Advertisers are increasingly attracted to advertising on eBay and eBay is increasingly happy to accommodate them, much to the chagrin of some of its sellers.To this end, the auction site is setting up an International Ad Division , headquartered in Bern, Switzerland.

What advertisers want is to run campaigns on a global basis rather than on a country basis, in particular larger players such as Royal Mail and Mercedes-Benz.

“Working with advertisers in local markets, we came across an increasing demand for international campaigns, and campaigns across multiple territories,” said Christian Kunz, head of advertising international at eBay, via ClickZ. “This service will offer a flexible and scalable solution for international advertisers and agencies.”

What attracts advertisers to eBay is the high propensity of the auction site’s users that want to shop. Couple that with the huge amount of transactional data held by eBay Advertising, and the ever-growing collection of highly niche categories, and it’s not hard to see why eBay is an attractive proposition.

Source:BizReport.com

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.

Human beings are social creatures. We need interaction with one another. It’s the way we’re made. When we meet someone new, we tend either to be drawn to them or to be disinterested for a whole host of reasons (some of which we may not even realize). Over time, however, we develop a continually evolving stable of relationships, some of which last for a lifetime.

That human dynamic is the root of brand loyalty as well. Our “relationships” with brands aren’t nearly as deep or meaningful as human relationships, but they do share some of the same characteristics. The extent to which you can create a sense of belonging, friendship, and dependability between your brand and customers is the extent to which you have a powerful brand asset.

BELONGING

We are all members of different clubs. Our family is a club, our church is a club, our place of employment is even a club. In some sense we “belong” to each of these clubs by choice—we choose whom to marry, where to worship, and where to work because we identify with the people in them in some form or fashion. I was on the East Coast recently and saw a tourist sporting a sweatshirt from my high school across the country. I quite naturally struck up a conversation with her, as we were part of the same club.

Few people have a choice of where they go to high school, but as we get older our affiliations are increasingly a matter of preference. For example, I am a “Pepper.” As a self-identified member of the Dr Pepper fraternity, I have an understanding of the brand that runs deep. (I actually think the management at Dr Pepper has never really understood what the brand means to fans like me. If you’re a Pepper east of the Mississippi where the drink is scarce, you know what I mean.)

Auto brands generate a great sense of belonging as well. Ever spoken to a BMW (BMWG.DE) enthusiast about his loyalty to the brand? It’s powerful. Saturn (GM) and Volkswagen (VOWG) are two other automakers that have historically done a good job of creating a sense of belonging around their brands. So has Harley-Davidson (HOG) with its Harley Owners Group. You’re either in it, or you’re very definitely not.

Cosmetics can also generate a strong sense of identification, as Avon (AVP) and Mary Kay loyalists can attest. So does Taos Ski Valley, a world-class destination that, because of its fabulous terrain and unique local culture, has attracted an incredible following of loyalists. (Full disclosure: Taos is a client of mine.) Bloomberg does, too. Not the mayor (although he’s a fine man, I’m sure), the terminals. Ask people in the financial-services industry what it means to be part of the Bloomberg club. Better yet, try taking their Bloomberg terminal away from them—you’ll lose your hand.

What drives this sense of belonging? Arguably the most important factor in branding: relevance. Brands that generate the strongest sense of tribal identity are so relevant to the wants and needs of their customers that they generate a natural gravitational pull. This is what customer loyalty programs attempt to generate (BusinessWeek.com, 5/10/07), but you can’t buy a sense of belonging. It’s like offering to take someone to the movies if they purchase your ticket. Companionship, yes, but friendship? Hardly. Which leads to characteristic No. 2.

FRIENDSHIP

Kerry Livgren, the creative genius behind the 1970s rock ‘n’ roll band Kansas, said it simply, and perhaps best: “The only way to have a friend is to be one.” The great brands understand this. Starbucks (SBUX) has been picked on a lot lately, but it wouldn’t be on such a pedestal if it didn’t do a terrific job of making friends with its customers. For many people, their morning appointment with Starbucks is like visiting with a trusted old friend—familiar and comfortable.

I travel a lot, and whenever I take a morning flight out of the beautiful Albuquerque Sunport I grab a breakfast burrito from the La Hacienda kiosk inside security. Do I think about my “friendship” with this brand every time? Not at all. But whenever I go to the airport, I enjoy the familiar taste and friendly people behind the counter.

