Innovating pitch process

McCann in Turkey are currently in a pitch process with Turkish Airlines (TA) and the process has been very different and innovative. TA has placed clues online on different social media sites that the agencies involved has to find. You can read more about it here on McCann Turkeys blog: http://www.digithell.net/post/Now-We-re-Taking-Off!.aspx

The Bing project completed… By Even Aas-Eng

The last two weeks I have used Bing as my default search engine. The mission here was not to look at new features or functionality that only are available in the US version but to see if Bing could handle the day by day stuff.

So here is a little recap of my two weeks with Bing. I started off uninstalling my Google toolbar and got ready to install the Bing. Easier said than done… A search for Bing toolbar in Bing gave no results but I did manage to find a Live toolbar. It didn’t look good, no search history and no search suggestion. Two days after I installed the toolbar it mysteriously vanished…

Ok, let’s move on to the actual search results. I was astonished after searching for Facebook and not finding it on the first page. How is that possible? A search for “Aunan” (A salmon fishing camp at the Orkla river) gave no results at all, a search in Google and their homepage was at position number one.

When you search for a site using the complete domain ( for example VG.no) Google sends you directly to the site. Bing doesn’t and it’s annoying.

Today I was looking for a hotel in Oslo for a business contact who is visiting on Wednesday. I searched for the hotel name (Gabels hus) in Bing and got no relevant result on the first page. The same search in Google and the hotel web site hade the top rank.

The last two weeks every newsletter from TechCrunch has had at least one article praising Bing and talking about how great it is that someone tries to give Google a run for its money. There seems to be a lot of people wanting change in the search game. I am definitely one of them, but I can’t change my default search engine to something that is untrustworthy for the easiest requests. So for now its bye, bye Bing and welcome back Google.

Going completely Bing! By Even Aas-Eng

After seven years of Googling I will from now Bing things instead. If it’s not good enough I will change back in two weeks.

I will let you know.

www.bing.com

The link between display and SEM. By Even Aas-Eng

Online marketers can be divided into three categories:

1) Those who believe the display ad is dead and think SEM will solve all your problems
2) Those who believe the display ad is everything
3) Those who believe that the world is not black or white and that it might be interesting to look at marketing across media channels and platforms and that different companies might need different strategies.

Of these three categories it’s my feeling that unfortunately nr 1 is growing, luckily nr 2 is declining and nr 3 is growing but not fast enough.

Aegis owned SEM agency Iprospect recently released a survey that concluded that display advertising has a positive effect on your SEA campaigns and that display advertising could work even though people don’t click on your ad. Revolutionary stuff…
Don’t get me wrong, I think it’s great that Iprospect did the survey, I hope many people read it and I hope we will see more surveys like this in the near future, but it scares me that we are not more advanced in how we utilize new media.

I think it’s funny how SEM fanatic’s have trashed the display ad for years while their favorite company Google in the same period have invested BILLIONS to build the largest display ad network in the world. As mentioned before on this blog, the display ad isn’t dead it has just been revitalized.

I have been a SEM evangelist in the Norwegian market since 2003 but I never meant that display advertising don’t work. If you compare display and SEA by looking at CTR, CPC and conversion rates you are looking at two different planets, that doesn’t mean that one of the planets are about the be blasted out of the solar system. The role of advertising is to create demand and that is possible to achieve trough a social media concept, a display ad, a SEA campaign, a newsletter, a viral movie, a TV commercial, a social media ad, a web site, a DM, or a combination of all or some of the above.

Why box yourself in by just having faith in one type of advertising?

Iprospect survey: http://www.iprospect.com/about/researchstudy_2009_searchanddisplay.htm

The next pot of gold for the agency industry. By Even Aas-Eng

The SMB´s of the world have always been a key driver in online advertising growth. Google’s success being the prime example of how “uninteresting” companies suddenly became the backbone of their business model.

SMB´s are spending more and more dollars online and their perspective on what is “advertising” is getting broader and broader. Their web site is often their only communication platform towards their clients and it’s easy to understand its importance. This study that I stumbled upon shows that 2/3 of the marketing professionals in these companies wants to spend more money next year in the “media” channel “my own web site”. The next wave of new corporate web sites is a huge opportunity for marketers. Finally the market will approach the job wanting to create value for users and not only show off the new fancy logo and the CEO!

The blurring lines of what is advertising is critical to understand if you are in the agency business today. One side of the coin is a huge opportunity the other a big threat…

The report is here: http://www.borrellassociates.com/report_details.aspx?prodID=173

Gulltaggen 2009 a great event. By Even Aas-Eng

Norway is a small country, it’s close to the north pole, there is no people here, shops are closed on Sundays, we are not a member of the EU and the rest of the world couldn’t care less about what happens here. All this according to my Swedish wife and unfortunately she is probably right…

So I thinks it’s worth mentioning when someone puts together an event in Oslo that truly is of high quality even on a international scale. INMA (IAB Norway) arrange this conference and award show every year and this time the lineup is just great, sensational considering that its taking place in Oslo. Chris Anderson, Seth Godin, Jack Myers, Lars Bastholm and Nigel Morris are just a few of the names on the speaker list.

The event gathers a wide specter of Norway’s new media industry and it has really become a “must be” venue every year. Apparently also in 2009 even though most companies are cutting back on their “extra curricular” activities.

So I just want to honor the INMA team that makes this happen and encourage all foreigners to attend the conference. You now have a good excuse to visit Norway.
(shops are still closed on Sundays…)

Check out the event here: http://gulltaggen.no/?nid=14202

A dash of hope in all the despair. By Even Aas-Eng

IAB`s US spending report for 2008 is out in the open and contains some encouraging figures. Year on year the growth was 10,6% but more interesting is the Q4 figures that shows a growth of 4,5%
Search increased its market share from 42% to 45% and display related kept its position at 33%

The report also shows that CPG (Consumer packaged goods) share of internet revenue increased a staggering 60% in 2008. A very good sign for the years to come as this industry vertical traditionally has been skeptical to online media.

Read the report here http://www.iab.net/about_the_iab/recent_press_releases/press_release_archive/press_release/pr-033009?o12499=