Blogs

June 23, 2008

According to a study recently released by Forrester Research, by 2013 the average person will watch five hours of video a day. That's a 25 percent increase from the average today of four hours. What makes experts predict this rise in video consumption? Forrester explains that the increasing availability of video programming through computers, phones and other devices will propel the growth. "People love their content and want to watch it no matter where they can get it. They'll even watch it on a small device, if that's the option they have," says James McQuivey, author of the study.

Other predictions from the study include:

• The percent of video viewed on demand will increase to 45% in 2013 from 20% in 2008.


• The percent of video delivered via the Internet climbs to 35% in 2013 from 10% in 2008.


• The percent of video consumed on mobile or portable devices increase to 15% in 2013 compared with 8% in 2008.

At Hammock, we believe video is powerful tool to keep in your communications arsenal. Video content engages your members or clients in a unique way that is a very effective complement to an organization's print and digital media content. That's why earlier this month, video was a focal point of the website we created for our client NFIB for its National Small Business Summit event. We posted video from the event to YouTube and pulled that, and content from other social and conversational media tools, into the Summit’s website.

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June 13, 2008

A few weeks ago my two- and a half-year old Motorola Razor's screen turned white. After troubleshooting ended in failure, I was forced to make a trip to the Verizon store. As soon as I walked in the door, I was bombarded with questions: Was I looking for a phone with email capabilities? "No." What about MP3 capabilities? "No," I responded again. The salesperson's dismay was obvious. "What about the ability to watch TV?" At this point I simply replied, "I just need to be able to call people."

I consider myself a fairly technologically savvy person, thanks to colleagues Rex and Patrick R. who keep me up-to-date on the latest and greatest tools and products, but when it comes to my cell phone I just want the basics. What I realized after my shopping experience, however, is that these days wanting a cell phone that is just a phone puts me in the minority.

I’ve recently posted about how Rodale and Hearst publishers have taken advantage of the reality that most of us are literally physically attached to our phones. If you're like me, if I forget my cell phone at home, my day feels off until I’m reunited with it. With this reality in mind, and in an effort to serve the needs of advertisers who are demanding deeper levels of engagement, calls to action, new ideas and measureable ROI, these publishers have rolled out the SnapTell and ShopText technologies to many of their titles. These code-enabled advertisements allow readers to buy items or receive promotions via text.

Today, magazine readers utilize their cell phone’s camera and texting features to take advantage of the promotions offered by these text-enabled ads, but that's just the beginning. Based on the success of these campaigns to date, I predict there will be more to come—more publishers offering more technology and more advertisers buying in. If my cell-phone-buying experience is any indication, developers are already building the next advancement that will connect readers to the magazine print ad via cell phone, elevating the interactiveness of the magazine print ad and signaling the ad campaigns of the future.

June 2, 2008

Back in December I wrote about my issue with the way The New York Times presented its “53 Places to Go in 2008” cover article for its Travel section. I explained how the digital version of the same article was far superior because of its clear and logical organization, not only in the presentation of the information but also the design.

Imagine my dismay therefore, yesterday morning, to flip to the Travel section to the “31 Places to Go this Summer” cover article to see a repeat violation. The headline grabbed my attention, but the design is another disappointment. It’s visually entertaining, creative and playful, but it doesn’t serve my need for access to the information in a concise way. I am not engaged. I quickly remembered that not all was lost as I quickly clicked on my nytimes.com bookmark. Sweet relief yet again. While the Times fails in print, it succeeds to surpass my needs with the online version of the article. The design copies that from the December article: All 31 places are presented with a small thumbnail image. Now, where will I go this summer?

May 23, 2008

I'll be out of the office Tuesday, May 27 and Wednesday, May 28. I will not have access to e-mail, so if you need to reach me, please call (615-479-0429).

May 9, 2008

Over the last year, ShopText has provided Hearst's CosmoGIRL with code-enabled advertising so that readers can text to buy items or receive promotions from advertisers. The effort has been an overwhelmingly success—one issue last year resulted in 100,000 sent texts. With advertisers struggling these days to find new ways to not only capture their target audience's attention, but also motivate them to action, the CosmoGIRL/ShopText partnership is a very successful case study in advertiser engagement.

Hoping to build on the success of the project, Hearst plans to experiment with some of its other titles, including Good Housekeeping and Oprah's magazine O. It’s a smart strategy if you consider the latest predictions from eMarketer, which forecasts spending on mobile advertising text platforms to more than triple over the next five years. While $1.47 billion was spent in 2007, eMarketer estimates that promotions and ad placements will grow to $4.5 billion by 2012.

These are big numbers, but I'm still not sold that the texting platform will translate to the Good Housekeeping and O demographics. Readers of CosmoGIRL are completely immersed in texting as an integral part of their social interaction with peers. The same can't be said of the predominantly older readers of Good Housekeeping and O.