I feel the same way about my running shoes. I’m not a serious runner by any means, but I have tried a lot of different shoe brands over the years, and when I pull my trusted Avias out of the closet I know they’ll do their part, as any friend would. The same is true of the little sandwich shop on the main drag in Cuba, N.M., where I take my kids to chop down our Christmas tree every year. These brands have been such good friends over the years that they now get my business almost without asking.

As with human friends, the brands we adopt as our own give us a sense of comfort and familiarity; we’ve come to know and trust them as opposed to the “stranger” that a competing brand represents. Our chosen brands have earned our trust through another essential aspect of branding: consistency.

Which brings up an important point—you can’t force friendship. As a marketer, there’s no way to compel people to feel comfortable with your brand. You can, however, take steps to initiate friendship (BusinessWeek.com, 7/13/06) and make sure that you’re doing your part.

DEPENDABILITY

Friendships that aren’t stable aren’t really friendships. Sure, all relationships have their ups and downs, but one of the definitions of a true friend is someone you can count on. In the same way, brands that prove themselves dependable over time win our loyalty. Remember the old saying, “No one ever got fired for buying IBM?” The truth of that statement was rooted in IBM’s reputation for dependability. IBM (IBM) may have been boring, it may have been expensive, but it was dependable, and that was important.

American Express (AXP) is another brand long known for dependability—the reason you “don’t leave home without it.” Same with Hertz (HTZ) (”There’s Hertz and there’s ‘not exactly’”). Honda (HMC), in my mind, fits into this category as well. I have owned several Honda automobiles over the years, and they’ve been the most dependable cars in my garage. In fact, I have two in my garage now (they’re even the same color—how boring is that?) Many people would say the same thing about their Toyotas (TM).

Sometimes dependability manifests itself in surprising ways. Years ago my wife and I enjoyed a vacation in Jamaica. It’s a beautiful island with beautiful people and wonderful food. But if you’ve ever spent much time in Jamaica you can get a little tired of allspice, a flavor that tends to dominate much of the cuisine. Imagine my delight on one of our excursions when we spotted a Burger King (BKC). I knew that no matter where in the world I was I could step up to that counter and get a familiar, dependable Whopper. (Burger King’s “Whopper Freakout” campaign recently highlighted this principle, using a hidden camera to capture customers’ reactions to news the Whopper had been discontinued.)

Dependability isn’t just the purview of computers, cars, and cheeseburgers, either. Every spring I seek out Ringer Lawn Restore, the best organic fertilizer I’ve ever come across. It really does what it says it will, which is a third principle of a powerful brand: credibility. Despite its natural fertilizer odor, Ringer has a friend in me.

But here’s the thing about dependability. It requires time. Just as it does with human relationships, it takes time for brands to develop strong bonds with their customers. Infatuation is exciting (the basis for those late-night infomercials), but infatuation never lasts. It turns into either ambivalence or attachment depending upon how well the brand promise is delivered.

AWARENESS

And the time factor is different for different brands. As with friendship, the more interactions your brand has with its customers the more the relationship can develop. Particularly for lower-involvement products that you buy infrequently, there can be a big forget factor (just like you may forget the name of acquaintances you don’t often see).

Not long ago, I heard an ad for Lending Tree, an online mortgage company I once used to refinance my home (with a fixed rate, fortunately). Years have passed since I last refinanced and, despite being a satisfied customer, I realized that I had completely forgotten about the Lending Tree brand. The challenge for Lending Tree and other companies like it is to maintain some level of awareness and relationship with customers like me (without annoying us, of course). Brand relationships, just like human relationships, need consistent attention and upkeep in order to stay fresh and top of mind.

If you’ve been in business for any length of time, you must be doing something right for someone. Find out what your brand really is, and to whom it’s truly meaningful. Then focus your efforts on being that in spades.

Think about the strongest brands out there: Southwest Airlines (LUV), Apple (AAPL), eBay (EBAY), even Caterpillar (CAT). They understand the principles of belonging, friendship, and dependability, and they treat their customers accordingly. They know what they stand for and refrain from chasing business that would compromise their hard-won loyalty. You can, too, and the more you do so the greater the likelihood your company may one day be mentioned in the same breath as they are.

