ResearchTalk » Integrity

Yin and Yang?

ResearchTalk — Wed, 26 Mar 2008 21:10:09 +0000

Keeping New Media Advertising Honest

ResearchTalk — Mon, 10 Mar 2008 19:18:45 +0000

Our Spotlight column in the Oct ‘07 edition of ESOMAR’s Research World. Grab your copy here.

Now that new media accounts for a significant portion of advertising revenues, advertising bodies are investigating how to future-proof its self-regulatory framework.

Breaking news: as far as advertising goes, the internet’s not quite the bad boy it may appear to be.

As Richard Knubben, policy & compliance manager at EASA, the European Advertising Standards Alliance, puts it: “On the whole, internet and new media-related complaints have made up a relatively small percentage of total advertising complaints over the last couple of years, but are slowly rising.”

And according to Christopher Graham, director general of UK advertising regulator the ASA, that’s because people see traditional media including TV as ‘push’ and so uncontrollable by the recipient, whereas new media is more ‘pull’. He adds: “…people have an expectation about the internet. If they encounter some nastiness they just go away… in context, they would probably expect some advertising to be, frankly, raunchier or sexier than on TV.” A conclusion supported by a 2005 research study commissioned by the ASA.

If it ain’t broke…
But while complaint levels are relatively low, complaints do exist. And according to Knubben, half of Europe-wide complaints about advertising on the internet relate to spam and the remainder to everything else internet/new media.

Spam, by definition, is tricky for authorities to control given its pernicious nature.

But it is parts of the ‘everything else’ category that self-regulatory organisations (SROs) are looking to manage. Most complaints here, according to Graham and Knubben, relate to misleading consumers, e.g. airlines not displaying fully inclusive prices.

And where such infractions are committed in conventional forms of paid-for online advertising (banner ads., search listings, etc.), Knubben believes that eCommerce-related cases can be resolved across Europe through the UCP (unfair commercial practices) directive which is in the process of being implemented.

However, one of the issues being debated is whether or not to include corporate websites. In the UK, Graham says, “We’re in the embarrassing position that our third most complained about non-broadcast medium has 90% of complaints that are out of remit [because they relate to corporate websites]…if this continues, it will erode the relationship we have with consumers because they regard it as advertising.”

The fact that corporate websites are not regulated has offered companies a back door. For example, while being banned from airing an ad. on conventional media can impact brand reputation, the free publicity may drive traffic to the company’s website where the ad. can be shown in full, uncensored. Moreover, the reach and low cost of websites like YouTube only makes online even more attractive.

Graham believes that corporate websites being outside a regulatory framework “is a threat to effective enforcement.” But regulating corporate websites could prove controversial. As well as going against the spirit of the internet, opponents would cite freedom of speech arguments over editorial content. Graham is quick to recognise the sensitivities here: “…is it clever for advertising self regulators to say ‘no we don’t go there’ if that’s where the action is in respect of claims or material on those websites that’s clearly advertising…we don’t want to be making judgements on editorial claims in the website.”

Maintaining public trust
It’s not just online advertising’s rise in importance that has driven these deliberations. Pressure from regulators over HFSS (high fat, sugar and salt) advertising has also been a factor.

So the EASA has created a new media initiative to spearhead Europe’s advertising self-regulation efforts. The EC Directorate General for Health and Consumer Protection, DG Sanco’s director general Robert Madelin has organised an advertising roundtable with EASA, the EC and interested NGOs. And in a recent meeting, according to Graham, Madelin “challenged [the SROs] to see what they were doing about new media”.

In the case of the UK, the Advertising Association, responsible for furthering the interests of all advertising stakeholders, has created a working group including a diverse set of experts and specialists to look into future-proofing new media.

And in Spain, a successful online advertising trust mark scheme (“confianza online”) is already in use. Its success is attributed to having wide take-up because advertising regulation there is member-based. This is in contrast to a similar UK scheme (Admark) that failed due to poor uptake because advertisers had to voluntarily sign up to it within the context of an ad. self-regulatory scheme that is otherwise comprehensive.

Building Compassionate Brands: Lou Marinoff

ResearchTalk — Wed, 10 Oct 2007 05:38:39 +0000

14mins | Produced @ ESOMAR Congress ‘07 | More podcasts in this series

STARRING

David Penn, MD, Conquest Research (host)
Prof. Lou Marinoff, The City College of New York

Don’t ask us what these guys are talking about, it’s philosophy and way over our heads! Kidding aside, they chat about, among other things, using values from faiths such as Buddhism to build strong and compassionate brands with purpose, meaning, and integrity, essentially brands that can do good and be good.

Thanks to BrainJuicer for making the video possible.

