Five by Five

Check out your copies of Marketing Week’s Interactive Seven supplement today, turn to pages 26 and 27 and you’ll find this fetching ad and the following article from Steve Sponder, our Chief Digital Officer, on the importance of online advertising.

You can download the supplement here - Interactive Seven

Interactive Brand Experiences

People don’t separate the message they receive from a brand based on where they see or hear it. The Internet Advertising Bureau states that the internet now accounts for 18.7% of the total UK advertising market, with press display at 19.3% and TV at 21.7%. What we do online either adds to or takes away from the overall brand experience.

The challenge for brand owners is two fold. Where do you put your message; and once you have the space, how do you get a smarter and more selective consumer to engage with your content?

Here in lies the opportunity. Digital production is ever-evolving and more accessible than ever before, so every brand has the option to create richer and deeper brand experiences online. Campaign ideas can be created and expressed seamlessly across a growing spectrum of media - perhaps for the first time, ideas can be boundaryless.

Online advertising provides different spaces to build a brand experience. What makes digital advertising different and exciting for both brand owner and consumer is that online ads aren’t static. Consumers can interact with the content, play games within the space, watch multiple video streams, buy stuff and even change the ad themselves.

In today’s digital age, concepts for online advertising are increasingly being put at the centre of the campaign rather than an after thought. Brand storytelling can happen in different spaces that are linked together, with digital providing the richest part of the story.

Online advertising is by far the most measurable, reactive and immersive advertising medium. Data and ROI are part and parcel of any digital offering. Better still, you don’t have to wait to the end of the campaign to find out how it went. Data is immediate, optimisation is in real-time. Technological versatility also allows for effective campaigns to be rolled out globally and easily personalised to the end audience.

Brand owners have always known that it takes great branded experiences to engage audiences. Embrace the opportunity to find new and innovative ways to do this through digital advertising and you will get great results.

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The hangovers have faded and we’re pleased to be the recipients of silver at the E-consultancy Innovation Awards.

Our dynamic affiliate banners for B&Q scooped a respectful silver in the Innovation in Online Acquisition category. Check out the work entered and the great praise we received from ZenithOptimedia.

B&Q Dynamic Banners

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There’s lots of clapping of hands and patting on backs here today as we’ve learnt that Five by Five have been shortlisted in the E-consultancy Innovation Awards!

Our bespoke affiliate banner tool developed for our client, B&Q, has been shortlisted in the Innovation in Online Acquisition Category, alongside GAME Stores Group, Synthetix, Online Media Group and Thomas Cook.

The software allows the client to update offers in real time across all their affiliate sites, a tool that has greatly increased click though rates and ROI.

Watch this space on 2nd December when we hope to announce scooping a win!

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With lots of opinions out there on the current financial position, will online marketing spend increase or decrease??.

A collection of opinions are outlined below from eMarketer source.

eMarketer’s latest projections, released in August saw online advertising growing from $24.5 billion in 2008 to $28.5 billion in 2009. For the first half of 2008, the IAB reported 15.2% growth for online ad spending, which is in line with eMarketer’s predictions. Even though the predictions were published before the recent outpouring of negative financial news, there is still a consensus among many analysts that spending growth for online advertising will continue to show double-digit gains in both 2008 and 2009.

According to a June McKinsey & Co. survey of 340 senior marketing executives worldwide, 91% are using online advertising, and over one-half indicate that their companies plan to maintain or exceed current levels where possible. Even more telling, 55% of marketers said they’re cutting expenditures on traditional media, precisely in order to increase funding for online efforts.

Even more-bullish expectations for digital spending were cited by respondents in an Epsilon CMO survey conducted in September. Among 175 senior marketing executives, 63% expected increases for interactive/online marketing spending for 2008; only 14% expected a reduction.

This month, a survey by MarketingProfs, of 600 US marketers, found that 60% planned to increase their spending on online advertising in reaction to the downturn.

Of course, there are analysts and pundits who have a far graver view of the state of online advertising. They see the general bullishness behind online ad spending growth as overblown, misplaced or just plain foolish. As Sandeep Agrarwal, an analyst with banking firm Collins Stewart, recently said in an interview with Advertising Age (October 13, 2008), “Failed banks… job losses and lower consumer confidence now characterize the macroeconomy. We believe this will hurt the Internet sector more than currently believed.”

Even more negative is another banker, Bill Morrison, of ThinkPanmure, who sees online advertising spending sinking like a rock, to only 3% growth in 2009. Said Mr. Morrison, “We believe it is prudent for investors to expect significantly lower growth in Internet advertising next year.”

Lets watch this space