience by changing their Buddy List and message windows to a themed environment. This enables the user to interact with the brand and also to share it with their buddies.
Video
Consistent with a prediction for 2005 I made in an article earlier this year (Creative departments will start to leverage broadband to the fullest), broadband has now enabled creative use of video in conjunction with instant messaging. “AIM balances the dynamic nature of video ads by limiting video commercials with frequency caps,” says Bernstein of AOL. Soh of Carat agrees that video is key but prefers to use video only where it adds value to the content; such as the work Carat does for TV studios like UPN.
Clicks. Clicks! Clicks??
Multitasking has become pervasive enough in society that users don’t seem to mind clicking through while in the midst of an IM conversation. The mere thought of interrupting a user while in IM mode was anathema a few years ago. Listen to Beyond’s Bromberg: “What surprised us the most was the fact that instant message advertising delivers a large number of clicks to the client's website. Some 'experts' think that instant messaging is just for brand marketing but this is not the case. We compared some of our standard media campaigns that ran across several websites with a typical instant messaging campaign and noticed that for almost the same media budget, our instant messaging campaigns were delivering almost three to four times more traffic to our client's website. For something so simple, it really pays off.”
Soh is no less effusive, calling the traffic to his clients’ website “astounding.” Indeed Yahoo! claims that using its IMVironments, in Yahoo! Messenger, drives an average of 500,000 clicks to a sponsor's destination URL for a typical three-month campaign.
So what does this mean for the future?
In comparing the offerings from various vendors, Bromberg says, “AIM and MSN Messenger, these are great alternatives for driving mass traffic to the client's website. The offering is a simple ad unit that is in no way intrusive with the user experience. Yahoo!’s IMVironments, we feel, presents the advertiser with a more branded atmosphere and experience for the user. Users have the option of interacting with the brand or clicking to the client's site for more information while doing what they love to do, chat with their friends, family or co-workers.”
Soh also agrees that the opportunity to expand his use of advertising on instant messaging is very tempting. He also likes the viral nature of Yahoo! Messenger’s IMVironments and AIM’s Expressions.
Concludes Bromberg: “We have used IM for either tune-in campaigns or for 'day of' or 'day before' a client's product is going to launch or be released. Direct marketers should also really consider this for their upcoming campaigns if they haven’t done so already. Clients are beginning to buy instant messaging space upfront assuring them specific times and dates they need in order to get their message out.”
IM has sure come a long way from the time I was on the executive team of online community company PeopleLink; we could hardly give our IM inventory away. For months at a time, we ran cost-per-acquisition banners. I still have dreams about those JFax ads.
Gunjan Bagla is a principal at Amritt Ventures, a global advisory service that connects American media companies with opportunities and resources in India.