Series:AdTalk Series:MarketingTalk
Series:Events Series:ESOMAR Series:Congress07

Unleashed on Marketing: Creating Brand Meaning

ResearchTalk — Thu, 13 Sep 2007 06:43:29 +0000

Part of our occasional Best of the Podosphere (BoP) series

Gary Bembridge is VP of global strategy & marketing at Johnson & Johnson and produces this promising Unleashed on Marketing podcast series in his spare time based on over 25 years in the marketing game.

We rarely listen to podcasts that just involve one person but there’s something about the South African accent (that’s how it sounds to us!) that draws you in (sic Joe Jaffe’s Across the Sound). And in this episode, ostensibly called “What makes you different?”, Gary brings together much of the latest thinking and discussion around creating brand meaning, doing good, having big ideas etc.

Quite long at c. 40mins but it is, IMHO, worth persevering.

STARRING

Gary Bembridge, Unleashed on Marketing

Series:AdTalkTalk Series:MarketingTalk

Rishad Tobaccowala: The Future is Now

ResearchTalk — Fri, 01 Jun 2007 13:53:20 +0000

Rishad Tobaccowala, CEO Denuo and Chief Innovation Officer, Publicis, chats about…

The business importance of authenticity
Why PR agency Edelman’s reputation suffered in the Wal Mart undisclosed blogger fiasco
Three big media trends he’s seeing including the shift to on-demand, the participatory culture, and the shift from segmentation to reaggregation
Why he’s ’short’ on Google’s ability to monetize YouTube and ‘long’ on Yahoo’s future

8mins | Recorded @ Wildfire ‘07 | More podcasts in this series

Notable mentions
AOL.
Apple.
Authenticity.
Bebo.
Denuo.
Edelman.
Google.
iPhone.
iPod.
MSN.
MySpace.
Publicis.
Richard Edelman.
Wal Mart.
Web 2.0.
Yahoo.
YouTube.

Series:MarketingTalk Series:AdTalk
Series:Events Series:Wildfire07

Funny: “A Professional Respondent”

ResearchTalk — Wed, 11 Apr 2007 17:27:30 +0000

From the Research Fringe

Doing Right by Your Customers

ResearchTalk — Mon, 05 Mar 2007 17:10:16 +0000

Few companies have a culture of ‘doing right by their customers’. But we heard this phrase the other day during the UK fuel contamination fiasco when, after being confronted by credible evidence that their fuel was indeed causing large numbers of cars to malfunction, something they initially denied, Tesco used the phrase to characterise its intended response.

Read on…Now, cynics among you may regard this as simply good PR. Tesco, you contend, is only saying this because while it stands to payout substantial amounts in compensation to consumers, it will recover all/most of that from the relevant fuel supplier, the ultimate wrongdoer in this case.

Equally, though, Tesco knows that it has a lot to lose from badly handling this high profile situation (something that dominated the headlines for days). Tesco is a dominant brand in a category that impinges on everyone in the UK (over 1 in 8 retail pounds is spent at Tesco), and so it has to tread carefully to avoid accusations that it is abusing its market position. Maintaining consumer trust when you are that dominant and exposed is not an easy tightrope to walk.

So, for what it’s worth, bravo to Tesco for at least making the right signals. Only time will tell whether it has successfully retained consumer and public trust. UPDATE: Tesco publishes full page ads. in papers saying it’s sorry.

The bigger issue is why more companies don’t ‘do right by their customers’. Many claim they do, but most actually give higher priority to short-term financial or other considerations. And yet for proof that ‘doing right’ generates substantial dividends long term, you only have to look at Google which spurned short term monetization in favour of giving people what they wanted, without compromise.

For Google ‘doing right’ is a core philosophy and belief, not merely a ‘brand value’. All staff live and breathe it. And the result is an organisation that went from nothing to a $150bn valuation in a mere seven years. Had Microsoft believed in the ‘doing right’ philosophy, Google would probably have never got this far since the market would already have had what it wanted – see, there was Bill Gates worrying about the next big thing and in reality it turned out to be about being sincere and genetically focused on meeting people’s needs, not monetizing the hell out of closed products.

UPDATE: From a BBC online interview with Craig’s List CEO Jim Buckmaster:

As it turns out if you’re not in the business of maximizing profit, there’s all kinds of functions that you no longer need like sales, marketing, business development, etc. All we have is technical people and customer service people.

So, you ask, what about ResearchTalk, are we believers? Of course we are. To our very core. If not, we would have stopped doing this a long time ago. The very limited income we have doesn’t justify the effort we and our guests put in. We think the industry is the better for what we publish, all free, all easily accessible. We don’t want to start charging because we believe that everyone should be able to share in the valuable, refreshing conversations that go on all over the place because that’s the only way to innovate and improve the sector.

That said, we can’t go on forever without monetization so things will have to change at some time. Unlike Google, we don’t have access to VC funding! We do have a tip jar which a few have contributed to. We’ll just have to see how things go…
Series:MarketingTalk