It's always fun to discuss ads in class, but too often it winds up being a "he said/she said" type of discussion. Everyone has his or her own preferences, but in the absence of knowing what actually worked the discussion can reach no conclusion and be frustrating.
It's also not a good representation of good marketing on the web. Everything can be tested, often without a lot of extra effort or any additional expenditure. Amazon, Facebook and Google all offer A/B split testing and both Facebook and Google have multivariate testing as part of their advertising platforms. There are also a number of companies that offer tools for testing digital ads. Every digital marketing activity offers an opportunity for testing. Too few marketers take full advantage of that.
Google's Unskippable Labs created and tested 33 ads for a fake brand of pizza and cheesecake. They were interested in testing the impact of sensory cues and testing conventional ad wisdom like "you cannot have someone chewing and looking directly at the camera." Here's a link to the 15 that are still on YouTube. Its interesting to look at the variations shown on the YouTube page. Some of the 33 ad variations were small--sound vs. no sound, for example, but the total effort produced interesting and useful findings.
Immersive, multi-sensory experiences have more impact than single sensory ones
Separate visual input from text
Give explicit instruction to imagine
Food ads with edge-to-edge (close-up) shots perform better
Portray food experience in different ways
Younger people reacted better to personal point-of-view ads than did older people.
Dr. Ryan Elder of Brigham Young University collaborated with Google on this project. His research interests center on sensory experiences and visual cues. Dr. Elder says, "This collaboration with Google created a unique environment where
creative development in advertising could be informed by academic
theory, tested in the real world, and immediately disseminated to
companies to use."
However you use them, this is the type of large-scale ad experiment that should provide students a lot of food for thought
Our two digital textbooks have only one mention of the deep web--a brief mention of "dark social" in Chapter 10 of Social Media Marketing. While the deep web is not a priority topic for most marketers, instructors and students should be aware of its existence. Instructors should have a definition handy if anyone asks. My guess is that students are more likely to be aware of the concept than most instructors. They are also likely to be badly informed and susceptible to the many dangers that lurk there.
This post has the limited goal of making the instructor aware and providing correct definitions. If the reader in interested in more information on the subject, please read the corresponding post on my new blog, Protecting Yourself in Cyberspace. The target audience of that blog is the layperson who uses the web, not professionals. It probably is not going to contain much information that is useful in the marketing classroom. However, you might like to follow it as an individual, maybe even as a researcher, and you might want to recommend that your students follow it for their own safety.
What is the Deep Web?
The web is generally stratified into three levels as shown in the graphic. The top two levels are:
The Surface Web. The surface web is the portion of the web that is indexed in search engines. It includes platforms large and small and is easily accessible to the user. Students should be aware of the dangers that are present even on the surface web when they have completed Chapter 17, the social and regulatory chapter. That chapter is, as it should be, devoted to the discussion of issues that affect the safety of business data on the web and resultant brand trust on the part of customers. The thoughtful student should realize that many of these same issues affect individual users, but I have always found that students can benefit from frequent reminders about the safety of their own personal data.
Sources indicate that there are currently about 4.49 billion indexed pages on the web. You often see the estimate that only 1% of the pages on the web are actually indexed.
The Deep Web. It's easy to guess, then, that the deep web is the portion of the web than cannot be indexed by search engines.It is huge; perhaps 400 to 500 times the size of the surface web. Again, that's a figure you see often.
The deep web consists of content that has intentionally been hidden. That includes things like our social media profiles, employee websites, email--anything that requires a password for access. That means that most of the content on the deep web is innocuous. It's just things we want to keep private.
How is the Dark Web Different from the Deep Web?
The dark web is the portion of the deep web where the bad guys hang out. Sites on the dark web are encrypted and cannot be accessed by search engines. It requires a special browser to access the dark web. The Tor browser is the most famous. The browser itself is not dangerous. It was initially funded by the US government and is used by people like whistle blowers to mask their identities. The dark web is however, full of stolen passwords and illegal drugs. It is also said to be full of malware that will follow a visitor back to his normal haunts.
I have scoured the web to make sure these definitions are correct, and they are. What I have found in the process is that many people who, according to their credentials, should know better are careless. Beware!
Should Marketers Care About the Dark Web?
While they probably shouldn't loose sleep over it, marketers should be aware. They should keep an eye on it to see if there's anything that could affect their brand reputation. There is not much authoritative content specifically for marketers, but this publication on the AMA website is good. Unfortunately it doesn't have a publication date, but it could be 2016. That's not terribly recent, but in this case of this type of content it's ok.
Should Users Care About the Deep Web and the Dark Web?
We use the deep web all the time, and it is not a problem. We should care about the dark web, although, since everything is encrypted, it is pretty difficult to stumble onto it. I just suggest that it's useful for students to be warned about the potential dangers, especially malware, of intentionally venturing onto the dark web.
