Advertising – Page 7 – Digital-Lifestyles

Google Profits Rocket Another 300%

Google Profits Rocket 300 Per Cent Champagne corks were firing off at Google like a military salute as the Internet search engine kings revealed that their profits had jumped more than 300 per cent in the second quarter this year.

Fuelled by continued growth in Web advertising, Google raked in a revenue of $1.38 billion (~£788m ~€1.13bn) its second 2005 fiscal quarter, up 98 per cent compared with the same period last year.

Once you take off the $494 million (~£282m ~€406m) paid by Google to its ad network partners (known as traffic acquisition costs), revenue racked up to a wallet-delighting $886 million (~£506m ~€728m).

Net income came in at $343 million (~£195m ~€282m), favourably comparing with the $79 million (~£45m ~€64m) recorded in 2004’s second quarter, while revenue from Google sites totted up to $737 million (~£421m ~€606m) – up a thumping great 115 per cent.

Revenue from Google ad network partners was similarly rosy, totalling $630 million (~£359m ~€518m), an increase of 82 per cent.

“We are very proud of our results. Business is very good here at Google,” said chief executive Eric Schmidt, dodging the flying champagne corks. “It’s really because we’ve figured out ways to stay focused on end users and innovation.”

Although the vast majority of Google’s revenue comes from paid advertisements on search results pages and on partner sites, the company has been diversifying with new products and services like video search and mapping.

Google Profits Rocket 300 Per Cent The company’s fortunes are currently on a stratospheric trajectory, with April’s first-quarter profit almost six times higher than a year earlier.

Not surprisingly, Google’s share price has soared, nudging above $300 (~£171 ~€246) a share for the first time last month and giving the company the honour of being the world’s biggest media group by stock market value.

Recent figures from Nielsen/NetRatings revealed that Google has attracted in excess of 78.5 million US visitors last month, up 25 per cent from a year ago, with the Google and Blogger brands ranked numbero uno in search and Web hosting, respectively.

Meanwhile, Yahoo had to make do with cheapo Cava as figures posted on Tuesday revealed a higher second-quarter profit but with revenue falling short of analyst expectations.

This news sent Yahoo! shares tumbling down as much as 10 per cent in after-hours trading.

Google

90% Of DVR Users Skip Ads

Ninety Percent Of DVR Users Skip Ads TV advertisers and execs could be heard blubbing into their double tall skinny lattes all over Soho as a new survey revealed that around 90 percent of current users fast-forward through ads.

The fine detail of the survey offered little comfort for the industry, with 97 percent of the coveted 18 to 34-year-old demographic saying that they skip ads all or almost all of the time.

Ninety Percent Of DVR Users Skip Ads With more and more consumers buying digital video recorders (DVRs), this could spell disaster for the advertising industry.

“This has always been advertisers’ biggest fear,” said Sarah Wade, a London-based account manager for the French market research firm Ipsos, whose survey asked about the viewing habits of 4,000 British TV households.

An earlier study by the media buying agency PHD had come up with the slightly less bleak – but still TV exec-depressing figure – of 77 percent of viewers who were armed with hair-trigger remotes, ready to fast forward any advert on sight.

Several companies like BSkyB already offer hard-drive based digital video recorders, with users warming to their ability to pause live TV and fast-forward through advertisements.

Ninety Percent Of DVR Users Skip Ads Although the technology is still bubbling under the mainstream, BSkyB says about half of new subscribers opt for its Sky+ DVR, and with cable companies selling DVRs that are built into set-top boxes, advertisers are set for a bumpy ride ahead.

According to the Ipsos study, only 6 percent of Britons currently own a DVR, although 35 percent of those without are interested in buying one.

Ipsos.com

Geeks Take Over The UK

Geeks Take Over The UK Long shunned as hobby-obsessed lonely losers living in messy bedrooms with a dreadful taste in music, geeks, computer spods and sci-fi nuts have revealed themselves as a lucrative target for advertisers.

The Sci Fi Geekforce Report, a new study by the Sci-Fi channel service, reveals geeks to be high-spenders with the power to make or break billion-pound brands.

With Borg-like numbers (nearly 7 million in the UK), the collective buying power of geeks is making cappuccino-supping noo meedja types sit up and reach for their mood boards, with the survey estimating the “geek pound” to be worth a staggering £8.2bn (~€12bn ~ US$15~)a year.

The research, undertaken in association with marketing specialists TGI and media agency Rocket, also revealed that the geeks are predominantly ABC1 consumers, with some 33% of their number being female.

