Have you ever wondered why there are is no advertising on loading screens of Flash-heavy sites? So does Adverlab , and they really raised a good point. I actually tend to skip Flash-based sites if they don’t load at once, and I dont think I am alone. Taking advantage of the loading time is actually a very good idea for either advertising or information snippets.
Piper Jaffray just published a fat report called "The User Revolution: The New Advertising Ecosystem and The Rise of the Internet as a Mass Medium". Here are some of its key findings:
- We expect global online advertising revenue to reach $81.1 billion by 2011, representing a 21% CAGR (2006-2011).
- The User Revolution. The advertising world is going through a revolution, one that we call the "User Revolution" as it is happening primarily with the consumers, who are taking control of content consumption and branding. We believe this trend will cause a significant rise in prominence of the Internet as a major content consumption and marketing medium.
- "Communitainment." The Internet has increasingly become a principal medium for community, communication, and entertainment–three areas that have collided together and are impacting each other’s growth–generating a new type of activity that we call communitainment.
- The Internet Is Mainstream. The Internet has become a mainstream media outlet that now rivals traditional media for reach and advertising dollars.
- Media Fragmentation. The proliferation of online and offline media outlets has resulted in shrinking television audiences and an increasingly fragmented media landscape.
- The Golden Search. We believe search continues to gain ground, driven by the rise of search as the New Portal, the increasing use of search in branding campaigns, and the local search opportunity.
- We believe Google’s wide variety of non-search-related products creates a virtuous cycle of brand affinity that drives incremental search volume.
- Video Ads Could Drive The Next Wave. We believe Internet video ads could become a game changer for large brand advertisers, who are used to the 15- or 30-second TV commercial
- Internet Usage Patterns Are Changing. Portals maintain the highest reach, but the fastest growing category of destinations is communitainment sites such as MySpace and Facebook.
- Ad networks are experiencing increased demand due to increasing Internet fragmentation, desire for more targeted inventory, increasing usage of networks for branding, and increased site visibility.
- Agencies are rapidly evolving into more sophisticated, technology-savvy entities that combine best of breed offerings.
- Companies to watch: Google (and YouTube), Yahoo!, Disney, News Corp, Time Warner, Microsoft, InterActive, Facebook, Craigslist, Brightcove, Yelp, SINA Corp., Baidu, aQuantive, ValueClick, 24/7 Media, Netflix, Wikipedia, MobiTV, Digg, and Hakia to be the most important players to watch.
Like my good friend Kaiser Kuo, Group Director for Digital Strategy, for Ogilvy China, mentions in this new (and great) blog " Ich bin ein Beijinger" : none of this should come as a surprise, but the report is full of eye-opening finding regarding the decline of TV viewing, changing viewing and decline of broadcast TV ad as percentage of total ad spend.
Kaiser who has a unique insight to China (and was very much responsible for Maxthon getting discovered and funded..) is confident that advertisers will flock to video ads and all the opportunities that are opening up for digital media advertising in China .However, he wonders how ready people really are for pre-roll commercials stuffed in to things they want to watch.
I tend to agree with Kaiser, although there is a fantastic opportunity for advertisers, the Internet savvy users might very well prefer to block ads if possible. This is something we have learned at Maxthon and seems to be especially true for Chinese Internet users. Al the sophisticated ad-blockers and filters that come pre-installed in Maxthon has definitely been one of the key driving factors for Maxthon success in China.
Anyway, next week I am flying down to Beijing again to talk on Piper Jaffrays Annual China Growth Conference on behalf of Maxthon. I will then have a chance not only to meet up with Safa and rest of the Piper Jaffray gang, but also to meet with Kaiser again and plot how we can deliver some interesting advertising opportunities together in China.
Thanks to Mark Pols for sending me this fat report!
Bonus: Video Interview with Kaiser I made just before he left the Red Herring.
Since I have been working together with the London-based interactive agency Hyper Happen on a number of projects, and been loosely involved as an advisor on this one, I’ve got an exclusive preview of Nokia’s new ground-breaking piece of marketing.
In the passenger, Nokia shows a new way for users to control video on the web. To support its push to be part of the growing in-car communications market, Nokia has released a super cool site which has been developed to take interactive video to the next level.
The story:
A mysterious woman is in need of your services. She needs to reach three addresses in Paris in a short amount of time. It is going to take all your driving talents to get her to her destinations.
‘The Passenger’ experience sets the viewer in the murky ‘film noir’ world of night time Paris. The video is superb, fun and coupled with great interaction.
