DISQUS

davemc500hats · 11 months ago

>>"Proctor & Gamble spent $2.4 billion on television advertising last year — but they didn’t spend it on the 'I Love Pringles' show."

obviously keith you've never seen the "VitaMeataVegaMin" episode of I Love Lucy:
http://youtube.com/watch?v=ZlRRQ81ZRJs

(srsly, nice post ;)

Keith · 11 months ago

Dave:

LOL!

Thanks, Keith

lazerow · 11 months ago

Are branded apps awesome? Do they suck? There's plenty of data to support both sides.

Saying branded apps don't work is like saying banners, emails, direct marketing, PPC and other forms are digital marketing don't work. Some campaigns work. Some don't, just like all types of digital marketing. All of the data used above is from campaigns that are no longer supported by media. And none of the apps mentioned were built by the leading app-vertising companies (Keith, feel free to share some of Slide's worst performing campaigns).

Consumers engage with branded apps more than any display media. And then the consumer moves on. My question for Keith would be how many users still engage with Slide's banners, buttons and other ad inventory months after the campaign ended? The obvious answer is a big ZERO, or close to it! So judging branded apps by the engagement months after is disengenous, to say the least.

What's better for a marketer? Getting 10M branded impressions to drive 100K engaged users into a branded experience that they use for 6 minutes on average? Or getting 10M branded impressions with no engagement that the user ignores.

For more about braned apps, check out this post of mine:

http://www.buddymedia.com/buddyblog/Branded-App...

For some case studies of branded apps that worked really well, check out my slides from Web 2.0 Expo:

http://www.slideshare.net/lazerow/social-brand-...

Happy holidays to all! Go VentureBeat! Love you guys. A lot. You too Dave! And deep down, Keith, I have some love for you as well despite your constant trashing of the branded apps space without a front-row seat!

Best,

Michael Lazerow
CEO, Buddy Media (the leading developer of killer app-vertising programs for brands like Anheuser Busch, New Balance, Amex, Starwood, Reebok and many others!!!!)

shakes · 11 months ago

Eeek! Let's start by spelling the name of the world's largest brand advertiser correctly: it's Procter & Gamble not Proctor & Gamble.

: 0

Then we can debate the relative merits of branded apps versus embedded social advertising.

Thanks Keith for kicking off a great conversation.

Happy Holidays

-Seth

Camille Ricketts · 11 months ago

Thanks for catching that error, it has been fixed!

kaiyzen · 11 months ago

I dont think its an issue that companies are building their own microsites and trying to create a total brand experience around themselves. The bigger issue is why are they spending so much money to build these experiences.

Seriously, take the $30 million that Keith says Bud spent on bud.tv and that is just rediculous. Sounds like these firms are paying HUGE inflated consulting prices to their ad firms which are directly building these out, or contracting out to high priced outside firms.

Bud could have invested that money into 30 tech startups. These companies that think they really want to embrace online, social, etc need some strong in-house talent to lead these initiatives.

Guy Malachi · 11 months ago

Great post!
The way I see it, an excellent way for brands to bridge this gap and offer their own branded app while still offering enough added value to attract and and retain an active audience is by offering their own branded toolbar.
A good toolbar offers value to end users from domains that are outside of the brand’s core business (by offering additional tools like a rich search box, RSS feeds, gadgets, etc…) which can resolve this problem, if the toolbar is implemented properly (with the right mix of the brand’s content and third party content).

(disclaimer: I do work for Conduit and this is something we see over and over with brands of all sizes)

Bryan Bennett · 11 months ago

Fantastic post Keith. Thanks for getting the discussion started.

While I agree that branded apps can be a tough sell, I do think there is room for the right kinds of apps. Look at Parking Wars from A&E which has over 300k monthly active users and is generally pointed to as being very successful. I think the key is that the app has to be able to stand on it's own and can't rely solely on the brand to drive users. Parking Wars does that through a fun and engaging game.

Also, while branded apps are generally more engaging than display ads, they're not the only way to drive user engagement. At Watercooler, we've had success driving user engagement by integrating advertisers into key pieces of the product such as trivia. This includes custom questions as well as helpful features like lifelines and hints. By making the brand relevant to users within the normal application experience, we're able to achieve a much higher level of engagement than with standard display ads. We have some case studies on our blogs if anyone is interested.

Bryan Bennett
Sr. Director of Marketing
Watercooler

MattVoerman · 10 months ago

The catalyst for this article is based on Brian Morrissey's article over at AdWeek. As I commented on his article - both you (and Morrissey) are mixing your metaphors by lumping ALL branded applications into the same (social networking) bucket.

There's no denying that Facebook has been a huge success on many fronts. Having said that, Facebook shouldn't serve as the benchmark for success for ALL branded applications as you seem to allude to. Believe it or not, branded applications have existed for a number of years prior to their appearance in Facebook. Desktop widgets, rich internet applications, and mobile applications all fall into the broad 'rich branded application' category which is now only starting to gain traction within the advertising community.

The bottom line is that most advertisers have yet to fully understand how to translate their offline advertising concepts into an online medium (in the form of rich branded applications). Until they do, there is going to be numerous failures (Facebook included) along the way. I've followed this (and Morrissey's) post up with my post "Branded Applications - Why Traditional Advertising Agencies Will Never Get Them" on my blog (http://blog.schematic.com.au/?p=93)

Matt Voerman (Adobe Systems)

Tyler Willis · 10 months ago

I think (I hope you'll correct me if you think I'm wrong) it boils down to this:

If a marketer is looking for a quick, easy to buy, one-off campaign that will produce results quickly and predictably -- Branded Apps are to complex and not predictable enough to suit the advertisers needs ( although, apps can accomplish this, for the exception that proves the rule see: http://is.gd/e99j ).

If a marketer is looking for a new way to engage and connect with an audience in a cost effective manner, and is open to investing time to truly create something unique and be a part of the campaign long-term, branded apps may offer the perfect solution. Nothing in marketing history has ever empowered your audience to help you like an application can, and that makes it a very valid tool in the marketers toolkit.

Alan Edgett · 10 months ago

Yes...would like to see some "iphone" stats included as well. Branded apps *can* be utilitarian as well, and, as such, might have slower adoption but better overall stick rates. Further, branded apps are still immature, IMO, as the big DR shops have yet to step up. Trust me, we will. And, things may look quite differently. We are all just now figuring out how to properly monetize the SN space with banners, learning the differences between this audience's behavior and how they used to consume the Internet (portals). Eventually, we will understand their desires on applications--that might, no offense, encompass something more than just a super "Poke". That said, sell me some ad space, and let's get some stats up here...:-)

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