Steve McKee is president of McKee Wallwork Cleveland Advertising, an ad agency specializing in working with companies suffering from stale brands and stalled growth.

Source:Businessweek

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.

Facebook unveiled a new layout, sporting fresh profile pages designed to help members better organize their social lives. But the redesign is drawing complaints from users who say the new site is difficult to navigate and criticism from application developers who worry that the changes will alienate their patrons.

Facebook’s changes come as it competes with rival MySpace to become the primary online social network. MySpace also reorganized the layout of its profiles this summer to help make information easier for members to find.

A central part of the redesign includes an expanded Wall, which is the section of a member’s profile page where friends can post comments and photos. The Wall now incorporates details about a user’s recent activities, previously found on a separate feature known as the news feed. Other applications, such as games and trivia quizzes, as well as personal details, are now on separate tabs in an effort to cut down on clutter.

But Jonathan Dach, 22, of the District, said the new design breaks up profile pages too much, making it more time-consuming to browse the site.

“Splitting up the information . . . forces users to continually click through links to new information,” he said. “Every time we do that, Facebook gets to reload the advertisements. To view someone’s profile in its entirety, I now have to view at least four times as many ads.”

Other users are reluctant to try out the redesigned profile pages, which are currently accessible on an opt-in basis as the redesign is gradually rolled out to all of Facebook’s 80 million users over the next few weeks.

“I don’t want it to change — that gives me a whole set of things to figure out on Facebook, which, as I get older, I have less time for,” said 22-year-old Yesenia Estrada of Gaithersburg.

One goal of Facebook’s new layout is to reduce the clutter from the applications users have downloaded to their profiles. While the colorful games and animated graphics used to dominate profile pages, the applications are now on a separate tab. Facebook said this will give users more control over where they place applications on their profiles.

Some small application developers fear that losing that valuable real estate on users’ profile pages will stunt their ability to attract new users.

Others say they need more time to revamp their applications to fit Facebook’s new design, which the company announced in May.

“It took me a year to write all these apps, and Facebook expects me to totally rewrite them in a month,” Chris Claydon, a developer in Britain, wrote on Facebook’s developer forum. “Why even attempt the impossible?”

Larger developers say the redesign will let members show off their favorite games and applications, which will help them gain more users. “For existing apps with a lot of users, you’re likely to fit into the new world,” said Tim O’Shaughnessy, co-founder of Hungry Machine, which has developed programs that let users review books, movies and beer, for example. “If you’re launching a new one, it’s going to be a little harder to get visibility.”

Kevin Foreman, chief executive of Bevy, a fashion marketing company, in May launched an application aimed at women who like to swap fashion tips. He hopes the redesign will let users show off the application more prominently, rather than automatically being displayed at the bottom of a profile as it used to be.

“We may not see super-growth, but our loyal users will showcase the app because they want to, not because they were tricked into it with spammy techniques,” he said.

Here are the top 10 converting websites for June 2008*. These are based on Nielson Panel data and are calculated by toolbar user to final conversion.

1. ProFlowers 28.40%

2. Office Depot 25.60%

3. FTD.com 24.30%

4. 1800flowers.com 20.30%

5. Lane Bryant Catalog 18.7%

6. QVC 17.50%

7. Eddie Bauer 16.8%

8. Roamans 16.1%

9. Vistaprint - 15.2%

10. eBay - 14.9%

*Source: Nielsen Online / Marketing Charts

Chief Executive Steve Ballmer on Thursday defended Microsoft Corp’s need to make heavy investments in its Internet businesses but said the company was “done,” for now, with pursuing Yahoo Inc . “There’s nothing under discussion between the two of us,” Ballmer told investors of how six months of various talks had reached an impasse earlier in July.

“We had a set of principles, we talked about them, it didn’t work out,” he said. “Fine, we’re done. We can move on.”

The message for Microsoft’s annual meeting with Wall Street analysts, an all-day affair at its headquarters in Redmond, Washington, was that it had a post-Yahoo plan to turn around its online services division and a strategy to take advantage of future opportunities, even as its Internet chief departs.

“There is this huge, huge, huge new opportunity around the Internet and online and we have to embrace that opportunity and invest in that opportunity,” Ballmer said.

