In-Game Advertising More Effective than Television Ads?

      For a long time, television advertisements have been the primary mode of reaching large amounts of people simultaneously. However, in recent years the internet has revolutionized the way that advertisers develop their campaigns. The world of in-game advertising is a relatively new concept that has taken hold of the world with the help of Facebook. Games like Farmville offer advertisers direct access to gamers, and some specials even allow participants to become more familiar with a company's brand. In-game advertising for online games reaches a larger audience in a shorter amount of time and it is cheaper than running television ads. 

      Another upcoming in-game advertising opportunity is Microsoft Corporation's NUads, which is an advertising program integrated into the XBOX Kinect gaming console that allows users to interact with ads while they are playing games or watching videos. This particular form of in-game advertising allows advertisers to be extremely market specific. Do you think that in the future in-game advertising will take the place of television ads? 

In the Spirit of Halloween...

Just thought I would share this video I found floating around the internet this morning! Under the video description there is a link to purchase the song from the video on Amazon or on iTunes and a short summary of all the materials used to create the video. At the rate this video is gaining views, which is almost five and a half million since October 21st, I'd say it has gone pretty viral. If you visit the creator of this video's YouTube profile you will find 22 other Halloween light show videos from the past four years. Do you think that the videos themselves are innovative enough for advertisers to take notice?

Groupon's Mobile App

     I may be a little behind the times when it comes to most mobile applications but I recently downloaded Groupon's mobile app. For those of you who are not familiar with Groupon, is a website that offers daily location based specials and coupons for businesses. Each day a new deal is posted on the site but the offers are limited and usually have a 24 hour time frame to purchase. Individuals can go on the site and purchase one groupon for themselves or multiple groupons to give away as gifts. The mobile application for Groupon is free of charge and easy to use. I found the app to be extremely convenient when I am shopping or just looking for good gift ideas. Whenever a new groupon comes out for my city, I get an alert on my phone and am able to see immediately what deals are available. I think that in the future more companies will come out with mobile applications that alert customers about any deals or specials that they have going on in their area.

Samsung's "Extreme LED Sheep" Campaign a Viral Success

           Samsung’s “Extreme LED Sheep” viral video was released in March of 2009.It features skilled Welch shepherds and their highly trained dogs herding flocks of sheep strapped with LED lights through intricate stunts. The performance itself was choreographed by the Baa Studs and took three days to film. A total of 400 sheep were used in the video and 43,300 LED lights. The of the campaign was to raise awareness for Samsung’s new LED-backlit LCD television screens. The lights featured in the video showcased the power and brightness of the LED lights.

            Within its first week on YouTube, the video racked up over 3.5 million views. Since the video’s first appearance on YouTube in 2009, the video has been viewed 15,686,057 times. The original copy of the video has 14,680 comments, the majority of which are positive. It has been “liked” on YouTube 51,109 times and “favorited” 104,404 times. The viral campaign was developed by The Viral Factory, which is a viral marketing company based in London, UK. They have done other viral advertisements for Samsung as well as Skype and Trojan. According to the creators, the video works online because it is completely original and unvarnished. Daniel Evans, the creative director for the video stated that, “The internet rewards newness - anything that pushes things to the limits.” This statement holds true for Samsung’s LED sheep because the video was original and showcased something that many people had never seen before.

            Although the campaign did not produce any immediate results in terms of sales or company performance, it did succeed in getting the word out about their new LED technology. 

Keeping Up With Social Media

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/naomi-troni/social-media-advertising_b_996071.html

I found this article today about the future of marketing. The article talks about our "digital addiction," which refers to the ever increasing time we spend either watching television, surfing the internet, or using our mobile devices. The article suggests that many advertisers believe that social media sites are not the best avenue for advertising available. At one point in the article it states that the argument for this position is the fact that "Americans still spend 20 percent of their day watching TV." 

I'm not saying that advertising on TV is a bad idea, but I do think that advertisers would reach more people through the use of social media. The other argument presented in the article is the fact that social media outlets change so frequently that advertising on them is not effective. I think that it is very important to keep in mind how quickly platforms for social media change. While Facebook may be the most popular social media site today, it may not be tomorrow. However, I do not think that people will begin to spend less time on the internet. For this reason, advertisers need to develop a strategy to stay involved in the most popular current social media outlets.

The last section of the article points out the importance of mobile devices for social media marketers. Mobile devices give people instant access to the internet wherever they go, and the article does a good job noting that more and more people are using smart phones. I think that the next step for social media marketing is developing an effective marketing strategy for mobile devices. If advertisers had access to data from peoples' smart phones they could get a better picture of their target markets.

Measuring ROI for Social Media Marketing

I recently ran across this article while I was looking for news related to social media marketing. I figured it might be helpful for the group project for members who will be working on the ROI section. Maybe it is just the natural skeptic in me but I do not really see how an increased number of comments one receives or the number of followers you have translates into a visible ROI. On the other hand I guess an increase in web traffic and positive or negative comments would help boost awareness of your product, which in turn could have a direct effect on sales.