Geeks Take Over The UK The bigwigs of Sci-Fi conducted the research to try and work out the popularity of the multi-billion dollar genre when it was supposedly the province of “solitary, unpopular individuals with niche interests and questionable personal hygiene habits.”

Dan Winter, head of press at Sci-Fi, declared himself “blown away” by the survey, which challenged many of the stereotypes.

For example, far from being long-term bedroom dwellers with only a death metal collection for company, the survey revealed geeks to be sociable animals, 52% more likely than the average person to have had four holidays in the last 12 months and 125% more likely to visit pubs, clubs and bars.

Nearly 40% of geeks believed their special interests make them attractive to the opposite sex, although we’re not convinced that, “Hi! Have you seen the latest Asus motherboard?” is a winning chat up line.

Geeks Take Over The UK The bit that will get the advertisers moist in their strap lines is the fact that geeks are 90% more likely to be the first among their chums to invest in new products.

Martin Heaton Cooper, advertising sales director for Sci Fi, commented: “It’s clear that in a time of advertising overload and scepticism, the mainstream is turning to their new geek counterparts to help them make product decisions.”

The Sci Fi Geekforce Report is due to be released in July.

Sci-Fi

ASA Rules NTL Broadband Not “5x faster”

NTL 5x Faster Broadband Claims Ruled Misleading By ASA NTL’s claim that 300K broadband offer was “more than 5 times faster than standard 56K dial-up internet” has been happy-slapped down by the Advertising Standards Authority (ASA), who condemned it as being in breach of TV Advertising Standards Code.

The offending broadcast appeared on Broadband UK (NTL’s own, self-promotional channel) and extolled the virtues of NTL’s “3 for £30” package, which lumps in a telephone service, a digital television service and a broadband internet service.

The advert claimed that NTL’s broadband service was “more than 5 times faster than standard 56K dial-up internet” with the presenter adding that subscribers could “e-mail your friends and family all around the world a lot faster, in fact five times faster”.

A viewer was having none of it, convinced that the advertisement was misleading, because he believed that NTL’s service was only five times faster than standard dial-up internet for downloading, with upload speeds creaking along at a stately 150K.

In other words, it definitely wasn’t five times quicker a standard dial-up internet connection. No way, Jose.

Issue was also taken with the curious suggestion that emails would somehow be received “five times faster.”

NTL put up a valiant but ultimately doomed attempt to back up their claims when they were hauled in front of the ASA.

NTL 5x Faster Broadband Claims Ruled Misleading By ASA The telecoms giant insisted that it was standard industry practice to refer to the speed of broadband only in terms of download speed and, to back up their case, readily snitched on a host of competitors making similar claims.

The ASA were having none of it, pointing out that with consumers increasingly using the internet to upload digital content (e.g. photo files) they were “more likely to interpret the claim as meaning that all internet use (downloading and uploading) would be five times faster unless told otherwise.”

The ASA ruled that the advertising was misleading and that NTL should have made clear that its claim “5 times faster than standard 56K dial-up” was limited to download speed.

The Authority also found that the claim about the “five times faster” email was equally likely to mislead viewers.

Suitably chastised and ‘umbled, NTL have agreed to change the wording of future advertisements. They now have a “grace period” of three months from 8 June to ensure that their wording stays within the ASA guidelines.

NTL Broadband
ASA

EU To Unify Wireless And Broadcast Rules

EU Proposes New Broadcasting And Wireless Rules The European Commission has announced plans to create a single set of European Union rules on broadcasting and the wireless spectrum.

The proposals are aimed at easing restrictions on advertising and encouraging Internet and mobile phone media to do their thang. The proposals will also allow telecommunications companies to trade their expensive third generation mobile licenses.

At the moment it’s a bit of a free for all in Europe, with each country free to set its own broadcasting rules. The fact that the last EU guidelines were penned way back in 1989 – before mobile telephones and the Internet hit the mainstream – has added to the confusion.

“It would be unfair if traditional broadcasting were to be regulated very heavily, and new broadcasters on mobile phones and the Internet were subject to no rules,” observed Commission spokesman Martin Selmayr.

The new proposals form part of a five-year strategy to turbo-charge the European digital economy, although they’ll still have to circumnavigate acres of EU red tape, with all changes needing to be formally proposed and approved by the European Parliament and national governments.

The main thrust of the proposal by the Commission involves loosening advertising rules for traditional TV broadcasters, letting them foist more than the current advertising limit of 20% a day on hapless viewers.

The proposal will also see the end of enforced ‘ceilings’ on commercial breaks.

