Thursday, 28 February 2013

New IAB Aus report shows strong mobile and video growth

The Australian Interactive Advertising Bureau (IAB) recently released its annual online report which confirmed that mobile and video are quickly becoming the new superstars of digital.

With $3.3 billion being spent on digital in 2012, market expectations were exceeded by 18%.

Mobile advertising grew by a staggering 220% compared to standard advertising (flash ads etc.) which grew by 10%.


Standard advertising is still dominated by motor vehicles, finance and real estate however, the biggest increases in expenditure came from retail and FMCG as they switch to more of an online focus.

- Luke

Facebook ads will soon target based on your offline shopping habits

As a result of some key partnerships that Facebook announced on Wednesday of this week, they will soon be able to target their ads based on a person's offline shopping habits. 

Data mining firms such as Datalogix, Acxiom and Epsilon have signed a deal with the social media giant which will see them sharing their records about customer's offline purchases to Facebook's Custom Audiences product. In addition, Facebook is also working with BlueKai "as a marketing data platform to bring a brand's first party site data to use for targeting on Facebook". Facebook Custom Audiences saw a release in August 2012 and lets advertisers identify users by their Facebook ID, phone number or email address (for example, Pizza Hut online customers could be found and targeted).

While Facebook advertising continues to blur the lines between being a monetary source for the company and removing the privacy of their users, Facebook were quick to elaborate that only pre-defined targeting categories will be available such as “soda drinkers” or “auto-intenders”.

“For example, an auto dealer may want to customize an offer to people who are looking to buy a new car. To do this today, many businesses work with third parties to better understand how to identity and reach that audience. With today's updates businesses can now do this same thing by showing ads to people on Facebook who may be in the market for a new car.”

Facebook also stated that they will not be sharing personal information about users with marketers and the option is always there, as with all other Facebook ads, to opt out at any time.    

- Luke

Wednesday, 27 February 2013

Facebook's Graph Search

It has been just over one month since Facebook made the announcement that Graph Search would be coming. Originally speculated as being Facebook's answer to a search engine, these rumours were quickly put to rest by Facebook co-founder, Mark Zuckerberg himself.


“Graph search is not web search, it’s about graphing our part of the web.”                  - Mark Zuckerberg   

In demonstrations, Zuckerberg and the tool’s creators showed how you can use ‘Graph Search’ to dig through the massive amounts of information on the site to find exactly who or what you want to find. The tool essentially allows you to put natural queries into a search engine to make it easier to dig information out of the site. The searches will initially be limited to people, places, interests and photos, but posts and status messages will be searchable this way as well at some point in the future.

But how will Facebook Graph Search affect businesses? 

Thanks to the roll-out of a beta test we are able to find out. After spending several weeks on the waiting list, my account was granted access. After logging into Facebook one morning, I noticed that Graph Search had replaced the previous search function that appears in each accounts news feed.





By clicking within the search area, the user is met with various suggestions on how to begin their search.  





As a user, the first thing you notice is the ease in which the search algorithm guides you through what you are wanting to find. For instance, a search for 'People who are fans of KFC NZ' is text-predictive and quickly takes you to an analysis of the KFC NZ fan base. 





From here the user is able to further delve into the KFC NZ fan base through the 'Refine this search' and 'Extend this search' functions, as shown to the right in the image above. By going to 'More pages they like' the user can then see pages which have the highest crossover with KFC NZ.





It doesn't take very long to get familiar with how to use the search function and from here the user is able to go as in-depth as they wish. Searching the KFC NZ fan base for fans based in New Zealand can be used across a variety of categories, such as the below image which shows the top two athletes that are liked by KFC NZ fans. 





In addition to searching these categories, direct searches can also be done. This means that a Marketing Manager can use Facebook to see if there is a strong correlation between customers (Facebook fans) and an upcoming promotional opportunity (e.g. movie releases, sports teams, concerts etc.). Although early days yet, Graph Search does have benefits for businesses, albeit it is best suited to act as a guide to get to better know your customer base and should be considered an indicator for finding possible correlations as opposed to hard fact.          

- Luke


Tuesday, 26 February 2013

Imagine if you could eat yourself....



Stumbled upon this: Imagine being able to create a your own gummi doppleganger. The model in the middle looks a bit awkward in that Gummi Bear dress... I think there's going to be lots of sore tummies around if we were to hoard this gummie bear around...(like Homer and his sandwich)

- Enna

Harlem Shake??



As you may or may not have heard: We have/had been hit with the viral case of the "Harlem Shake". What is the "Harlem Shake"? It has nothing to do with the district of Harlem, NY but is a meme created by some teens in Queensland, Australia. These teens happen to choose a song named "Harlem Shake" for their meme. It starts out with someone dressed with a helmet/obscene costume dancing in gyrating pelvic thrusting movements for 15 seconds (while everyone is mind their own business). Then when the bass line drops, everyone dances crazily and often with weird props or costumes.

Corporations have also caught onto this "Harlem" bug.... Carl's Jr US has submitted their Facebook a fan version, and KFC US has their "Harland Shake".

I wonder if this fad will last as long as Kony 2012?

- Enna