by Bob Walczak, CEO
MoPhap

After playing with the iPhone, I have several comments – good and bad. But as it relates to advertising, this phone will play a major role in shifting the interactive advertising paradigm.

Safari browser delivers

The iPhone’s Safari browser works so well that it allows subscribers to view regular Web pages – and does it amazingly well. (I admit this as a major skeptic of the iPhone before using it.) This means that if other phones incorporate the same functionality (Beware: Mac created a downloadable version of Safari for Nokia phones), companies involved in interactive advertising had better figure out how to create ad formats that work in both online and mobile environments.

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By Greg Jarboe

I’ve been asked to discuss the opportunities and challenges ahead for agencies in regard to advertising on mobile devices as we move into the iPhone era.

The opportunities are fairly obvious. As of Saturday, June 30, the term, iPhone sales, was one of the top 100 Hot Trends, according to Google Trends. Related searches included iPhone sales numbers, iPhone eBay, iPhone news, iPhone results, and iPhone reviews.

The risks are also fairly obvious. As of Monday, July 2, the term, iPhone problems, was one of the top 100 Hot Trends, according to Google Trends. Related searches included iPhone bugs, iPhone issues, iPhone problem, iPhone complaints, and iPhone battery life.

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by Dana Todd
Co-founder, SiteLab International
www.sitelab.com

As something of a branding cranky-old-lady, I feel I should step back to reinforcing fundamental ideas a bit. ANY exposure to the target audience counts as branding, and ROI is rarely calculated into pure branding success metrics.

For some reason performance marketers are uncomfortable with getting off that easily. It just doesn’t seem right! When I put on my online marketer hat (which is more closely aligned to performance marketing), the story looks a bit different because we online marketers demand accountability and trackability and sell-ability, dang-it!

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By Rick Mathieson
Author, Branding Unbound

Let’s face it: Smart marketers aren’t wondering whether online advertising has brand value.

They’re marveling about how the brand value of online advertising is helping to drive sales – online and off.

Just ask Lenovo and Unilever.

Lenovo, of course, is the Chinese company that acquired IBM’s line of ThinkPad personal computers only to find itself with a daunting task: convincing US consumers that it’s okay to purchase a computer from a Chinese company.

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By Kevin Lee, Did-it

As any good offline retailers will tell you, your in-store branding is critical. That means everything from branded store displays, to uniforms, to napkins that feature the company logo. Branding hardly ends after customers walk through your door.

The same holds true online. From the second your visitor arrives to your site, you need to immerse that visitor in your brand. And that’s especially so when it comes to search.

After all, it’s hard to fit a full branding message in a little text ad. Plus, searchers who are in a rush to find the right listing won’t have the “mental space” to absorb a branding message. If you want to deliver branding engagement to searchers, your best bet is to look beyond the search results page—concentrating your branding efforts on the landing page, and beyond. (That’s the search equivalant of in-store branding.)

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By Greg Jarboe

Harry Gold, the founder and CEO of Overdrive, recently wrote an article for ClickZ entitled, “How to Cope With Rising Online Media Prices.” In it, he cited a recent CIMA study that shows media buyers and publishers saw rates go up 7.5% in the last six months.

So, how do you cope with rising online media prices?

According to Gold, one possible solution is to “explain online’s value as being more than clicks and actions. Remind clients they’re getting branding value in a very targeted, intimate space.”

So, what is the value of online branding?

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By Debra Mastaler, Alliance-Link

Back in April 2000 PBS ran a news segment called “Is Microsoft Too Big?“. The piece outlined how a Federal Judge thought Microsoft had acted in a monopolistic way by “using its position to take over the market for certain software products” and ordered Microsoft to be split as a result.

Fast forward 7 years and we find ourselves asking a similar question of Google after their recent and very public acquisition of DoubleClick. Did that deal push Google into the “too powerful” stratosphere?

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By Michael Gray

Is Google Too Powerful?

At the surface it seems such a simple question to answer. However, to find the answer we need to dig a little deeper and understand the complexities of the modern internet and electronic commerce.

Google’s dominant share of the search landscape puts it in a unique position. For many consumers, Google is the internet, or at the very least Google is the start page of the internet and doorway to the rest of the virtual world. For most web publishers and site owners, Google is responsible for the lion’s share of their traffic. In some cases Google can account for 60-90% of a website’s overall site visitors. For an ecommerce website getting traffic from Google can be the difference between making a healthy profit or going out of business.

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By Jonah Stein, Alchemist Media, Inc.

Is Google Too Powerful?

Google is the most efficient and effective place for online advertisers to reach customers. The Google’s founders understood the importance of relevance early in the game and they have built a lead they refuse to relinquish. All of the search engines have made tremendous strides in the last few years, but Google continues to stretch their lead.

Google is the default gateway to search. For most of our clients, 65%-80% of search driven revenue is attributed to Google through either keyword search or brand search. 50% of brand revenue also goes through Google, with site visitors either searching by brand or using navigational search. Alchemist Media is White Hat SEO, so this would never happen to our clients, but if a company is banned from Google completely, they could see traffic drop by over 60%. A Google ban is the 21st century version of having your phone turned off. A single Google employee can make a decision that can shut down a company.

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by Amanda Watlington, Ph.D., A.P.R.

Is Google too powerful? Perhaps to those who want a competitive arena filled with similar-size adversaries, Google is too powerful. For those who are concerned about the consolidation of competitors in the online advertising space Google’s purchase of DoubleClick is an alarming action that should be stopped. For others who consider large and powerful companies as helpful to the overall economic health of the nation, Google’s growth is a good thing. The real question to me is not one of size or consolidation but rather how a company uses its size and power.

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