Tuesday 25 March 2008

KTF`s SHOW a marketing success

KTF`s SHOW a marketing success
기사입력 2008-03-14 10:00

http://news.naver.com/main/read.nhn?mode=LSD&mid=sec&sid1=108&oid=044&aid=0000071843

A television commercial aired in February 2007 showed numerous sperm swimming toward an ovum in a lilac-colored womb. The ovum, upon accepting one of them, began rapid cell division.

Then there came the message: "The show begins in March - a show never seen and everyone has been waiting for."

KTF, the nation`s No.2 mobile carrier, adopted the previously taboo advertising scheme to stir curiosity about the new brand for its third-generation mobile telephone service, SHOW.

In 2007, the company started an innovative and aggressive advertising campaign in a bid to pitch the features of the SHOW 3G services such as video calling, global roaming and high-speed data service.

KTF, which was a distant runner-up to SK Telecom in the conventional 2G market, intended to transform itself into the top 3G service provider with the launch of SHOW on March 1, 2007.

None of the SHOW advertisements disclosed the name of KTF.

At the time of its inception, the nation`s 3G market was at an infant stage. The local telecom market was dominated by conventional 2G services represented by basic voice and text-messaging services.

KTF aims to jump to the first spot by taking the initiative in the nascent, but growing 3G market. For the first time in the world, KTF launched the nationwide service of High Speed Downlink Packet Assess, which gives higher data transmission speed and capacity.

The name "SHOW" intends to deliver its visual communication features such as video calling and data service.

"The 3G service has wide-ranging unique features, but what differentiates 3G service from 2G service most is visual communication functions," Shin Hoon-joo, an official of the carriers brand marketing team.

"The service offers as much fun as watching a show," he said.

The carrier came up with the name, SHOW, after 10 consumer surveys and brainstorming for nine months.

The word "SHOW" has a somewhat negative meaning in Korean, but the company hoped to grab public attention by creating controversy over the new name.

Its first ad featured world-renowned video artist Paik Nam-joon in a bid to deliver its key brand identity - innovation.

In subsequent ads, KTF also promoted the benefits of using 3G services such as video calling and global roaming - targeting families and lovers living apart.

In one commercial, a goose father - a man who lives alone in Korea after sending his wife and children overseas to study - has visual contact with his family members via mobile phone.

The company also has offered cheaper 3G handsets and competitive pricing plans so that people can use premium 3G services at affordable prices.

The prices of 3G gadgets and 3G services were cited as the major hurdle for the take-off of the fledging standard.

The new pricing programs include offering mobile internet service at discount prices. The firm also rolled out a new movie tariff plan which provides one free movie ticket per month and other benefits with its 3G users.

The movie tariff plan, which was launched in May 2007, was a hit, with over 200,000 people signing up for the service by the end of 2007.

KTF`s advertising and marketing efforts paid off, with the operator seeing fast growth in the number of its 3G users.

In April, KTF overtook its bigger rival, SK Telecom, in terms of the number of 3G subscribes, with its 3G users exceeding 300,000.

It took the company four months to attract 1 million subscribers to the new service, three months to have 2 million subscribers and one month to pass the 3-million mark. It took another two months to add 1 million subscribers.

The company swept top brand and advertising awards in 2007 for its successful launch of SHOW. KTF has been also inundated with requests for lectures on SHOW from universities and firms here and abroad.

By Jin Hyun-joo

(hjjin@heraldm.com)

Internet Advertising Competition Awards 2008

These are the winners of 2008 Internet Advertising Competition Awards

-Smashing Ideas for Nintendo Picross Evolution (Best Ads the Client Did Not Pick)
-Xylem CCI for Jack Link's Warm Wishes Email (Best of Show Email Message)
-Mr & Mrs Smith for Get A Room (Best of Show Email Message Campaign)
-Critical Mass for SUPERVALU's Selection '07 Interactive Campaign (Best of Show Integrated ad campaign)
-Texturemedia for PENTAX Photo Gallery (Best of Show Interactive Application)
-McKinney for Wakey'z Website (Best of Show Microsite/Landing Page)
-i33 communications for PBS (Best of Show Online ad)
-RDA International for NIVEA FOR MEN Up 4 Anything Dream Week Contest (Best of Show Online Campaign)
-BGT Partners and FedEx for FedEx LAC Sales Team Intranet Redesign (Best of Show Online Newsletter Campaign)
-Mullen for Mobile Nuance Type Test Banner (Best of Show Rich Media Online Ad)
-Advanced Medical Optics, Lauren Kanner and Ignite Health for Reality LASIK (Best of Show Rich Media Online Campaign)

Let me update more on this once I find the related advertisings.

Wednesday 5 March 2008

Internet Video: Advertising Experiments and Exploding Content

As proof that the Internet video revolution is truly underway, Google paid $1.65 billion for YouTube, a company not 20 months old. The aftershock of that mash-up will, all by itself, contribute to Internet video's growth. In addition, eMarketer projects video ad spending will soar 82.2% this year and 89.0% in 2007.


Attention: Advertising Agencies, Marketers, Television and Cable Executives, Film, Video and Music Producers, Newscasters and Movie Distributors.


The Internet Video report analyzes the fastest growing—and perhaps most important and far reaching—trend online today.


As elements of television and the Internet converge for both advertising and content, testing new methods of video delivery and marketing are more the rule than full-play campaigns. In other words, spending is low.


