AndroidApps.com reviews two barcode scanning and comparison shopping apps for Android phones: ShopSavvy and CompareEverywhere. I already wrote about the implications of putting an instant price-matching device in the hands of retail shoppers, but there are other interesting angles to it. These applications seem to be among the few with one or two natural business models built into them from the start. Placing contextual recommendations next to price look-up results is one; powering branded wishlists and registries is another.
The reviews of both apps are below.
Earlier:
Barcode, Iris Scanners for Google Android
The Future of Retail: Instant Price Match
Road as Medium, Plays Back Music for Honda
(image: gigdoggy)
When we run out of space for billboards on our roads' sides, we'll embed jingles into the pavement.
GigDoggy: "A Japanese engineer by the name of Shizuo Shinoda was the first to come up with the brilliant idea of transforming roads into a playback medium. The system works by cutting thousands of little grooves in the asphalt that produce a sound when a vehicle drives over them. The grooves are a few millimeters deep and 6 to 12 millimeters wide, and the closer you bring them together the higher the pitch will be when driven over. Production cost is about $20 000. Mr Shinoda got the idea by driving his car over markings a bulldozer had previously scraped off a street and realized he was generating a series a tones."
Video below: music roads in Japan.
From WSJ (thank you, Robert): the making-of video of the Civic Musical Road in Lancaster, CA that played an overture from William Tell until nearby residents complained. It is now being rebuilt elsewhere.
Behavioral Advertising on Checkout Receipts
WSJ: "The checkout ads range from messages encouraging shoppers to try a brand that competes with one they just bought, to others urging them to buy a new flavor of a product they buy regularly. "It's a really effective way to reach a consumer," says Brett White, head of marketing for Stouffer's, which has bought such ads for about a year. Indeed, Stouffer's said the response rate to the checkout ads for its Dinner Club was 10 times as high as for similar ads that ran in freestanding newspaper inserts."
The key vendor: Catalina Marketing.
The key vendor: Catalina Marketing.
Targeting Messages by Referring Site
I was googling "oil price projections" the other day and landed on a Forbes.com article that greeted me with a pop-out layer suggesting other articles related to my search. I've seen it done before on a few blogs; pretty neat. Not a bad format for a display ad, either.
Case Study: Burger King's Advergames - Part 3
This is the final part of an abstract from a new book Changing the Game: How Video Games Are Transforming the Future of Business by David Edery and Ethan Mollick (here are part 1 and part 2).
Finally, the Burger King games could not have come about without an experienced and reliable game developer. Blitz Games had a long history of delivering projects on time, and had also worked on several projects involving outside stakeholders and IP holders. As such, they were well suited for the Burger King project. Despite this, Blitz still encountered several serious stumbling blocks during the course of the games’ development, learning hard-won lessons as a result:
Multiplatform development
To maximize their potential audience, Burger King wanted games that were compatible with both the original Xbox and the Xbox 360. However, they also wanted the 360 version to be more impressive than the original
Xbox version; after all, the 360 had just been released and was being marketed as a high-performance, “next generation” console.
Given the tight development time frame for the games, this took time and attention away from work that could have been put into additional game features and polish. Marketers should be aware that making a game compatible with multiple platforms—even platforms in the same line—can require significant effort, and should therefore budget and schedule accordingly.
Multiplayer challenges
Big Bumpin’ and Pocketbike Racer both include online multiplayer action—an important feature of
these games. Although online multiplayer modes can make a game much more compelling to consumers, such modes also make a game much more difficult and expensive to develop. Many developers consistently underestimate the difficulty of multiplayer development, especially on console platforms, and Blitz was no exception, though they ultimately managed to execute beautifully on Burger King’s vision. The lesson here: If you want a multiplayer game, make sure you reserve substantial time for the development and testing of that multiplayer functionality.
Different games, different assets
The benefit of creating three very different games was, as mentioned earlier, the fact that it enabled Burger King to appeal to different kinds of gamers and encourage multiple trips to Burger King restaurants. However, it also forced Blitz to develop very different assets (such as art and computer code) for the three games—time and effort that could have gone into raising the overall quality of a smaller number of games, or an equal number of more similar games. While developing three very different games ultimately proved to be a great strategy for Burger King, marketers who are seeking to raise the bar and stand out from competitors in the future may want to focus their budget on projects that are more ambitious in scale, but less ambitious in scope. As always, it depends on the situation.