“These rules should be more flexible. It should be up to the programmer to decide when to interrupt a football match or a soap opera,” said Selmayr.

Currently, Internet and mobile phone broadcasters are compelled to respect diverging national rules, which could cover anything from security to anti-racist legislation. The new proposals would mean that they would only have to comply with their own country’s domestic broadcasting rules.

EU Proposes New Broadcasting And Wireless Rules Europe is also looking to free up the highly lucrative wireless spectrum – currently worth something like €9 billion (~US$11bn ~£6bn) a year – and hopes that digital frequencies used by services such as mobile phone operators, police radar and radio will be brought under centralised EU control by the end of 2005.

“Such a policy is required if we want to make efficient and cross-border use of this very valuable economic resource,” insisted Information Society and Media Commissioner Viviane Reding said.

EU officials have stated that by centralising control of the use and trading of spectrum and frequencies, the trading of third-generation mobile licenses could be sped up.

Most national regulators have made 3G license trading verboten, with many telecoms companies being forced to take on an almighty pile of debt to buy the licenses.

The proposals were welcomed by ETNO, a lobby group for Europe’s telecommunications networks operators, while adding that “one of the main challenges of the initiative will be to develop a set of policies that continue to foster competition whilst at the same time creating incentives to innovate.”

European Commission
i2010 – A European Information Society for growth and employment

Music Fans To SMS Bands Onstage

Music Fans Can Text Messages Onstage Back in the old days when Glastonbury was a field of medieval mud occupied by confused hippies and LSD travellers, the customary way to show your appreciation of the band was to flash the occasional peace sign or waft a spliff skywards.

Come the punk revolution, and there was no better way to show your love for a band than by propelling copious amounts of phlegm in their direction.

By the 80s, over-excited fans felt the best way to express a heartfelt love for a band was to clamber onstage and then stage dive back into the audience, while the E’d up 90s rave generation couldn’t get it together to work out where the stage was so just swirled fluoro things around their person instead.

In America, it was a somewhat different story, with concert goers traditionally expressing a curious penchant for holding lighters aloft, a craze that never really caught on in Blighty because, frankly, it looks really daft.

Music Fans Can Text Messages Onstage For today’s hi-tech toy generation, new ways of bigging up a band have developed.

Mobile phones have ensured that lighters have been replaced by the blue glow of mobile phones, with forests of camera phones springing up and down at concerts like demented flamingos.

Not surprisingly, this swaying sea of interactive technology soon caught the attention of The Man, who quickly saw an opportunity to coin in it from the captive crowd.

Step forward Boomerang Mobile Media who, in partnership with Strategic Artists Management, have come up with the idea of allowing fans to send SMS messages to the band and then see their words appear on a big onstage screen. For a price, naturally.

Fans don’t even have to be at the gig, with sofa loafers stoned at home watching the gig on TV also able to ‘enjoy’ the thrill of seeing their texted mumblings appear onstage.

The concept’s already been tested out on a promotional tour for Anastacia in Europe, where around ten percent of the attendees were happy to hand over 1 euro each (~£0.68 ~US$1.26) for the privilege of blasting inane messages onstage for all to see.

Music Fans Can Text Messages Onstage We’re not sure what the remaining 90% of the crowd thought of this pointless onscreen nonsense, but we’d be reaching for our phone zappers in double quick time.

Call us old fashioned if you will, but when we go to gigs we want to see the band and not be distracted by an endless stream of “KT LUVS THE KLRZ 4EVER” and “WIL U MARRY ME THOM?” beaming in our faces.

Simon Renshaw, of Strategic Artists Management, soaked up every cash-till ringing minute of the show: “Fans loved the concept and were sending multiple text messages to our stage front screens in an effort to see their names, talk to their friends, tell Anastacia how much they love her and win prizes.”

“Fans were so excited about it that marriage proposals were proffered onscreen,” he gushed.

But the real profit may come from turning the band’s backdrop into a giant size virtual mall, with audiences able to call in and buy merchandise advertised throughout the gig.

Boomerang Mobile Media founder and CEO Glenn Field rubbed his hands and explained the scheme: “You see something you like, and we deliver it to your home.”

As Sid Vicious and the ghost of Rock’n’Roll reached maximum RPM in their graves, he continued, “These are exclusive items purchased through the security of your phone, and the day it should have arrived you’ll get a follow-up phone call to confirm you received it.”

Boomerang Mobile Media and Strategic Artists Management are already dreaming up additional e-commerce opportunities, including the ability to allow fans to send camera-phone pictures to the venue screens along with their text messages

No interactive stone is being left unturned in their attempts to fleece, sorry, offer maximum interactive retail opportunities, to the hapless punter.

