Everybody wants a write off and charitable contributions top the list for most consumers - and businesses. But, did you know those philanthropic contributions and activities could also give a brand boost? According to a recent report, charitable actions can lead consumers to action.

The report finds that nearly three-quarters of consumers have purchased a brand because it supported a cause they believed in. Corporations reported seeing an increase in sales of more than 25% after the public relations from helping a favored cause.

When you add this historical data to the new offerings of the Internet, cause marketing can have an even greater effect.

Consider the recent Haagen Dazs viral promotion to let consumers know the honey bee was in danger. The ice cream company, which relies on honey bees for a number of it’s flavors, launched a multi-platform campaign which included television and print ads as well as an online video featuring “b-boys” dancing. The video quickly became viral with teens and young adults sharing content and adding the video to their own social network profiles.

Two weeks after the launch on August 1, the video had 2 million views and 3500 comments as well as a 4 ½ star review on YouTube. About 150 websites and blogs have also picked up the video, which increased hits to the Haagen Dazs branded micro site.

While the plight of the bees is still up in the air, the effect on Haagen Dazs brand can already be seen in the increased consumer interest to the ice cream maker’s site and the hits to the video.

If you’re thinking of sinking a lot of advertising cash into classified listings, think again. According to a new report from Borrell Associates, classified ads will be virtually dead within the next five years. So, for now, perhaps classified listings are a good investment but marketers need to begin looking at other options.

Yellow pages advertising will decline by nearly 40% over the next five years; at the same time, sale representatives for yellow pages companies will begin turning to online avenues at the rate of 38%. Newspaper advertising is the only medium expected to turn online more; the report states newspaper ad reps will turn to the Internet by nearly 50% over the same period.

Why the decline? Because online mediums are becoming more popular with marketers. Online display, video, paid search and even local branded micro sites offer advertisers a bigger bang for their buck and the ability to make changes to campaigns on the fly, something that print ads do not offer.

Online video is one of the ad mediums expected to show the most growth over the same period as more consumers begin logging on to the Web to watch their favorite television shows, movie clips and user generated content. Advertisers will also turn to online video to sponsor these shows and clips and to advertise within the downloads because research shows that online video provides a more engaged audience that traditional television.

Source: BizReport

Mobile advertising has been the next big thing for a while now. But although text messaging is popular among young adults, the 160-character format has yet to become a mass influencer. Still, consumers who respond to mobile ads are most likely to engage with text messages, according to a survey of mobile users ages 15 and older in the US by the Direct Marketing Association (DMA). Seven out of 10 respondents to the DMA’s “Mobile Marketing: Consumer Perspectives” study who had acted on mobile ads said that text messages for a product or service had prompted their actions. That was more than three times as many as responded to a mobile Web offer or coupon.

But even text messaging is not about to replace other marketing mainstays such as e-mail or direct mail. In fact, only 1% of US Internet users surveyed in February 2008 by ExactTarget picked text messaging as their channel of choice for opt-in communications. Instead, the medium is better-suited for targeting specific audiences, and as part of multichannel campaigns.

Text messaging may not dominate mobile advertising as more mobile users with sophisticated phones and data plans come into the fold (think iPhone and its ilk). Yet the simplicity and compatibility of texting is likely to ensure its long-term appeal in the same way text-based e-mail has remained viable.

In the meantime, the bigger issue is when mobile advertising will become a common campaign tactic. For most marketers and advertisers, mobile is still only getting experimental budget at most.

Mobile advertising’s toddler status was reflected in a February 2008 iMedia Connection survey of US online marketers. Although about one-quarter of respondents said they were open-minded enough to decide on a case-by-case basis whether to use mobile ads this year, more than two-thirds said they would do no more than dabble in the channel.

MySpace remains the king of the social networks with a nearly 72% market share, but close competitor Facebook isn’t giving up. According to a new report from Hitwise, US consumers continue to choose MySpace over other social nets but the trend is beginning to change. MySpace shows -6% growth from June 2007 through June 2008 which Facebook showed 40% year over year (YoY) growth. Hitwise reports that Facebook has a 16% market share.