Brand rules and restrictions
One of the biggest potential stumbling blocks for any game developer is something that marketers have total control over: the restrictions on how a company’s brands can be used in a game. Failure to carefully explain and explore these restrictions at the start of a game development project can wreak havoc later on.
Take the case of Sneak King. Blitz initially intended the game to be a Spy-versus-Spy-type game, with multiple Kings trying to out-deliver one another while laying traps for their opponents. After much design work, Blitz was informed that “there can be only one King.” So Blitz substantially revised the design, choosing to focus on “king of the hill”–style gameplay; whoever captures the crown gets to be King. They were then informed that “you cannot ‘become’ the King.” So Blitz adjusted yet again: One person plays the King, while the others play the remaining BK personalities, laying traps to prevent him from making deliveries. They then heard, “The King is too savvy to find himself in danger of any kind.” And so on and so forth.
Some of the trouble with Sneak King was inevitable; it is impossible for marketers to predict every possible brand usage that a developer might propose. However, some of these brand-related missteps could have been avoided with clearer upfront communication. In particular, given the action-oriented nature of many video games, it was probably not hard to guess that “the King might find himself in danger.” Marketers would do well to put time, upfront, into deciding and communicating what basic attributes of their brands are truly inviolable.
The Burger King promotion was expensive. In addition to the cost of developing the games themselves, Burger King had to pay distribution fees, promotional fees, and other nondevelopment expenses. In fact, the total cost of the promotion was ultimately many times the cost of game development itself, though it’s worth noting that Burger King recouped a significant percentage of its costs by selling the games for $3.99. Given the effort and financial resources necessary to support an initiative of this scope, marketers wanting to emulate Burger King’s success must be prepared to treat their initiative as a key one for their company. Otherwise, the risks of an expensive failure prove too great. Fortunately, as demonstrated by Burger King, the benefits of a well-managed advergame initiative are even greater.
Advertising Lab is pleased to offer highlights from a book that just came out, Changing the Game: How Video Games Are Transforming the Future of Business, co-authored (together with Ethan Mollick) by an old friend and former MIT colleague David Edery, who now works as Worldwide Games Portfolio Planner for Xbox Live Arcade.
You will find a review in Economist, and Cliff Notes in Inc. Here, with authors' permission, I'm publishing their findings and insights about Burger King's set of blockbuster advergames that are at least in part credited for the 41% jump in company's quarterly profits.
Finally, the Burger King games could not have come about without an experienced and reliable game developer. Blitz Games had a long history of delivering projects on time, and had also worked on several projects involving outside stakeholders and IP holders. As such, they were well suited for the Burger King project. Despite this, Blitz still encountered several serious stumbling blocks during the course of the games’ development, learning hard-won lessons as a result:
Multiplatform development
To maximize their potential audience, Burger King wanted games that were compatible with both the original Xbox and the Xbox 360. However, they also wanted the 360 version to be more impressive than the original
Xbox version; after all, the 360 had just been released and was being marketed as a high-performance, “next generation” console.
Given the tight development time frame for the games, this took time and attention away from work that could have been put into additional game features and polish. Marketers should be aware that making a game compatible with multiple platforms—even platforms in the same line—can require significant effort, and should therefore budget and schedule accordingly.
Multiplayer challenges
Big Bumpin’ and Pocketbike Racer both include online multiplayer action—an important feature of
these games. Although online multiplayer modes can make a game much more compelling to consumers, such modes also make a game much more difficult and expensive to develop. Many developers consistently underestimate the difficulty of multiplayer development, especially on console platforms, and Blitz was no exception, though they ultimately managed to execute beautifully on Burger King’s vision. The lesson here: If you want a multiplayer game, make sure you reserve substantial time for the development and testing of that multiplayer functionality.
Different games, different assets
The benefit of creating three very different games was, as mentioned earlier, the fact that it enabled Burger King to appeal to different kinds of gamers and encourage multiple trips to Burger King restaurants. However, it also forced Blitz to develop very different assets (such as art and computer code) for the three games—time and effort that could have gone into raising the overall quality of a smaller number of games, or an equal number of more similar games. While developing three very different games ultimately proved to be a great strategy for Burger King, marketers who are seeking to raise the bar and stand out from competitors in the future may want to focus their budget on projects that are more ambitious in scale, but less ambitious in scope. As always, it depends on the situation.
Brand rules and restrictions
One of the biggest potential stumbling blocks for any game developer is something that marketers have total control over: the restrictions on how a company’s brands can be used in a game. Failure to carefully explain and explore these restrictions at the start of a game development project can wreak havoc later on.