The first time a consumer buys from Boomerang via a mobile, a live operator will jump into action and invite the user to register a personal PIN for future purchases and other products.

This can then be used to milk fans dry with subsequent mobile-only ‘exclusive’ offers, pre-orders and a myriad of other pocket-draining merchandising discounts.

Boomerang are applying the marketing experience they gained last year when working with Def Jam Recordings artist Ghostface on a festival bill.

“We allowed Ghostface to connect with fans who either were fans or who heard his music that day and became fans,” Field enthused.

“We projected a number inviting people to interact – to meet him, visit him on the tour bus, things like that – and when you called you heard a recorded message from Ghostface. People got to hear their favourite artist talk to them on their most personal device.”

Cash from chaos, anyone?

Boomerang Mobile Media

It’s all Gone Pete Tong: First Advert on UK 3G Mobiles

UK’s first video mobile network, 3, has announced the first advert to be broadcast over a 3G service.

The 30 second advert promotes a new cinema release and is the result of a video mobile marketing agreement between 3, mobile marketing services provider Flytxt and RedBus Film Distribution.

3’s customers will be able to download a trailer of the new British cult film “It’s all Gone Pete Tong” – a Toronto film festival award-winner – released in UK cinemas on 26 May.

Notably, this is the first time that 3G has been introduced into the traditional marketing blitz of TV, online and print media, and may well prove a precursor to future advertising campaigns.

The clip will be launched in mid-May and made available via ‘Today on 3’, with the first 100,000 customers able to download the clip for nowt.

Viewers will be able to view clips from the “hilarious” comedy, and obtain information about the film, the plot and its stars.

Gareth Jones, COO, 3 energised: “This is a very exciting development; advertisers now have a new and targeted visual medium with which to reach consumers.

As the UK’s largest video mobile operator, we know what our customers enjoy watching over 3G, we also know the profile of our customers, this means that adverts or paid-for content can be tailored and relevant, so the consumer wins too.”

Pamir Gelenbe, co-founder and Director of Corporate Development, Flytxt was equally chuffed: “We’re delighted to be working with 3, the UK’s leading 3G network on such an innovative approach to mobile marketing and advertising. The advantage for brand owners is that mobile marketing combines the wide reach of TV with the precision of DM and the tracking potential of the Internet. ”

“It’s All Gone Pete Tong” examines the life of superstar DJ Frank Wilde and has been praised as ‘Sharp, funny and mind-blowingly good’ by those connoisseurs of taste, The Sun TV Mag.

We’re always up for a bit of free content when we get to choose to download it or not, but the cynics amongst us can’t help suspecting that mobile advertisers might become a little more aggressive in the future, with ‘promotions’ rapidly turning into mobile spam…

3 (UK)
It’s All Gone Pete Tong

Google AdWords Move Up A Gear

Google AdWords Move Up A Gear In a quest to blast their already soaring profits further up into the stratosphere, Google will test a cost-per-impression bidding model for AdWords ads, letting advertisers specify groups of sites or specific sites in Google’s ad network.

Instead of the current cost-per-clickthrough method used for text listings on its search and content networks, advertisers would set a maximum cost-per-thousand impressions price.

Google said it would operate a single auction to determine which ad to show based on the effective cost per thousand (CPM).

Advertisers would have to bid a minimum of US$2 (£1.04/€1.54) to reach a thousand people, while competing against other promoters for the same inventory, potentially leading to lucrative price wars for popular keywords, Web sites or categories.

The site-targeted ads will include static banner ads as well as animated formats – a move sure to annoy hapless surfers already weary of wriggling, spinning and rotating gizmos.

Google AdWords Move Up A Gear Google has, however, promised limitations on the animated advertising fluff that can appear on their adverts, with blinking ads that continuously loop already declared verboten.

Advertisers will be able to manage ads from their Google AdWords account and create their own “ad networks” by entering the URLs or themes and topics of sites where they’d like to slap up their adverts.

Google will then produce a list of suggested sites (along with a maximum number of impressions for each site), letting advertisers select the sites to run their ads.

The advertising space will come in four formats – banners, skyscrapers, wide skyscrapers and leaderboards – with Google checking submitted ads for “appropriateness”.

Google AdWords Move Up A Gear The search engine heavyweights are hoping that the approach will appeal to advertisers who are fussy about where their brand appears or are aiming for a certain niche demographic.

“This is the first step toward meeting as many of our advertisers’ needs as possible,” said Tim Armstrong, Google’s vice president of advertising sales.