Facebook isn’t the fastest growing social network, however. MyYearbook.com (318% growth YoY) and Tagged (45% YoY growth). Bebo, meanwhile, dropped 41% YoY. But to get the most from your social marketing campaign, the report finds that marketers need to focus their campaigns on the summer months. Hitwise researchers have found that summer time visits to social networks increase nearly 40%. This is likely because teens and young adults are the primary social network visitors and the summer months mean no school to take up kids’ time.

Exactly how much time is being spent with social networks? MySpace users spend an average of 30 minutes on-site each time they visit, Facebook users spend about 21 minutes on-site and MyYearbook users spend about 30 minutes on-site. Tagged.com (24 minutes on-site) and Bebo (30 minutes on-site) round out the top five.

Marketers need more trust-building elements on their websites to help customers make that all important decision to purchase. One particular method is to pay attention to product images and enable the consumer to scrutinize the color, size and shape as though they were in a bricks and mortar store.

Early days of online retail were hampered by poor product imagery and the inability for consumers to get a good idea of the size, shape and color of a product. Nowadays there’s no excuse for poor imagery with tools such as zoom, rotate and even video and the increase in broadband penetration and online payment options means more and more consumers are willing to shop online. But just as a sloppy shop window will attract fewer eyeballs, so will sloppy product images on websites. Images are very important to consumers whether they’re buying a hockey stick or a house.

A case in point is eBay where, according to Jim Miotke, president of BetterPhoto.com, 83% of eBay shoppers ignore listings without images. Those items featured in galleries get 15% more activity and those with super-size photos show a 24% spike in sales, found the research.

So what can marketers do to maximize the impact product images have on consumers?

- Keep product sizes relative and consistent.

- Include ways in which the consumer can “handle” the goods as if they were in a store by allowing them the ability to zoom in to view details in close-up, i.e. clasp on a brooch or button on blouse and to be able to view the product from different angles.

- If possible, use “actual size” images or links.

- Where “actual size’ images aren’t feasible – clothing, large electronic items – include an image where the product is in context. Flowers, for instance, could be photographed in the arms of a recipient, allowing a consumer to judge the value and content for themselves and clothes are always better judged on models.

- If a product comes in a variety of colors consumers will want to know what the product looks like in their color choice. Enable them to view images of all color combinations or, at the very least, a color chart.

- Have you tried video? How about showing your products in use? Consumers are desperate for as much of the bricks and mortar experience as possible.

By paying attention to the details mentioned above and giving consumers the best visual experience of a product that they can, marketers can decrease returns while increasing retention and sales conversions.

The British are heading online to shop in ever increasing numbers, according to new figures from IMRG/Capgemini. Twenty percent of U.K. consumers now do their shopping on the Internet. Almost $54 billion was spent by Brits on Internet shopping in the first half of this year. That’s a rise of 38% compared with last year, revealed IMRG/Capgemini in its latest e-Retail Sales Index.

“Online shopping growth continues to out-perform the high street, as tight budgets and poor weather keep people at home where they can shop online for bargains,” said IMRG CEO James Roper. Just over half also believe that shopping online is environmentally friendly, a view shared by their movie-watching U.S. cousins.

IMRG Capgemini predicts that sustainability issues will drive between 30% and 50% of all British retail online in the next five years. “This is because, as online reaches 20% of all retail sales, retailers experience a tipping point which forces them to seriously re-think the future viability of their business model,” said Mike Petevinos, head of consulting for retail for Capgemini UK.

Did we really need more research to tell us that intrusive ads annoy consumers? Well, it seems some marketers missed a meeting in the late 1990’s and need to be taught a lesson in subtlety. To that end, I’ve devised some top tips on how to make sure your visitors don’t stick around.

In 2007, half of Internet users left a favorite website due to “intrusive advertising”. That figure has now risen to three-quarters according to new figures released from HowTo.tv. The message? Consumers will not put up with advertising they deem to be in-their-face and annoying; they will up and leave your website.

Since commerce came to the Internet there have been cries of disdain from Internet users about bad marketing, but over a decade later it continues. So, in an attempt to get the message though, I thought marketers might listen to ways in which to guarantee only a quarter of website visitors stick around.

1. Ensure the consumer has no way to avoid seeing that pop-up ad that greets them to your website. In fact, the harder you make it for them to close the pop-up, the better.