But here are some numbers to take to the bank.
Though Internet video ad spending represent only 0.6% of TV ad budgets this year, large spending gains for Internet video advertising are down the road—and not too far.


By 2010, one in ten dollars devoted to Internet advertising will go for video placements.
Key questions the "Internet Video" report answers:
What factors most support the spread of Internet video advertising?
How well do TV commercials translate to the Web?
Can you estimate how much Internet video ads cost?
Will the Google-YouTube combination help or hurt online video?
What are the essential elements for effective video ads?


And many more...


eMarketer Reports—On-Target and Up-to-Date


The Internet Video report aggregates the latest data from leading marketing and communications researchers with eMarketer numbers, projections and analysis to provide the information you need to make the right business decision—every time.

Internet Video: Advertising Experiments and Exploding Content

As proof that the Internet video revolution is truly underway, Google paid $1.65 billion for YouTube, a company not 20 months old. The aftershock of that mash-up will, all by itself, contribute to Internet video's growth. In addition, eMarketer projects video ad spending will soar 82.2% this year and 89.0% in 2007.


Attention: Advertising Agencies, Marketers, Television and Cable Executives, Film, Video and Music Producers, Newscasters and Movie Distributors.


The Internet Video report analyzes the fastest growing—and perhaps most important and far reaching—trend online today.


As elements of television and the Internet converge for both advertising and content, testing new methods of video delivery and marketing are more the rule than full-play campaigns. In other words, spending is low.


But here are some numbers to take to the bank.
Though Internet video ad spending represent only 0.6% of TV ad budgets this year, large spending gains for Internet video advertising are down the road—and not too far.


By 2010, one in ten dollars devoted to Internet advertising will go for video placements.
Key questions the "Internet Video" report answers:
What factors most support the spread of Internet video advertising?
How well do TV commercials translate to the Web?
Can you estimate how much Internet video ads cost?
Will the Google-YouTube combination help or hurt online video?
What are the essential elements for effective video ads?


And many more...


eMarketer Reports—On-Target and Up-to-Date


The Internet Video report aggregates the latest data from leading marketing and communications researchers with eMarketer numbers, projections and analysis to provide the information you need to make the right business decision—every time.

Companies struggling to find widget advertising strategy, ROI

Panel details bevy of challenges facing emerging viral marketing methods

By Heather Havenstein

March 4, 2008 (Computerworld)

SAN DIEGO --

Last week, Walker Fenton, general manager of syndication services at NewsGator Technologies Inc., met separately with officials from Home Depot, Staples and Best Buy to discuss online advertising sales strategies. Each of the retailers is still struggling to develop use cases and an ROI for online advertising, he noted.

"They still don't get the online advertising space," Fenton said. "They don't know how to monetize or build ROI use cases around a number of impressions on a Web site to sales in the store."

Fenton noted that each of the companies he spoke to remains reluctant to move away from advertising via newspaper fliers, where responses can be easily measured by analyzing sales in stores in a zip code where ads run.

Companies that create or distribute widgets -- mini-applications that can be used as advertisements that can be posted to user blogs or personalized Web pages -- are working hard to overcome such prejudices, according to executives of companies that distribute widgets who were on a panel at the Graphing Social Patterns West 2008 conference here last night.
Makers of widgets, which often rely on users to spread a campaign message "virally," face more challenges than just proving an ROI for their products. They must also deal with the common misconception that widgets quickly spread like wildfire on the Web and cause companies to give up the tight control over their marketing messages.

"From a technical perspective, you can monitor and report on just about anything under the sun -- where a widget lives, how it go there how many people have seen it," Fenton added. "There is a real education gap ... in trying to tie that into some metric that [advertisers] can build an ROI on."

Pam Webber, vice president of marketing at online widget marketplace Widgetbox Inc., said that companies must be willing to give up some control over issues like where their widget advertisements appear to effectively use the technology.

"The consumer owns your brand," she said. "The more tools you can give them to evangelize the brand, the more successful your marketing efforts will be."

Ben Pashman, vice president of business development at widget distribution and tracking company Gigya Inc., said that companies seeking to use widgets for advertising must first create plans for an end-to-end marketing campaign. Just like any other advertising campaign, companies must have a clear understanding of widget-based marketing concepts, the process of distributing widgets and how to measure success, he added.

"If any one of those three are not completely thought out ahead of time, it is destined to fail," Pashman said.

NewsGator's Fenton added that a successful widget strategy requires that companies identify the "top one or two things that people come to your [Web] site for and then you let them take it away."

For example, if a company's top function is search, then they can create a widget that allows users to make search portable; sites that focus on publishing content need to build a widget to allow users to post that content at various Web locales.

"A widget is just an extension of your Web site," he noted. "It is a little window into your content, your brand."

Another important strategy is not to fall into the common misconception that every widget created will immediately spread like wildfire over the Web, noted Hooman Radfur, founder and CEO of Clearspring Technologies Inc. "If your site is getting 100,000 unique visitors a month, you want to gauge the success of your widget relative to that," he added.

Moreover, many companies mistakenly assume that no matter what type of widget they create, that it will flourish on social Web sites, Pashman said. For example, many companies are eager to create a weekly circular type of advertisement and then try to get users to post it on Facebook, he noted. However, this type of ad would be better suited as a desktop widget, he noted.

"There is no reason why [a Facebook user's] friends are going to think they're cool or will be entertained by a widget that has daily or weekly specials," he said.