Kevin Ryan is the moderator of this panel. I just made it in from crazy NYC traffic with 15 minutes to spare. Love that Hilton parking, incredibly convenient, trust me a I pay for it. Ryan introduces the wrong person first but we are back on track.
Speaking of widgets, make sure to add our Search News Facebook Widget.
Jeff Williams, Associate Director, Creative, DIGITAS is now up.
Advertising Perspective: - Is it advertising? Yes, Widgets hold interesting creative possibilities with consumers, a branded lifestyle experience, and create brand awareness and direct response objective and widgets are tactics that advance a broader online strategy or concept. - Realities Are, every pitch concept now includes a widget, they can leverage Facebook, Google and Yahoo, the hottest trend right now is the "grabable banner," big brands seeing value in these widgets, and viral metrics are the most compelling aspect of widgets.
He then shows an example of a 'grabable widget.' You can place these on many pages easily.
He shows an example of a Google Gadget for Kraft. The Gadget takes content from the web site and ports it to the iGoogle page's Kraft widget. It gives you a recipe every day.
Next is an American Express "members widget." They made a widget for "Members Project." People would suggest projects to AMEX and the widget would show the new projects. One person wanted to plant a million trees, etc.
Promoting - Key Factor - 'Grabable banners' media - Existing marketing CRM - Corporate web site - Offline - Social networking platforms (facebook apps) - SEM - Mobile
Jeff's Widget Quick List: - Is the widget to brand or for direct response? - If branding, hwo does it enhance the overall campaign concept or brand strategy? - If direct response, does it create a response? - Is it useful to end user? - Does all the functionality exist in the widget?
Marc Johnson, Chief Marketing Officer, Hitwise is now up.
He first shows his Apple Dashboard widgets...
The Hitwise widget has a "3-in-1"combonent: - Targeting broad data enthusiast market - Extension of dashboard, blogs, rss - Example of technology leadership
He then shows examples of the three different versions of the Hitwise widget.
Results: - Since launch in August 2007 - 2,021 downloads of widget from hitwise.com - 1804 Google gadget downloads - 3,919 Yahoo gallery - Total 7,744 total downloads
Christian Oestlien, Product Manager, Google AdSense is next up.
History: - Konfabulator in 2003 - Yahoo Widgets in 2005 - Google Gadgets in 2006 - Microsoft Gadgets in 2007 - Facebook Apps - Google Gadget Ads recently
Gadgets let you move into a delivery mechanism, like your mail comes to you, so should marketers (they should come to you).
He then showed the nissan live traffic gadget, which has live traffic. It is useful and free.
22% of marketers in 2007 said they used gadgets. 47% in 2008 said they will start using these gadgets. So the eye balls are there.
James Welch, Head of Research and Development, GetUpdated is next up. They advertise here, so they must be good at what they do. ;-)
He is talking more about the Google Gadget Ads...
What are the early adopters and ad creator saying?
We are in the infancy right now. The ideas are being lead by the technology people, but the ads are very easy to create. The driver really needs to be from the marketing department, not the tech people.
Current Examples: - He showed the Nissan Example that Google showed. He pointed out the zip code feature... - Most famous gadget ad is the "kickin it old skool" ad, see here. - He then shows an interactive example of CareerOne (over here) - Peugeot ad is cool (see here)
Results: - High interaction rates - High CTR - Everyone is Happy
Use Gadgets For: - Brand Awareness - Generate Leads - Introduce Your Site - Improve Reputation - Collect Data/Content
Creating a Good Ad: - Do not mislead users - Conform to IAB standards - No Audio on load - Keep ads under 40k - Keep animation under 15 seconds - No downloads within ads - Create an easy to click outgoing link - Keep outgoing links underlined
Future: - Open Social will increase delivery - Mobile - Geographical and context awareness - Improved use of rich media - Intelligent APIs etc.