Take the case of Sneak King. Blitz initially intended the game to be a Spy-versus-Spy-type game, with multiple Kings trying to out-deliver one another while laying traps for their opponents. After much design work, Blitz was informed that “there can be only one King.” So Blitz substantially revised the design, choosing to focus on “king of the hill”–style gameplay; whoever captures the crown gets to be King. They were then informed that “you cannot ‘become’ the King.” So Blitz adjusted yet again: One person plays the King, while the others play the remaining BK personalities, laying traps to prevent him from making deliveries. They then heard, “The King is too savvy to find himself in danger of any kind.” And so on and so forth.
Some of the trouble with Sneak King was inevitable; it is impossible for marketers to predict every possible brand usage that a developer might propose. However, some of these brand-related missteps could have been avoided with clearer upfront communication. In particular, given the action-oriented nature of many video games, it was probably not hard to guess that “the King might find himself in danger.” Marketers would do well to put time, upfront, into deciding and communicating what basic attributes of their brands are truly inviolable.
The Burger King promotion was expensive. In addition to the cost of developing the games themselves, Burger King had to pay distribution fees, promotional fees, and other nondevelopment expenses. In fact, the total cost of the promotion was ultimately many times the cost of game development itself, though it’s worth noting that Burger King recouped a significant percentage of its costs by selling the games for $3.99. Given the effort and financial resources necessary to support an initiative of this scope, marketers wanting to emulate Burger King’s success must be prepared to treat their initiative as a key one for their company. Otherwise, the risks of an expensive failure prove too great. Fortunately, as demonstrated by Burger King, the benefits of a well-managed advergame initiative are even greater.
Advertising Lab is pleased to offer highlights from a book that just came out, Changing the Game: How Video Games Are Transforming the Future of Business, co-authored (together with Ethan Mollick) by an old friend and former MIT colleague David Edery, who now works as Worldwide Games Portfolio Planner for Xbox Live Arcade.
You will find a review in Economist, and Cliff Notes in Inc. Here, with authors' permission, I'm publishing their findings and insights about Burger King's set of blockbuster advergames that are at least in part credited for the 41% jump in company's quarterly profits.
Case Study: Burger King's Advergames - Part 2
This is part 2 of 3 of an abstract from a new book Changing the Game: How Video Games Are Transforming the Future of Business by David Edery and Ethan Mollick (here's part 1).
Burger King also made the decision to sell the games at $3.99, an extremely low price for disc-based (as opposed to downloadable) Xbox games but, as it turned out, a potentially much better price than “free.” By choosing to charge even a small sum, Burger King seems to have sent a message to consumers that its games had real value, unlike other advergames they might have played and been disappointed by in the past. Burger King further supported the games with a strong marketing campaign that included advertisements shown during Saturday Night Live and during NFL games. All this sent a very clear message to consumers: “There is something of value waiting for you at Burger King.”
Furthermore, Burger King wisely decided to spread its bets by appealing to as broad an audience as possible. The company attracted “gift givers” and more casual gamers by pricing the games cheaply. It attracted enthusiasts by taking advantage of Microsoft’s phenomenally successfully “achievement” system, which awards gamers points when they play games, and by building multiplayer functionality into two of the three games. And lastly, by creating three very different games, Burger King made sure it had something to offer any customer, no matter how narrow their interest in game genres might be.
The games were also so successful because Microsoft and Burger King had motivated and empowered project champions involved in the process.
Within Microsoft, that champion was Chris Di Cesare, formerly Director of Marketing for Xbox. In Di Cesare’s words, “The scale of the agencies and people involved in this promotion was immense. We’re talking PR firms, ad agencies, online firms, game developer and publisher, and promotion agencies on both sides. It easily could have devolved into fiefdoms, but everyone checked their egos at the door and focused on Burger King’s very clear idea of what they wanted to accomplish. Everyone fell in line because of Burger King’s passion for this project. However, the Burger King guys were total novices when it came to game development, so it became my job to translate their desires to the great many groups within Microsoft that needed to work together for this to happen. In other words, Burger King had an internal evangelist in me.”
Advertising Lab is pleased to offer highlights from a book that just came out, Changing the Game: How Video Games Are Transforming the Future of Business, co-authored (together with Ethan Mollick) by an old friend and former MIT colleague David Edery, who now works as Worldwide Games Portfolio Planner for Xbox Live Arcade.
You will find a review in Economist, and Cliff Notes in Inc. Here, with authors' permission, I'm publishing their findings and insights about Burger King's set of blockbuster advergames that are at least in part credited for the 41% jump in company's quarterly profits.
