advergirl

'Older people are sticky'

Forget bacn, microtrends, twittering and the other trial phrases of the moment, this article-opener from the New York Times has to be the newest addition to our shared vernacular:

"New Social Sites Cater to People of a Certain Age"

Older people are sticky.

That is the latest view from Silicon Valley. Technology investors and entrepreneurs, long obsessed with connecting to teenagers and 20-somethings, are starting a host of new social networking sites aimed at baby boomers and graying computer users.

Read full article

Reruns, hypocrisy and procrastination

Ah, great topics in any agency. All in a little advergirl buffet today:

A Rerun: T.G. just reminded me of this classic ad parody from the Director of Yuletide Messaging...

And - I'm practically your virtual TIVO here, but - it brought to mind these other all-time faves:

Sharpe Blackmore's Conference Call Audio Clip

The Bullshit Observer's Hallway Test

Meyocks Group's Kids Love to Work in Advertising

Microsoft's The Break UP

(yes, I said Microsoft. I know. But... it's true)

---

The Baconator OR Hypocrisy: Why self-report data is always suspect

R.M. spotted this tasty item in Media Post (also covered by Mr.BaconPants):

Recently 21.3% of consumers reported agreeing or strongly agreeing with the statement, "I am making a sustained effort to eat healthy at restaurants"

Never fear. Product marketers at Wendys know how to sway those health nuts: Six strips of hickory smoked bacon on top of a half-pound of never-frozen beef. The Baconator. Now in a restaurant near you.

This capped off their new belt-busting line featuring: the Triple Stack cheeseburger and the Steakhouse Double-Melt cheeseburger.

(You think I'm kidding, but this is the actual menu)

---

Ok, last item (of course): Procrastination (and, oddly, this is the most interesting item in the bunch):

A new ScanAlert study has found that online shoppers delay on average 34 hours and 19 minutes from the time they first click to an ecommerce site and when they finally buy something there.

That's up from 19 hours in 2005.

Moms networking online, too

Hitwise's LeeAnn Prescott has an interesting post today about emerging social networking trends - particularly the growth of online niche communities, like the mom site, CafeMom:

It's no surprise that online communities are growing in "need niches" - serving as effective support groups and deep databases of experience for audiences with unique daily challenges. It's interesting, though, the technology selected. Although WIKI would likely be a much more appropriate medium (in terms of searchability, peer review and elevation of the best content), the online community's advantages are simply more "human friendly," appealing to lots of key emotions for a behavior transition as significant as offline friend & family network to online community support:

• Ego: I have a space that is mine. It reflects me. I can share it with people. I can see how many are attracted to the space.
• Human contact: This feels one-on-one, like relationships I'd have offline. I can see who is talking about what. I can put a face to the content.
• GUI: I understand how this works, it feels easy to use and like something I can do. I know it's technology, but I don't feel confused or ill-equipped to get involved.
• And, many others...

Two other great resources in the social networking and mom marketing worlds respectively:

Hitwise's Top 20 Social Networking Sites:
A quick reference chart and some interesting commentary on the sites that are looking to reduce MySpace's 80% market share.

Email Labs study on Effective Strategy for Email Marketing to Moms
It's a little older of a document, but has some compelling statistics and trends - all for the price of a quick registration

Thoughtless gifts still in style

Hot off presses from the 21st Anniversary Holiday Survey of retail spending and trends, commissioned by Deloitte & Touche: Gift cards are expected to continue to be the top gift purchase in 2006.

• 66% of consumers planning to buy them - roughly the same as in 2006.
• But, this year holiday shoppers are planning on buying more of them: an average of 4.6 gift cards (up from 3.9 in 2005).

Synching up with the general feeling of denial and isolation popular with family holidays, the increased giving does not meet increased wishing:

• Only 35% of giftees would rather get a gift card than, well, a gift.

Still, some making their lists and checking them twice are bucking the "happy holidays, do your own shopping" trend.

• 22% say they don't like to give gift cards because they're too impersonal.

And, while some might consider that a nice dose of good-old-fashioned thoughtfulness, D&T flags it as a potential opportunity for retailers to market and sell gift cards to those who remain reluctant to buy them. So, get to it, advertisers - let's get the gifts out of gift giving this year!

Maybe it is a conversation afterall ...

Very interesting news from the Pew Internet & American Life Project:

"35% of all Internet users have posted one or more of four types of content to the internet: having one's own blog; having one's own webpage; working on a blog or webpage for work or a group; or sharing self-created content such as a story, artwork, or video."

The numbers are even higher when you limit to homes with broadband (42%) or adults under 30 (51%).