Shares of Microsoft have fallen 8 percent over the last week since the company forecast an outlook below Wall Street estimates and revealed an additional $500 million investment into its online unit, even as it chalked up further losses.

Charles Di Bona, a software research analyst at Sanford C. Bernstein, said Ballmer’s comments did not give enough details about how that additional investment will be spent and how the company arrived at that decision.

“It’s spending $500 million dollars and then it says we’ll tell you later how we’ll spend it,” said Di Bona, who has an “outperform” rating on Microsoft. “The market’s concern is not about how it is running its core business. It’s about decisions about larger chunks of money that people can’t track.”

Ballmer said Microsoft is willing to endure online division operating losses that amount to between 5 percent to 10 percent of the company’s total operating income, which reached $22.5 billion in fiscal year 2008, until the search and advertising business reaches “scale.

With the Olympic Games just a month off, some brands are looking to extend their sponsorships with social media programs. Lenovo has created 100 athletes’ blogs in an attempt to align itself with some less mainstream sports, such as field hockey and modern pentathlon. It gave the athletes laptops and video cameras to chronicle their preparation for the games.

“We wanted to do something that shows our tech prowess, not something that uses the Web as billboard,” said David Churbuck, vp of global Web marketing at Lenovo.

Lenovo turned to Google for help with the program. Google is providing blogging software via Blogger and video hosting through YouTube.

In keeping with the ethos of the social Web, Lenovo is not hosting the blogs on its own site. Most athletes either had their own sites or established them for this project. Lenovo is adding distribution by highlighting the blogs on its Web site at www.lenovo.com/voices.

Lenovo has asked the participating athletes to show a “Lenovo 2008 Olympics Blogger” badge on their sites. Most have done so, said Churbuck. It isn’t asking for any mention of Lenovo products, he added.

“I don’t want to be in the position of telling them what to write,” he said. “It’s their blog, they can do what they want.”

The blogging program is complemented with a Facebook effort that lets users virtually identify themselves with their country’s teams. Federated Media and Citizen Sports created country applications users can add to their profiles. So far, more than 100,000 have been downloaded.

” A brand like Lenovo working within Facebook is interesting because that’s the nut that a bunch of people are trying to crack,” said Jeff Ma, CEO of Citizen Sports. “Most brands and agencies don’t even know how to advertise on Facebook. There’s still a lot of education.”

Lenovo’s not alone in expanding its Olympics marketing socially. McDonald’s has also expanded on its traditional Olympics advertising with a social strategy centered around its first alternate-reality game. Called “The Lost Ring,” the AKQA-created game has been operational since April. In that time, McDonald’s boasts more than 2 million visitors in 100 countries have played it at some level. “The Lost Ring” challenges players to solve mysteries surrounding the Olympics.

“It’s an opportunity to engage with the youth culture around the world in a very meaningful and creative experience — one I’d say they can’t get anywhere else,” said Mary Dillon, McDonald’s chief marketing officer. “We want to be on the cutting edge of innovations.”

Dillon said the by-product of taking a plunge into a new area like an ARG is the rub-off effect it might give the McDonald’s brand among young consumers.

“We would hope the same community would be a little surprised McDonald’s is bringing this to them,” she said.

McDonald’s is pleased with participation rates for the game, Dillon said, though she admitted some of the extra benefits, like positive buzz, were more difficult to quantify than traditional ad metrics.

Those intangibles were the lure of the Lenovo athlete-blogging program, said Churbuck.

“The old model of blunt impressions, the billboard model, is not going to do it for me,” he said. “I’m far more interested in how many comments we drove, the traffic to athletes’ blogs, downloads of the applications. Those are more tangible expressions of engagement with the brand than clicks.”

Source: adweek.com

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

Hitwise issued a press release today containing the latest social network market share data. Facebook continues to grow its market share in the UK and reached a new high of 45% in June. However, that growth has been at the expense of Bebo and MySpace, which have both lost share in the UK over the last 12 months.

The table above is based on a specific custom category of social networks, and therefore excludes a number of sites with social media features. Taking a broader definition of Web 2.0 sites, the declining market share of Bebo and MySpace is even more marked. As the chart below illustrates, YouTube.com overtook Bebo to become the second most visited Web 2.0 property in the UK during June, while Wikipedia overtook MySpace to move into fourth position. Combined, these five sites now account for one in every 15 UK Internet visits.