Burger King also made the decision to sell the games at $3.99, an extremely low price for disc-based (as opposed to downloadable) Xbox games but, as it turned out, a potentially much better price than “free.” By choosing to charge even a small sum, Burger King seems to have sent a message to consumers that its games had real value, unlike other advergames they might have played and been disappointed by in the past. Burger King further supported the games with a strong marketing campaign that included advertisements shown during Saturday Night Live and during NFL games. All this sent a very clear message to consumers: “There is something of value waiting for you at Burger King.”
Furthermore, Burger King wisely decided to spread its bets by appealing to as broad an audience as possible. The company attracted “gift givers” and more casual gamers by pricing the games cheaply. It attracted enthusiasts by taking advantage of Microsoft’s phenomenally successfully “achievement” system, which awards gamers points when they play games, and by building multiplayer functionality into two of the three games. And lastly, by creating three very different games, Burger King made sure it had something to offer any customer, no matter how narrow their interest in game genres might be.
The games were also so successful because Microsoft and Burger King had motivated and empowered project champions involved in the process.
Within Microsoft, that champion was Chris Di Cesare, formerly Director of Marketing for Xbox. In Di Cesare’s words, “The scale of the agencies and people involved in this promotion was immense. We’re talking PR firms, ad agencies, online firms, game developer and publisher, and promotion agencies on both sides. It easily could have devolved into fiefdoms, but everyone checked their egos at the door and focused on Burger King’s very clear idea of what they wanted to accomplish. Everyone fell in line because of Burger King’s passion for this project. However, the Burger King guys were total novices when it came to game development, so it became my job to translate their desires to the great many groups within Microsoft that needed to work together for this to happen. In other words, Burger King had an internal evangelist in me.”
Advertising Lab is pleased to offer highlights from a book that just came out, Changing the Game: How Video Games Are Transforming the Future of Business, co-authored (together with Ethan Mollick) by an old friend and former MIT colleague David Edery, who now works as Worldwide Games Portfolio Planner for Xbox Live Arcade.
You will find a review in Economist, and Cliff Notes in Inc. Here, with authors' permission, I'm publishing their findings and insights about Burger King's set of blockbuster advergames that are at least in part credited for the 41% jump in company's quarterly profits.
MySpace to Hit $1B in Ad Revenue
So, on one hand, MySpace is expected to hit $1B in ad revenue for the year. On the other hand, the click-through rates for the site are 3-5 clicks for 10,000 impressions (0.03% CTR; from this source and my own experience). At $3 per 1000 impressions, that's $30 for 5 clicks. Not bad.
Make Ads Relevant By Letting Users Choose Them
This is the last part of the guest post by David Rostan, the co-founder and president of ListensToYou. (See part 1 on privacy, and part II on tracking.)
With ListensToYou, David hopes to improve the online advertising market by giving users control over the ads they want to see. If you want to take a closer look at ListensToYou to understand David's approach, you can use the invitation code "adverlab" (limited to the first 100 sign-ups).
Ideally, users would be offered explicit control over ads they do and do not see on ANY website they visit across the internet.
We think it is possible to increase the relevance of internet ads as well as our trust in the websites we frequent. We have created a concept that allows for more consumer power and less misplaced advertising by offering customers a tool to express their preferences (categories, keywords or profiles) specifically for the purposes of connecting them with products and services they may want or need. Websites that adhere to these user-selected declarations of ad appropriateness are allowed to put a badge on their website indicating that they “follow customer-friendly ad practices.”
We’re calling this service ListensToYou and we are interested in feedback, ideas and concerns that you have as public consumers of information, services and products.
ListensToYou believes that, when consumers, rather than algorithms, marketers or lawmakers, choose ad content, online advertising becomes better for everyone in the value chain – publishers, advertisers and users.
Customer-friendly ad practices could, first, go a long way toward removing the irrelevance and mistrust issues of online advertising. Rather than backward-looking behavioral targeting, users would update settings as their lives and preferences change; rather than stereotypes created by context and demographics, explicitly stated preferences pick up anomalies and get past the typical ad clickers in the typical places.
Consumers would have one convenient, trusted place online to express the desirability and appropriateness of advertising categories or specific product and service offers that they could update or delete any time they would like.
They would not only get more relevant ads but also be given a place to have a fair transaction of giving information in exchange for getting advertisements – a place in the conversation that they would feel good about. Publishers would avoid wasted impressions and improve click thru rates and quality leads by serving more relevant, trusted ads. They could even open their sites to new types of advertisers as they understand the varied preferences of their user base.