2. What’s a pop-up without sound? Woo them with some clunky musak or keep them amused with a persistent buzzing noise.

3. Your ads will really stand out if you can make them as irrelevant as possible. To maximize this effect, pay no attention whatsoever to your target audience’s needs.

4. Consumers love big, gaudy “whack the mole and win a million” banner ads that obliterate half the screen – the bigger and gaudier the better.

5. Scripts that crash a consumer’s computer are always successful in diverting them away from your website.

6. Take up as much space as possible on each webpage with ads, leaving just enough room for some token content.

7. Make life fun for your site visitors by including ads that float across the screen, blink on and off in various different locations or that trick them into clicking on them.

8. Gambling, porn and horror movie ads are particularly favored ad topics, pepper your website liberally with them for a professional look.

Source: BizReport

A new targeting tool is set for release from ValueClick. The tool is a predictive behavioral targeting tool which provides marketers with anonymous consumer behavior and then predicts future behaviors based on the past information. The Precision BT suite combines Precision Retargeting and Precision Profiles, giving marketers unique insight into consumer behavior.

“What makes Precision Profiles unique is our access to a critical mass of anonymous consumer online experiences and the way our technology dynamically categorizes and transforms them into hundreds of interest segments,” said Matthew Boyd, senior vice president, ValueClick Media. “Combined with the ability for our optimization technology to identify the best possible context in which to serve an ad, we have assembled the most scalable, data-driven audience targeting platform for marketers to achieve their brand and direct response objectives.”

By using predictive algorithms, marketers are given insight into the segments and times that consumers’ visit certain websites, publishers or content sites. This is very valuable information because by knowing when and where consumers will “stop by” they can determine where and how they will advertise, thereby increasing campaign ROI.

The anonymous information provided to marketers includes web browsing, interaction with ads and search and shopping behaviors.

“.anything” domains are - literally - any domain extension that isn’t already taken and that has at least three characters. This would allow companies to own and host their websites at their own root level domain. For example, Google could rename their root level domain “.google” and could rename their other extensions accordingly, for example search.google or blog.google, leaving off the “.com”, “.net” or other three-character extensions that have been used for years.

This also means specific brands, for example Ziploc, could host a top level as “info.Ziploc”. Big corporations - like the BBC, the New York Yankees and even IMAX Theaters would likely not have any problem adding a vanity domain because consumers are already familiar with their brands. For some advertisers, this is a great chance to increase their web presence, but be careful, without very strong brand recognition, marketers could also lose some consumers. Those who aren’t familiar with a specific brand may miss the boat because they wouldn’t know to log on to a “.myproduct” domain.

According to ICANN, it will be upwards of two years before these vanity top level domains are released for general use.

E-commerce in Brazil, like many other Internet activities in that country, is maturing quickly. Between the first half of 2005 and 2008, e-commerce revenues as reported in e-bit’s “Web Shoppers” study nearly quadrupled to reach BRL3.8 billion ($2.2 billion). According to Valor Economico, in 2007 alone the market expanded by 43%. In terms of the number of individuals buying online, the figures are almost as dramatic, with 2.6 million buyers in 2003 rising to 9.5 million in 2007.

More likely than not, adult Internet users in Brazil have purchased something online, according to a December 2007 study by Symantec.

Brazil’s 79% of users who have purchased online is in the upper reaches of worldwide rates, comparable to such advanced Internet players as Japan (82%), the UK (79%) and Germany (78%). In contrast, only 63% of US Internet users have made an online purchase. Simply put, Brazilians who use the Internet tend to use it for everything, including e-commerce.

Online buyers in Brazil are huge media consumers. Books, magazines and newspapers ranked as the top e-commerce categories with a 17% market share in 2007, according to e-bit.

Almost one-half (49.47%) of Brazil’s online buyers use a credit card to make their purchases, versus 39.06% who use a banking ticket to buy online. Other payment methods, including debit or electronic transfer, and payment on delivery, were each favored by less than 10% of respondents to an Ipsos Public Affairs survey.

Females, who make up almost one-half of Internet users in Brazil, are a key factor driving the explosion of e-commerce. A study from e-bit reported in Business News Americas found that online transactions by females increased nearly 10% since 2000.