NONE: ONLINE-ADS>> Day 2 - Forrester Forum Coverage by ClickZ
ONLINE-ADS>> Day 2 - Forrester Forum Coverage by ClickZ
richard_at_tenagra.com
Wed, 7 Oct 1998 16:08:14 -0500 (CDT)
Below is a special mailing to The Online Advertising Discussion
List about the Forrester Forum, written by Ann Handley,
editor-in-chief of The ClickZ Network. You will receive these
reports in addition to your normal Online Ads posts/digests.
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Forrester Forum:
Making Internet Marketing Pay Off - Day 2
Monday, October 5, 1998
Ann Handley
Editor in Chief
The ClickZ Network
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>From the start of its internet marketing forum, held last
Thursday and Friday in New York, Forrester made it clear
that it would offer up specifics to the (mostly) Fortune 500
crowd in attendance. The marketers in the audience wanted
answers to the who's and how's of Internet marketing.
Forrester came through by dishing out lots of food for
thought that attendees could take home in virtual doggie
bags, and apply to their own efforts to tap their virtual
audiences and turn them into real customers.
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As the lines between content and commerce become
increasingly blurry on the web, does a clash really exist
between the two? "Potentially," says Dan Okrent of Time New
Media, "the solution is for site publishers to erect clear
barriers."
"It's one thing, for example, for an alternative medicine
health site to recommend a cure-all stinging nettle
supplement and link to a vitamin shop that sells the stuff.
It's quite another to recommend a specific brand of stinging
nettle and suggest that users buy early and often and...
Now!"
The former is a service; the latter a direct-marketing sell,
according to Okrent.
The web is ripe for editorializing and worse, partly because
of the low barriers of entry. "When anybody can be a
publisher....When anyone can get information out there...,"
Okrent said, "It's a hacker's paradise."
Suddenly, those in the role of publisher on the web aren't
trained as journalists under the same code of ethics. "They
didn't grow up with a certain set of rules," Okrent said.
But in his mind, the division between commerce and content
needs to be clear to maintain integrity of site publishers
and the web itself. The bottom line: Site publishers and
editors can't create links from which they directly benefit.
How Low Will They Go?
DoubleClick's Kevin O'Connor surmises that ad click-through
rates are hovering at about 1 percent right now, although,
he says, "I've seen ads get .1 percent; I've seen ads get 50
percent. There's a wide variance."
Why? The usual reasons: there are simply more ads on the web
to click on these days, and the novelty of the clickable
banner has waned.
Yippee For Yahoo!
Publishers in the audience felt buoyed by Yahoo! President
and CEO Tim Koogle, who takes the high road with Yahoo!'s ad
inventory. Even if 80 percent of Yahoo!'s inventory is
unsold, reps are directed not to sell what can't be sold on
rate-card prices.
"There's no discount to fill out inventory," Koogle says.
Cheerleaders in the audience began mobilizing....
The Measure Of Success
Measure your web success based on the following, says Disney
Online President Jake Winebaum:
The size of your unique user base.
How many repeat visitors demonstrate loyalty to your site.
How deep your visitors go into your site.
Then, weigh the answers to the above against your financial
performance.
So How Much Did Disney Pay...
...for the go.com domain name? Somewhere north of several
thousands of dollars and somewhere south of hundreds of
thousands of dollars, says Disney's Winebaum.
Goes to show that all the pretty girls aren't taken...but
you really have to want to dance with them.
Busting Your Cookies...
How many people actually block cookies? (Cookies are
client-side text files used by web servers to store
information about the site visitor.) DoubleClick's Kevin
O'Connor says it's less than 5 percent and quantifies the
issue thusly: Of 40 million users a day, 5 people opt out.
Opines O'Connor: "It's a very, very small problem."
...And Pumping Up Rich Media
O'Connor says that most publishers - about 90 percent - have
no problem being spoon-fed rich media advertising. A mere 10
percent of publishers purse their lips and turn away.
Big And Strong
It's big and it's valuable...but they won't sell it. Not
now, not ever.
What is it? Yahoo!'s database. But somehow...we think
they'll exploit its value in other ways.
All Leonardo, All The Time
What will interactive TV look like? Forrester's Josh Bernoff
laid out one scenario: The Showtime viewer of 2003
simultaneously watches Titanic for the tenth time, chats
with pals about Leonardo's dreamy looks, and lazily clicks
through DiCaprio image archives. Those interactions need not
be complex - a tiny toolbar, sponsor by Amazon.com's latest
DiCaprio tell-all book, could give access to any of those
features with a single click on the remote.
Forrester Fun Facts
Average number of hours online per month: 40 (US), 2
(Europe)
Average connection speed: 37 Kbps (US), 26 Kbps (Europe)
Average cost per hour: $1 (US), $35 (Europe)
Number of Yahoo! visitors in a single month (worldwide): 40
million
Percentage of visitors who will return: 90 percent
Digital cable: Audiences will be small and fragmented from
1998 to 2000. Nearly half a million consumers will interact
with their TVs this year, mostly through WebTV Plus. Next
year, AOL TV, Wink, and WorldGate hit the market. Digital
cable will dominate starting in 2001.
Quotes Of The Day
"People always ask me what the average CPM rate is. That's a
little like asking what's the average price at Wal-Mart.
It's irrelevant."- Kevin O'Connor, DoubleClick
"We're not uncomfortable. We actually try not to look at our
stock price very much."- Tim Koogle, Yahoo!
"All media criticism is virtuous by the very fact that it
exists."- Dan Okrent, Time New Media, Inc.
"Personalized news is a horrible thing [begetting a
generation] that will never be fully formed citizens."- Dan
Okrent
"Writing a 10-year plan in a mature market is like throwing
darts at a board. But a 10-year plan in an online world....
I don't even know which wall the dart board is on."-
Christie Hefner, Playboy Enterprises
"We cannot write [for the web] the way we write for print.
We have to be more telegraphic, rely on data, offer shorter
content. We don't have the room to ponder and stretch
around. It's a utilitarian medium. There's not room to relax
into it."- Dan Okrent
"The walls separating content, commerce and direct marketing
are at the very least permeable."- Christie Hefner
"Brands aren't just names people recognize. It's the
aggregate of people's experiences that makes them feel
good."- Christie Hefner
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Copyright (C) 1998 ClickZ Corporation. All rights reserved.
May be reproduced in any medium for noncommercial purposes
as long as attribution is given.
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