Google’s move comes as arch-rivals Yahoo prepare a significant expansion of its own service to place ads on other websites, also expected to include graphical ads.

Google

Google Profits Up Fivefold

Google Profits Up Fivefold Champagne corks were popping like manic machine gun fire at Google yesterday as the company reported a thumping fivefold increase in profits in the first quarter.

The Californian search giant purred loudly as it revealed that net income for the quarter ended 31 March, based on generally accepted accounting principles, was $369 million (£193/€282m) or $1.29 (£0.67/€0.98) a share, compared with a measly $64 million (£33.5m/€49m) or 24 cents a share, for the same period a year ago.

Naked execs excitedly rolled around in beds covered in dollar notes* as revenues for the quarter racked up to $1.26 billion (£0.65bn/€0.96bn), a massive 93 percent increase from the previous year.

“This was a very strong quarter for Google,” revelled Eric Schmidt, chief executive for Google, “We continue to execute well and we have been able to take full advantage of the growth in online advertising.”

Internet advertising revenue as a whole is becoming a large, well-fed cash cow, increasing by 32 percent last year to just under $9.6 billion (£5.02bn/€7.34bn), compared with $7.3 billion (£3.81m/€5.58m) in 2003, according to the Interactive Advertising Bureau.

Google’s own sites, which rely heavily on paid search results and on users clicking on ads, brought home $657 million (£343.6m/€501.7m) – 52 percent of the company’s total revenues and a 116 percent increase over the same quarter a year ago.

Google Profits Up Fivefold Revenues generated from Google’s partner sites through its AdSense programs generated $584 million, or 47 percent of revenues, – a hefty 75 percent increase over partner-related revenues a year ago.

They’ve also been bulk-buying new desks and chairs and introducing crowd control around the water cooler at Google, with the company hiring another 461 employees since the end of the fourth quarter last year, bringing the total up to 3,482 full-time employees.

(*we may be exaggerating slightly here)

Google

Advertising in Games Forum predicts $1Bn in revenue 2010

Advertising in Games Forum predicts $1 Billion advertising revenue in US by 2010 Last week, 250 executives from advertising agencies, game developers and publishers swarmed into the first annual Advertising in Games Forum on 14 April 2005 in New York City.

The audience, primarily made up of sharp-suited, silver tongued advertising agency executives, were there to discover more about market opportunities and expectations within the game industry.

According to the organisers, The Game Initiative, attendees were treated to a feast of ‘key facts, figures and estimates’ spun out by leading industry experts at the forum.

In a bullet point-laden onslaught of PowerPoint presentations, these key facts emerged:

According to the Yankee Group, advertising in games is expected to rise to US$800 million in 2009 from nearly US$120 million in 2004.

Around US$266 million – that’s more than one-third of advertising in games in 2009 – will come from (wait for it) “advergaming.”

Advertising in Games Forum predicts $1 Billion advertising revenue in US by 2010 For the benefit of buzzword-deficient execs, Yankee Group senior analyst Mike Goodman explained that this hideous word describes what you get when advertisers create a game around a product rather than place their brands within a well-known title.

Mitch Davis, chief executive of video game ad network Massive Inc., whipped the watching execs into a frenzy of monetary expectation when he revealed that the audience video game advertising would top US$1 billion in the United States by 2010, and approach US$2.5 billion worldwide.

Anita Frazier, Entertainment Industry Analyst, NPD Group opened up her big book marked ‘Facts’ and informed the Advertising In Games Forum audience that there are 100 million game capable cell phones currently in the Marketplace – with 65% of the population owning a cell phone.

The sound of keenly rubbing palms grew to a crescendo as Frazier announced that within 16 months all cell phones in the marketplace should be game capable and thus brimming with cash-raking, game-downloading potential.

Advertising in Games Forum predicts $1 Billion advertising revenue in US by 2010 Fact-bloated attendees also learned that the top selling 2004 game titles (according to the NPD Group) were:

Grand Theft Auto San Andreas – 5.5 million sold since launch
Halo 2 on X box – 4.5 million units sold since launch
Madden NFL 2004 on PS 2 – 3.5 million units sold since launch
ESPN NFL 2K5 -1.6 million units sold since launch
Need for Speed Underground 2 -1.7 million units since launch

The top selling PC title of 2004 was Sims 2 with 750,000 units sold.

The ‘best selling game title of all time’ title goes to Grand Theft Auto Vice City with a massive 6.5 million units shifted, with Super Mario 64 on the N64 coming in second with an impressive 6.0 million units.

Game Initiative