Along the way, you have to utilise the functions of the Nokia Multimedia Car Kit CK-20W in order to reach the destination and get the pay-off of the final scene. And if you drive the wrong way, you’ll find yourself insulted by the the rude Femme Fatal in your back seat. Who reminds me of Meryl Streep in the Devil wears Prada..
Background:
The driving footage was shot with a car-mounted camera in all the streets of the iIle de St. Louis over 3 nights in November 2006, with additional scenes filmed at the Tour Eiffel, the Arc de Triomphe and the Heliport de Paris.
Daniel Goodall, Digital Marketing Manager for Enhancement Products at Nokia says that “The Passenger’ mixes video and gameplay in a way that we don’t think has happened before. All the driving is real video, real streets and fully controlled by the user”. I find it really a creative way of promoting a mobile GPS device since it puts you in the right context immediately and is fun at the same time.
‘The Passenger’ concept has been developed in conjunction with digital strategy agency Hyper Happen, working with Fuel Industries & Karbon Arc on the game engine build and video production.This is actually the phone I have been waiting for since I all the time find myself renting a Garmin GPS every time I travel to California. With this kit, it’s just plug and play 
Nokia – you know how to reach me…;)
Technorati Tags: Advertising, CK-20W, Fuel Industries, GPS, Hyper Happen, Karbon Arc, Nokia, Paris, Mobile , The Passenger
Ad Age tells us that that according to a study done by Frank N. Magid Associates ,among those actually planning to purchase a video iPod, 72% said they would be more likely to download a TV program in exchange for watching an ad. The Magid study surveyed 798 iPod owners between the ages of 12 and 55.
“It appears that the option to download content of choice for free will dramatically increase interest in purchasing a video iPod, thus potentially increasing video iPod sales and penetration,” the study concluded.
Adrants, says that this shows that people are cheap. Don’ t know about that, it seems to me that they are just smart. Why pay for something is some advertiser can?
Internetweek, just ran an article called a very good article called: IE7 Vs. Everyone Else, where they let four tech expert battel over which is the best browser. One of the experts, Ron White from Networking Computing wrote this superbt piece in support of Maxthon, as the best alternative:
The first rule of Maxthon is, “Don’t talk about Maxthon.” If Firefox and Opera are underground favorites among Web surfers, then Maxthon must be the double-dog double-secret browser. Over the last four years, Maxthon has quietly developed a base of devoted — and tight-lipped — users who make the Illuminati seem like exhibitionists. How obscure is Maxthon? It’s so obscure that, despite more than 46 million downloads, even Google barely knows about it. When I did a search for Firefox, Google yielded some 412 million hits, while a search for Maxthon returned a scant 4 million. I can get more hits than that off my own name. (Of course, it helps if you share a name with a well-known comedian.)
Usually such obscurity is well deserved. But in the case of Maxthon, it’s as though Jack Nicholson never made it out of B horror flicks. Maxthon is simply the most powerful, and yet the simplest, browser to be used anywhere, anytime, by anyone.
Ron White, really managed to capture much of the spirit of the Maxthon community by saying that we” make the Illuminati seem like exhibitionists” – that’s hilarious! Ron continues,
When you install Maxthon, it emerges on your screen fully decked out in an array of features and tools and conveniences, as if to say “We’ve anticipated everything you could possibly need for your surfing.” It’s like being on a safari with room service.
Ron then comes to what sets Maxthon apart:
What sets Maxthon apart is pure brawn. To say it browses is misleading. It blitzes the Internet like a cybertank wrapped in armor plate and studded with heavy-duty weaponry.
Finally, towards the end of the article, Ron asks, why we haven’t heard about Maxthon?:
All this invites the inevitable question, “If Maxthon is so smart, why do Firefox and Opera get all the press?” Could it be that, while Firefox and Opera have the clout of free-world capitalism behind them, Maxthon is the creation of one man, working mostly alone, in the warehouse of a company in China? (Really.) There are no PR people pushing Maxthon at CES. No advertising. No press kits.
Well, dear Maxthon brothers and sisters, I think that that Ron White has deserved to become a member of our beloved, well kept, devoted and tight-lipped fraternity. As to Ron’s question “If Maxthon is so smart, why do Firefox and Opera get all the press?”, the answer is quite simple. We are still a very small company (but we are growning..) and so far we haven’t invested any money on advertsing and PR people, but been focused on developing a great product. However, like Bob Dylan sang, “the times they are a-changing”…(in true cryptical spirit please pay attention to a few lines on the last verse..) so stay tuned for more exposure during 2006.
Technorati Tags: Maxthon, Firefox, Opera, IE7, Microsoft, Google, Illuminati, Browsers, Internet Week, Network Computing, Bob Dylan, Ron White
Couldn’t help myself….Found it in China Town – San Francisco.
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