Capturing the millennial vote with video

Jonathan Bowers, February 8th 2008, 3:28PM

In the film Wag The Dog, Robert De Niro is a spin-doctor drafted in by the US Government in a time of crisis. The President has been accused of sexual misdemeanours with a firefly girl and it's about to hit the news just weeks before Election Day. De Niro needs a diversion and he turns to Dustin Hoffman's Hollywood producer to create him a war - something that will unite the American people behind their leader. The information is delivered to the people via TV and newspaper. In the end, the President is re-elected and the manufactured war actually turns into a real concern.

It is a clever film and a great watch - but ten years later, it would never work. Why? Because the internet would easily have exploded the myth Hoffman created. And millions and millions of people today are influenced by the information they access online. The television is still of course a massively important conduit but the internet like never before has the capability to create a majority. Few understand this better than the US Presidential candidates who are well aware that there is an online battle to be won.

In this battle Barack Obama appears to have the upper hand - as well as a little help from his friends. The Viral Video Chart reveals that a new video posted just 6 days ago has already been viewed by over 5 million visitors. It has been linked to by more than 2000 sources and commented on across all social media platforms by many more. The video is the 'Yes We Can' Obama Song by Will.I.Am.

As The Campaign Spot (National Review Online's blog) points out and as De Niro knew a decade before, Hollywood can provide a very powerful message. It is no wonder that 18-30 year olds (the millennial voters) are turning out in record numbers. It is also no surprise that Barack Obama is winning the majority of this vote on nearly every occasion.

Tags: pr, video
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Microsoft opens up the search market?

Jonathan Bowers, February 6th 2008, 3:56PM

It has been almost a week since Microsoft put a deal on the table for Yahoo! to consider. While we don't seem to be hearing much yet from Jerry Yang and his board of directors the rest of the industry has plenty to say - especially Google.

Google is vocal but not quite uniform in its response. One minute, MD for UK Sales Mark Howe is welcoming the competition and the next, senior vice president David Drummond is appealing to competition commissions that a merger will give rise to unfair dominance.

Naturally, the online marketing community is welcoming a long overdue challenge to Google's advertising strength but there's more to this bid underlying Google's concern than many realise. Focus has been placed on the online applications side of a deal but Microsoft has for a while now been developing its demographic ad/search capabilities and has only one rival in this area - Yahoo!.

It is difficult to get hold of accurate figures, but Wikipedia cites Windows Live Hotmail as having 260million accounts in existence which means a hugely valuable database of user information activated when users browse after login. In recent statistics, comScore places Yahoo as the web mail leader with 255m accounts so while something is a little awry it is clear is that Microsoft - with the addition of Yahoo's user data would indeed be a very formidable force in the digital advertising market.

With Google's sign up email (gmail) tiny in comparison, the ability to target ads to the right demographic is one of Google's weaknesses within the market. And with the search leader's DoubleClick acquisition moving forward Microsoft needs to do something to avoid being left behind entirely. The Yahoo! bid brings it back in the eyes of all involved as a force to be reckoned with.

I for one am very excited about how this will develop over the coming weeks and months.

Tags: advertising, google, microsoft, search, yahoo!
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Web content that improves your return on investment

Jonathan Bowers, January 31st 2008, 12:09PM

In relation to other advertising mediums, the internet is just emerging from infancy. It's no surprise then that many people are still not getting sponsored links right and essentially throwing money away by delivering poor relevance.

Search engines reward on relevance for a very good reason - it's what the user wants. So if you place an ad online and it doesn't lead to a page that delivers on the promise of that ad - you are punished two fold. Users will not stay on your site and Google will in turn hold back from rewarding you.

How can Google promote a website that the user doesn't want to see?

There are some very simple rules you can follow in preparing the landing pages for your online advertising that will help to keep the visitors from reverting back to the search results never to return again.

First off, you should make sure your 'Creative' which is the descriptive text within the advert is an exact distillation of the page they will click through to. Then ensure that this page is the most relevant page on your website for these keywords. Do not require your user to click further to find the information they need.

To give yourself the best chance of converting the visitor make sure that the navigation across the website is very simple and user friendly so that your landing page is as few clicks away from a transaction as possible.

There is one major 'don't' with landing pages too. Do not place them in an area that requires a login or registration process before the user can reach the information they require. This is a sure way to send them straight back to the search results with a bitter taste in their mouth.

At UKFast we create new pages for every keyword that appears in our advertising campaign. It's an ongoing process that can be very rewarding when done correctly.

Tags: advertising, adwords, websites
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Internet attackers Storm Valentine's Day

Jonathan Bowers, January 18th 2008, 12:33PM

Following on from an earlier post about spam and the responsibility of the user to avoid encouragement, I thought it worth highlighting a particular attack that shifts its consumer focus.

One of last year's worst viruses is known as Storm. The virus takes many forms and disrupts in many ways, it does not fall into the category of Trojan, Bot or spam agent (which all effect computers in different ways) it is in fact all of the above.

The cyber criminals behind this project are constantly reinventing the emails that deliver it and use red letter days - or special occasions to try and trick users into opening the email and downloading the file.

A report this week from Websense informs us that Storm's focus is now on Valentine's Day having shifted from a New Year focus. It is always worth bearing in mind that any email you receive from an unknown user are likely to be spam and not worth opening. Following this rule and deleting on receipt - without opening - avoids encouraging the machines behind the attack to resend in different forms.

Tags: spam
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Spam increases - are we to blame

Jonathan Bowers, January 9th 2008, 6:12PM

December saw the worst proportion of spam to legitimate email that we have ever experienced according to a report by SoftScan. All the focus is on the perseverence of relentless spammers and not enough thought is being placed on the ways in which we as email users are encouraging this activity.

Too many people are unaware of the technology that is at play behind these emails. Many people believe that as long as they do not respond to the email they have not encouraged it. However, as soon as you open the majority of spam emails it sends a message back to the originator confirming that your address is valid and adding it to a database that they can then sell to others spammers.

As users we are responsible for encouraging spammers often without even realising.

Tags: spam
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