I mentioned earlier that there was no signal between publishers and consumers to indicate that the ads on a website were safe, appropriate or potentially influenced or controlled by users. The ListensToYou badge indicates and certifies that a publisher adheres to consumer-friendly advertising practices. That is, the website respects consumer-stated levels of ad appropriateness and they ensure that ads do not violate user expectations (open up multiple hard-to-close ad windows, for example).
ListensToYou serves as a validation that the publisher brings the user into the conversation about what ad content is appropriate for them, specifically, and a certification that it serves ads that are safe to click. Therefore, publishers are able to signal that they are willing to listen and brands can choose to advertise on sites that listen – building trust even when users don’t use the ListensToYou service.
Market and non-market forces are moving quickly to “fix” some of the problems of online advertising. Regulators are considering controls on behavioral targeting and more consumer tools are being developed to block ads or allow users to browse the internet with complete anonymity. Meanwhile, online advertisers are creating smarter ways to gather and use implicit information to target ads.
ListensToYou and consumer-friendly ad practices aren’t a replacement for those things, but they are a necessary improvement that brings the user’s explicit choice of content back into the equation in a meaningful way.
Prior to founding his company, David Rostan worked in marketing and strategy for technology and ecommerce companies. He has earned his MBA from the Kellogg School of Management.
With ListensToYou, David hopes to improve the online advertising market by giving users control over the ads they want to see. If you want to take a closer look at ListensToYou to understand David's approach, you can use the invitation code "adverlab" (limited to the first 100 sign-ups).
Ideally, users would be offered explicit control over ads they do and do not see on ANY website they visit across the internet.
We think it is possible to increase the relevance of internet ads as well as our trust in the websites we frequent. We have created a concept that allows for more consumer power and less misplaced advertising by offering customers a tool to express their preferences (categories, keywords or profiles) specifically for the purposes of connecting them with products and services they may want or need. Websites that adhere to these user-selected declarations of ad appropriateness are allowed to put a badge on their website indicating that they “follow customer-friendly ad practices.”
We’re calling this service ListensToYou and we are interested in feedback, ideas and concerns that you have as public consumers of information, services and products.
ListensToYou believes that, when consumers, rather than algorithms, marketers or lawmakers, choose ad content, online advertising becomes better for everyone in the value chain – publishers, advertisers and users.
Customer-friendly ad practices could, first, go a long way toward removing the irrelevance and mistrust issues of online advertising. Rather than backward-looking behavioral targeting, users would update settings as their lives and preferences change; rather than stereotypes created by context and demographics, explicitly stated preferences pick up anomalies and get past the typical ad clickers in the typical places.
Consumers would have one convenient, trusted place online to express the desirability and appropriateness of advertising categories or specific product and service offers that they could update or delete any time they would like.
They would not only get more relevant ads but also be given a place to have a fair transaction of giving information in exchange for getting advertisements – a place in the conversation that they would feel good about. Publishers would avoid wasted impressions and improve click thru rates and quality leads by serving more relevant, trusted ads. They could even open their sites to new types of advertisers as they understand the varied preferences of their user base.
I mentioned earlier that there was no signal between publishers and consumers to indicate that the ads on a website were safe, appropriate or potentially influenced or controlled by users. The ListensToYou badge indicates and certifies that a publisher adheres to consumer-friendly advertising practices. That is, the website respects consumer-stated levels of ad appropriateness and they ensure that ads do not violate user expectations (open up multiple hard-to-close ad windows, for example).
ListensToYou serves as a validation that the publisher brings the user into the conversation about what ad content is appropriate for them, specifically, and a certification that it serves ads that are safe to click. Therefore, publishers are able to signal that they are willing to listen and brands can choose to advertise on sites that listen – building trust even when users don’t use the ListensToYou service.
Market and non-market forces are moving quickly to “fix” some of the problems of online advertising. Regulators are considering controls on behavioral targeting and more consumer tools are being developed to block ads or allow users to browse the internet with complete anonymity. Meanwhile, online advertisers are creating smarter ways to gather and use implicit information to target ads.
ListensToYou and consumer-friendly ad practices aren’t a replacement for those things, but they are a necessary improvement that brings the user’s explicit choice of content back into the equation in a meaningful way.
Prior to founding his company, David Rostan worked in marketing and strategy for technology and ecommerce companies. He has earned his MBA from the Kellogg School of Management.
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