The stories about the 1% rule really had me worried about the future of user-generated content on the Web, but this research definitely hints at a larger conversation going on out there... (well, right here really)

ClickZ story
PDF Report

Found at: Emergence Marketing

Treasure Hunters: "Cheap is good"

I'm just heading out of that age group plagued by competitive consumption - first house, best job, nicest car, trendiest furniture... sometime in the early 30s, people fall out: the ones who were leading the packs of their college friends (and thus will likely have to do so forever) all the way down to those that just blew it and are done trying (that's me!).

So, I'm having a hard time seeing this growing consumer trend that's been hitting the news all over: treasure hunters.

I love this phrase in BCG's paper:

Today everybody loves a bargain, and people boast about the low prices they pay. You feel smart to spend the smallest amount you can, no matter how wealthy you are. It used to be that the janitor would drive an old Cadillac to show he had class. Now the Mercedes-Benz driver shops at Target to show she has smarts.

And, this is the telling stat: Aldi - the world's leading hard-discount retailer for food and household goods is the third most respected brand in its German homeland - right behind Siemans and BMW.

I think Target is in a pretty close respect parallel in this country. But, if the trend continues, I could see a Big Lots - morally unambiguous, unlike a Walmart - really taking a leap in brand awareness and aspiration.

A couple of other motivators and drivers:

• Nearly two out of five shoppers (39.4%) said they "save a lot in some places and splurge in others".
• 71% said "it makes me happy" when they purchase an item because it's good value for money. More than half (59%) said "it's exciting" and the 51% said "it feels like I'm on a treasure hunt";
• Most consumers (92.3%) said they tell people about their successes - and how much they paid - when they get a great deal on something special to wear or for their home;      
• Almost three-quarters (73.3%) of Americans said they had purchased an item that they didn't need at the time, simply because it was good value for money;      
• Three-quarters (75.1%) said they believe "cheap is good" in some categories.
• Almost two-thirds (64%) of Americans said there are more places now than there were five years ago to find real value for money when shopping;
• 73.1% of Americans identified themselves as "savvy shoppers".

Read the studies:
Cheap is Good
Treasure Hunt

RSS: Stop trying to make me click

Pheedo launched a study into the effectiveness of RSS inline and stand-alone ads and ended up finding out something much more telling:

• 90% of RSS users say they don't leave the aggregator environment when the are reading feeds
• Summary and full-text feeds have very similar average CTRs, at 12 and 10 percent respectively
• Yet, a whopping 84 percent of publishers opt to use summary feeds

I would definitely read ads for full content feeds. You partial posters give me carpal tunnel.

Read an article

De-stressing retail

Long after our TV spots have been fast-forwarded through, after the billboards have faded and the dog-eared magazines have been tossed aside, a novel thing happens - consumers actually go into the stores to buy product.

And, in the spirit of passing the blame - that's when those darn retailers screw it up. Study done by Conchango in the UK found that 65% of consumers find shopping stressful. Consumers cited long lines, inconvenient hours and slow staff as top annoyances. Worse, apparently the study - backed up by Match.com talking heads - found that shopping is bad for personal relationships. Apparently we take out our frustrations with the shopping experience on our partners.

Read the article.

Soon, we'll be the only ones watching these things...

I'm not usually one to believe the hype about the death of the :30 second spot. But, new research from the Association of National Advertisers and Forrester Research is certainly worth a look -

They interviewed - essentially - clients of advertising agencies. Marketers from Johnson & Johnson, Pfizer, Verizon, Colgate, etc. And found that "nearly four in five marketers surveyed believe that television advertising is less effective than it was just two years ago."

"Close to 60 percent of the advertisers say they will spend less on conventional TV advertising when DVRs spread to 30 million homes, the survey said."

The study suggested that marketers are looking to fill the gap with product placement, program sponsorship, interactive ads within programs and online video ads.

At least we're done with the podcasts. Blech.

Article.
Press release.

For a counter selling point, check out AdLab's DVRs don't kill commericals, people do.

As goes P&G, so goes PR?

Despite their hefty $4 billion advertising budget and history of marketing innovation, Procter & Gamble has gone back to the basics - measuring the marketing tool kit of tactics against ROI.

The surprising leader? Public relations. P&G's campaign review concluded that the return was often better from a PR campaign than from traditional forms of advertising

As P&G starts to look at upping their PR budget, they'll be joining a nationwide trend - in fact, PR spending is projected to be growing at 9% per year, faster than advertising and marketing overall (growing at 6.7% a year).

Cites and more.