R/GA Takes Grandy for Nike+

NEW YORK The 43rd Andy Awards today for the first time awarded the Grandy, the equivalent of best in show, to an interactive marketing program.

And if you want to visit this very cool site, especially for our Red Door runners:
http://www.nike.com/nikeplus/

Posted by pilar

5:31 PM 0 comments

Lego my Logo: Web 2.0 and 1980s Branding Aesthetics

Ahhh. The lovely 80's.

Posted by Charles

9:24 AM 0 comments

All Things Digital

Wall Street Journal launches site covering news related to digital technlogy. Select stories from the "subscriber only" WSJ.com are available free of charge here. Built on blogging platform Wordpress.

Posted by Charles

4:14 PM 0 comments

Brand awareness and recall best via online ads - Research - BizReport

Brand awareness and recall best via online ads - Research - BizReport
Good validation for using TV budget for online advertising.

Posted by Reid

2:56 PM 0 comments

Hype Report - Companies - Portfolio.com

Hype Report - Companies - Portfolio.com

Gotta love automated reporting. This fun little gadget on portfolio.com (a new business publication) dynamically tracks companies and executives who are being blogged about.

Posted by Reid

9:15 AM 0 comments

AllThingsD

A new publication by Dow Jones (think "Wall Street Journal") designed for us and some of the things we care about here at Red Door: AllThingsD

Right now, it looks pretty heavy on design/layout and light on content, but the writers and content that is there looks pretty good and broad. This is definitely an RSS feed to subscribe to and maybe even visit every once in a while.

Posted by Reid

9:10 AM 0 comments

Influential Interactive Marketing: A Few Non-boring Ways to Use Twitter For Marketing

Influential Interactive Marketing: A Few Non-boring Ways to Use Twitter For Marketing

If you don't know about it already, you really need to understand it. This blog post from Rohit Bhargava really describes Twitter well, plus gives you a few good ideas on how to use this new marketing platform (yes, it can be a marketing - as well as a research - platform).

Definitely read this post, think about it and maybe add your own marketing ideas.

Posted by Reid

9:42 AM 0 comments

Experian purchase Hitwise for $240 million

Posted by Reid

2:57 PM 0 comments

Microsoft unveils Silverlight as Flash killer

Microsoft rebadges WPF (Windows Presentation Foundation) as 'Silverlight' with the intent to challenge Adobe's Flash plugin. Compatiable with all browsers and leveraged by the new Windows server software 'Longhorn', the technology is positioned to give Flash a run for its money.

Posted by damo

11:26 AM 0 comments

Adobe's new Media Player: bring it on, QuickTime and WMP

Adobe today releases a new standalone media player with web connectivity.

Posted by damo

11:11 AM 0 comments

Google to Dominate Internet Advertising

Over the weekend, we heard Google acquired DoubleClick for $3.1billion. Earlier this month, BusinessWeek asked the question, “Is Google Too Powerful?”, and now eMarketer’s David Hallerman suggests Google will become a monopoly because it will own over 25 percent of the market. Google’s projected online ad revenues for 2007 are expected to net $6.3 billion, and the total U.S. online ad revenues are projected at $19.5 billion.

Google is a major gateway to the web, since about 400 million users per month logon to their Google home page. Everyone knows Google has extensive data on user search and behavior. Just think what it can do with all this data by serving targeted ads along with relevant results.

Recently, Hitwise reported that Google owns 64 percent of the search market share. That leaves 22 percent for Yahoo, 9 percent for Live Search, 3 percent for Ask and 5 percent for the other search engines. Other estimates of Google’s market share may be lower, but Google dominates and has for years.

While Google dominates the paid search market ($10.6 billion in paid search revenues in 2006), it has been struggling to get a toehold in print and radio advertising. Watch Google dominate the advertising market with the DoubleClick acquisition. This will help Google make inroads into display advertising with DoubleClick’s involvement in all areas of Internet advertising.

Google co-founder Sergey Brin believes display advertising is important, and DoubleClick CEO David Rosenblatt believes display ads could grow as much as search has over the past few years.

Paid search is expected to account for over 40 percent of online advertising (projected at $19.5 billion) in 2007 (eMarketer). On the other hand, display advertising came to $3.34 billion in 2006 and is projected to reach $4.5 billion by 2010 (eMarkter). Paid search came to $6.76 billion in 2006 and is projected at $10.3 billion by 2010. Display ads will likely do better as targeting improves. Already, marketers are investing in search retargeting by displaying banners on sites where site visitors will likely visit, and these services are slated to increase as conversions increase with retargeting. Additionally, ad networks are getting better at targeting site visitors based on past behavior.

The personalization of the web all bodes well for Google, and Google is at the forefront of personalization.

The only fly in the ointment is that with Google’s vast database, B2B searches are not as relevant as they can be. Last year’s Outsell study shows a search failue rate of 31.9 percent for business users, and vertical search engines are becoming more popular with business and professional users who need specific industry information and fast. Additionally, with Google’s business so diversified, it needs super organizational development skill to keep from becoming a slow corporate giant that can’t resond quickly to market fluctuations.

Source: BusinessWeek

Source: eMarketer

Posted by Paul J. Bruemmer

9:30 AM 0 comments

Large Advertisers Increase Search Spend 25 Percent This Year

Jupiter Research reports that 25 percent of large advertisers plan to increase search spending by over 25 percent this year. An additional 28 percent plan increases between 11 percent and 25 percent. These are companies with annual revenues of $50 million or more.

Reasons for the hefty increases are based on the expectation that keyword prices will continue to rise, and these companies realize the branding value of search marketing so they are adjusting their budgets accordingly.

Besides keyword inflation, marketers face the challenge of more complexity with running search campaigns with campaign management tools and the necessity of tracking campaigns to ensure efficiency.

Companies of all sizes have had to adjust to more complex marketing strategies, and search is at the forefront. Even the large companies that formerly ignored search have now acknowledged that search is an essential marketing tool.

Source: Mediapost

Posted by Paul J. Bruemmer

12:54 PM 0 comments

Google-The Ultimate Money Making Machine

A comparison of Google's business model to traditional brick & mortar set ups, and why the tradiontal supply demand curve doesn't follow suit in the online world.

"So how does Google compare to Starbucks, which is a very good money making machine in the real world? The key differences between Google and Starbucks are:

-Starbucks spends money on expansion, but Google ads spread themselves;
-Starbucks spends a lot of money on maintenance, Google spends little;
-Starbucks spends money on marketing, but businesses flock to Google because it just works;
-Starbucks relies on people, Google relies on software."

Posted by TCarrillo

10:09 AM 0 comments

Google Voice Local Search

Google Voice Local Search is Google’s experimental service (4-10-07)to make local-business search accessible over the phone.

Posted by Paul J. Bruemmer

8:12 AM 0 comments

eMarketer Statistics: Few Convert at Retail E-Commerce Sites

A significant point of the story is that there are some sites with high conversion rates that others should consider emulating. The highest rated from the article was ProFlowers.com, a San Diego company. Could their secret be that good weather and an avid local UX contingent makes for their 25% conversion rates (compared to the vast majority at less than 5%)?

Posted by Reid

10:02 AM 0 comments