Welcome back. This week, advertisers defend themselves from increasing privacy-related scrutiny, we find out why “scented links” are important for CTR, Twitter rebrands itself in 2 seconds, and a video game marketed as a movie earns more money than Harry Potter. Things are pretty busy This Week in Aducation.
- Online Ad Industry: Advertising is ‘Creepy’ – The IAB and certain nervous agencies are running pro-bono ads all over the net in an effort to educate consumers and legislators (but especially legislators) about the purity of the ad industry’s motives as they regard behavioral targeting. Creatively, these ads resemble 1950s horror movie posters, and attempt to connect with the audience’s fear that advertising knows way too much about them.
- What Does Your Web Site Smell Like? – Robbin Steif, CEO of LunaMetrics, discusses the importance of “scented links” and “target words” to audience qualification and CTR optimization. Visitors have “target words” in mind when they visit a site through a hyperlink, banner ad or some other referral path. “Scented links” use anchor text or ad copy to clue a visitor in to the content of the landing page. Users follow the “scent” emitted until they find their goal (which relates to their target word(s)).
- Twitter Restates the Question – A little while ago, Twitter shifted its focus from users as individuals to users as pseudo journalists by simply changing it’s prompt from “What are you doing?” to “What’s happening?” It’s a very simple move that says many things, not the least of which being “We and everyone else are tired of reading about the exploits of your cat,” and “For the last time, your followers aren’t your therapist.” What I got from this more than anything is that not every major marketing move has to be complex and brilliant from a textbook standpoint.
- How ‘Modern Warfare 2′ Vanquished Harry Potter – This AdAge Digital feature discusses a brand which borrowed a strategy from another industry and reaped huge rewards as a result. “Modern Warfare 2″ is the new video game which generated more revenue ($550 million) during its release weekend than Spiderman 3 and Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince (the two box office leaders). Of course, video games usually cost about 8 times more than movie tickets, but I suppose there’s something to be said about a product that gets the public to part with so much of its cash. This case study is a testament to the value of looking for opportunities to stray from industry norms.
