News roundup - Updated with video chat

June 20th, 2012 in Breaking News by Brad Einarsen

Watch our discussion about the relevant stories of the week. From left to right in the video:

Brad Einarsen: Director of Digital Insight
Eric Portelance: Digital Strategist
Jon Crowley: Digital Strategist

Q&A with Google’s chief economist Hal Varian – discussion on Google Consumer Surveys

An interview with Google’s chief economist about how Google performs “now-casting” to find out what is happening in economies around the world. The video is reasonably long, 17 minutes, but is a thoughtful take on how to use realtime data to help with economic decisions for governments and firms.

At time 7:11 the conversation turns to Google Consumer Surveys. This tools was launched earlier this year and is being rolled out as another method for advertisers to gain more insights into consumers in general. An example is given as 2000 surveys filled out in ~2 hours at a cost of $0.10 per survey. The discussion turns to the validity of surveys in general and is a very interesting conversation.

The Economist

Get these news alerts delivered to your inbox every Friday, subscribe to the Klick Wire and stay on top of digital marketing with a healthcare focus.

Mediamind releases short report on rich media and video ads

Mediamind analyzed the results from 24,000 ads over more than 12 billion impressions between July and December 2011. This aggregated data showed that video ads resulted in:

6x increase in site visits (seems to be click and organic)
9x direct clicks from ads to site
1.9x lift in organic visits

Mediamind

ICANN’s “reveal day” shows health activity for gTLDs

For a more in-depth post, see yesterday’s “The new domains on the horizon“.

On Wednesday, June 13the the ICANN has released the names that have been registered so far in what it dubbed “reveal day”. So far the healthcare world is only lightly represented. The following pharmaceutical companies have filed for names:

Abbott
Boehringer Ingelheim
Bristol-Myers Squibb
Eli Lilly
Hisamitsu Pharmaceuticals
Merck KGaA
Mitsubishi Pharmaceuticals
Pfizer
Sanofi
Teva

Also registering names are health insurers Aetna and Wellpoint as well as the American Heart Association and the National Association of Boards of Pharmacy.

An interesting aspect of the revealed list is the conflicts it highlights. For example, Merck has another bidder for its name so a further bidding process will be required. There is also high demand for the word “health” but all of the bidders look like domain companies, not legitimate healthcare information providers.

Many healthcare companies are not included on the list. It remains to be seen whether squatters will be able to buy their names.

In related news, AdAge reports on the conflict between Google and Amazon over some of the more hotly contested names.

brandchannel

comScore (and Facebook) show effectiveness of social marketing

Two weeks ago we reported on Chevy dumping Facebook because of lack of response. That event (Chevy, not the Klick Wire story) triggered a wide-ranging discussion about the value of Facebook in general, and its advertising in specific.

A new report by comScore and Facebook (conflict of interest!) shows that social media activities, both organic and ads, are useful. This report is important because it uses comScore behavior data which is much more reliable than other studies based on self-reported surveys.

You can download the white paper, The Power of Like 2, from the comScore site.

In related news, eMarketer reports that advertisers can find better return using Facebook Sponsored Stories than standard ads. This analysis looks at the revenue generated by the ads and finds that the prices have gone up which indicates higher competition for the spots. Also, consumer brand think tank, L2, releases its top-100 list of brand sites on Facebook. No healthcare marketers are on the list.

Also, Mashable shared four ways to optimize Facebook ads:

Create Versatile Video Content
Use Promotions to Track ROI and Ad Performance
Showcase New Product Lines
Post Interactive Content

Get the details in the Mashable article.

C|Net

Tablets shopping fuels “couch and pillow” commerce

eMarketer forecasts 106% growth in tablets for 2012 and predicts that 22% of the population (29% of Internet users) will own one by the end of the year. This continued growth of the devices, combined with the prevalence of shopping activities on them, makes the user experience (UX) design for the platform very important, and different from other platforms.

35% of tablet owners surveyed by Compuware in February said poor web experiences on the tablet made them less likely to visit that website on any platform
53% report shopping on their tablets at least once per week
12% shop daily

The shopping experience is decidedly different than the health research experience, but some of these finding point toward similar requirements for brands that want to provide relevant health information online.

eMarketer

Gamification grows up

This is a full magazine article (PharmExec opens in a virtual magazine reader) about gamification. The article shows an HCP tool that helps explain conditions to patients using a playful interface. Also, there are a number of definitions of “game” in the article which are thought-provoking:

A series of interesting choices
A conflict bounded by rules with a measurable result
An enchantment mechanism built around context, competition, and connectivity

Also in this issue, Can Social Media Give Big Pharma Back its Reputation?

PharmExec

Apple product announcements – what they mean for digital marketing

If you know an apple devote (or if you are one) then you know that the Worldwide Developers Conference (WWDC) was hosted this week and the new product announcements were made public. These are always surrounded by fanfare but since Apple is the maker of the most important mobile devices in healthcare marketing we decided to cover a couple of the relevant announcements here.

New MacBook Pro has a retina display. With the move toward higher-density displays in both mobile devices and now notebook computers, it will be increasingly important for websites to be retrofitted with high-resolution image assets. (text looks sharper with no changes to code or assets).
Apple announced iOS 6, the next major release of its mobile operating system. It’s due to be released this fall. Of interest to pharma, it includes a redesigned app store, which could have regulatory implications for any pharma apps currently out there. Facebook sharing is also deeply integrated with iOS 6, the new OS X Mountain Lion, and the App Store. It will be important to consider how site or other pharma metadata is pulled into this functionality (from emails, websites, apps, and more).
Apple’s new Passbook app provides consumers with a centralized digital wallet for boarding passes, loyalty cards, movie tickets, and more. It’s powered by a robust developer API and could be a great opportunity for mobile copay cards.

Also of interest are some stats about the App store for anyone considering creating an app:

$5 billion paid to developers for apps
30 billion apps downloaded
400 million app store accounts
650,000 apps now available
250,000 designed specifically for the iPad

Huffington Post

Forrester on the future of interactive marketing

Adobe has commissioned Forrester to release on of their studies on the future of interactive marketing for free. The link on this article takes you to the registration / download page. This article documents the continued rise of interactive marketing and predicts that in the future all marketing will be interactive. It also talks about where the population is going with connected technology by 2014:

1/3 of households will have DVR
Newspaper readership will continue to decrease
Email will continue to be accessible to all
65% of the world population will be mobile phone subscribers

Adobe Report Download

Online media continues to grow – 15% in Q1 2012

This story is all about the stats:

Internet ad revenue for the first quarter of the year set a new record (for the reporting period) at $8.4 billion — which represented a 15% increase year-over-year
Digital video advertising saw strong growth as well, rising 29% from $1.4 billion to $1.8 billion
Search advertising enjoyed even bigger gains, growing 27% from $11.7 billion to $14.8 billion (for the full year 2011)

Online Media Daily

Half of consumers like mobile health, doctors disagree

A study by PwC shows a disconnect between what consumers think about mobile health technology directed at them and what doctors think about it. In summary:

0% of consumers like mobile heath technology
59% who use it say it has replaced visits to doctors and nurses
27% of doctors encourage patients to use mHealth technology
13% actively discourage it
64% of physicians “worry that mHealth makes patients too independent.” (a bit of a throwback to the early days of health information online)

The story also links to two other resources:

InformationWeek