April 29, 2008

It's not surprising with ad pages down that magazines are pulling out all the stops for advertisers in an attempt to gain more pages and boost revenues. Earlier this month Starbucks played with Bon Appetit's masthead and now Men's Health has entered the game. If you are a reader of Men's Health, make sure your cell phone is handy when reading its July/August issue.

Every one of the issue’s ads will be camera-phone readable, thanks to an image recognition technology from SnapTell. When readers snap a photo of an ad they'll receive instant promotions—from ringtones to coupons to wallpaper. The set-up is especially attractive for advertisers because of its integrated call to action and defined measurement. With advertisers chasing engagement metrics, it's clear why the platform appeals to them.

April 16, 2008

I'll be out of the office Thursday, April 17 and Friday, April 18. I will have limited access to email, so if you need to reach me, please call (615-479-0429).

April 15, 2008

In a recent issue of the e-mail newsletter Online Spin, Max Kalehoff provided the following thoughtful description of the role your company Web site must play in today's digital marketplace.

Web Site As Brand Hub. For most businesses, the Web must become your brand hub. The Web site is the anchor for a range of critical actions in the consideration and purchase funnel. It is where search engines discover brands and where they direct prospects. It is the currency of pass-along when others wish to refer or recommend you. It is where the most engaged prospects learn about your brand, or fail to learn what they need to know in order to engage further. It is often a critical repository for collecting names, demographic information, purchase intentions and behaviors. It is a listening mechanism and interaction platform when customers do wish to engage. For many businesses, it’s where transactions actually take place, and services are rendered. It increasingly is where people turn when things go wrong, and the place where problems are corrected, or not. It is where companies have the choice to engage intimately with customers, or instill a cold, faceless façade. As the marketplace increasingly goes digital, the Web site should play a central role in leading a company’s key customer performance metrics to drive overall marketing strategy.

At Hammock, we agree that Web sites play a powerful role in building stronger relationships, but your site must be optimized for this type of interaction in order for it to be successful. We recommend the adoption and integration of social media tools such as blogs, photo or video sharing applications, and wikis to help initiate this engagement and conversation with your audience.

Want to get started but aren't sure what to do first? Contact us. We'll provide an assessment of your site and make recommendations for what changes are needed to transform your site into a destination online, fully optimized for this Web 2.0 world.

April 11, 2008

Starbucks recently sent an RFP to their media partners with a "call for innovation." Bon Appetit‘s well-executed response can be seen in its May issue. Readers flip to the masthead page to find the business team’s names and positions listed on a Starbucks-like chalkboard. After the headline, "What do you like best with your Starbucks coffee at home?" six members of Bon Appetit‘s staff share their favorite Starbucks pairings.

With print advertising revenues down and magazines fighting for their share of limited budgets, maybe it’s not that surprising that Bon Appetit opened up its masthead to advertising. Still, though I admit it's a clever promotion, my sense is that it crosses a line. This isn't simply advertising—by putting the “promotion” in a format that readers count on to be straight service editorial (just the facts), the page has been transformed into a Bon Appetit endorsement. Perhaps in this increasingly competitive marketplace for magazine advertising this is how "innovation" will be defined, but I'd like to think that there are better, less ethically murky ways to incorporate advertising "innovation" without requiring or encouraging members of a magazine’s staff to become advocates or spokesmen for an advertiser's product.

Update: Mediaweek reports that the Bon Appetit Starbucks masthead treatment was a one-time deal.

April 9, 2008

Last month there was a splash in the agency world when the Boston-based agency Modernista launched its new Web site. But this wasn't your typical agency Web site. Modernista's new site looks like this:

What? That's right—Modernista's homepage looks like a Wikipedia entry. Your eye is guided to the red area at the top where you read:

"Do not be alarmed. You are viewing Modernista through the eyes of the Web. The menu on the left is our homepage. Everything behind it is beyond our control."

I applaud the bold statement Modernista is making with this approach. By structuring their site in such a creative, extreme way, the agency is illustrating not only that they "get" social media, but that it’s the right choice for anyone looking for an interactive, dynamic, cutting-edge ad agency.

Modernista and Hammock share a similar philosophy that embraces social media, and while Modernista exploits the medium a little more radically, their site and ours have a lot in common. We both post examples of our work on an easy to update, easy to view Flickr account. They post their digital work on del.icio.us, a social media bookmarking site; Hammock.com’s Industry News is fed from our del.icio.us account, too. Like Hammock.com, Modernista also utilizes the features of YouTube and Google Maps.

At Hammock, we believe that social media should become an integral part of corporate and association communications today. Like Modernista, we often demonstrate ways a site can take advantage of the benefits of online communities, such as Facebook, del.icio.us, YouTube and Twitter. We invest our time and energy into learning and utilizing these platforms because we're convinced the old static Web site model is not only a thing of the past, but will prevent organizations from accomplishing their communications goals. To engage with your members or clients, you must utilize these new tools to connect with your audience online.

Barbara Logan

Director of Marketing

o: 615.690.3415