There's an interesting and useful way to demonstrate what can go on there and still stay safe. This site lets the user look to see if her passwords are for sale on the dark web. I've searched it occasionally over the past year or so and see passwords from three sites that were hacked some time ago. I'm not exactly sure how to interpret that, although I have been more careful lately. And yes, I have changed the stolen passwords.
The "word" pwned means to totally obliterate an opponent, as in a video game. Wonder how many of your students know that.
This makes for a good classroom exercise. I usually use my own email address for something like this, having first tested it at home. One warning is that it's a free site and you may find yourself closed out if you use it often. You could ask for a brave student to volunteer theirs--and hope it won't turn up something embarrassing!
Recently Snapchat announced a new developer platform called Snap Kit. Why is this a big deal?
Primarily it’s a big deal because so many teenagers use Snapchat and consider it their favorite platform. Statista quotes 2018 data showing that 72% of female teens and 67% of male teens use the platform. 77% of black teens use Snapchat, followed by 72% of white teens and 64% of Hispanic teens. The chart shows Shapchat as the favorite platform among teens, pretty much leveling off after quarters of meteoric growth. Instagram is second with Twitter and Facebook falling further behind in third and fourth place, respectively. In spite of its second place finish marketers shouldn’t write off Instagram for reaching teens. According to Piper Jaffray’s annual survey teens consider Instagram the best channel for reaching them with new products and promotions.
What, Really, Is Snapchat?
Let’s back off for a minute and--for those of us who long ago left the 18-24 demographic-- understand the Snapchat platform and why using it has been problematic for marketers. The essence of Shapchat is that messages go away after a few seconds—the time determined by user settings. The message stays in the recipient’s inbox until opened, then disappears in the allotted time. The user can send a photo, video or text message to a friends list or only to selected people from it. The platform also offers Stories, a collection of snaps and videos that lasts for 24 hours. Videos are easily filmed and shared. The minimum age for Snapchat users is 13.
"Snapchat is probably my single most favorite social media platform," . . ."It combines texting, FaceTiming, and the photographic charm of Instagram."
"I consider it digital honesty, which is hard to find in a web of fake profiles and manipulated photos,"
"I spend a lot of time looking at the 'stories' from CNN and Buzzfeed," . . ."It's the best way to easily ingest quick news or pass the time with quizzes and such."
Quoting a study from research firm Goodwater, the Los Angeles Times also pointed out that teens mostly followed the stories of their friends, not those of celebrities. Users under 30 are most likely to use the Stories function but they are not likely to use expensive apps like Spectacles. Likewise, they are not enthusiastic about additional functions like search and long-form videos. "Simpler is better," . . . "Snapchat would lose its uniqueness if it started
implementing features that were already in use," according to one of the teens.
This is evidence of a deeper, and extremely important trend. News site Axios summarizes the trend:
The concept of speaking to your entire friend network at once via social networks helped propel the popularity of sites like Facebook. Now the pendulum is swinging away from speaking to hundreds of people at once, back toward one-to-one communication that people feel is more private, secure and authentic.
Marketers need to consider the implications of that trend.
Why is Snapchat so Great?
Snapchat has provided one solution to more authentic content for many young people. Tech executive and writer Ian Kar, who’s had a Snapchat account since 2013, lists key points about the platform:
• It’s about creating content, not just consuming it
• It works with vertical videos
• It’s private
• It’s relevant, authentic and unfiltered
• It’s fun!
Why Marketers Need Snapchat
Clearly marketers need Snapchat if they want to reach teens on social media. But other demographics use the platform also. In fact, according to eMarketer, growth is being driven by users aged 45 and up. They are not joining for disappearing messages, they are joining for content, especially streaming short TV episodes. Growth among teen users has slowed as many of them find Instagram stories better suited to their needs.
In this context, it is worth noting that Facebook use continues to decline among young users. eMarketer also expects Facebook to loose 2 million users aged 24 and under in 2018. It expects the number of users 12 to 17 to decline 5.6% and 18 to 24 by 5.8% this year. Reports suggest that some young people are turning to Instagram as a substitute for Snapchat, while others may be turning to messaging apps. Each of those is a story for another day.
Today’s story is why marketers should consider using Snapchat. Here are some reasons:
• Reach the younger audience (of course)
• Test ephemeral content
• Take advantage of the high engagement rate and the platform’s reputation for user privacy
• Make use of vertical video using the Snap Spectacles video app
• New opportunity for location-based marketing using the Snap Map
• Use the Snapchat advertising platform including the Audience Match function which allows brands to use their own customer data
• Reach the majority of Snapchat users who shop online.
Some Snapchat Campaigns
With those opportunities dangling in front of them, some marketers have experimented with Snapchat campaigns. Note that I had to travel through time and geography to find these. Reason? Few marketers are yet using Snapchat in 2018. Statista puts the number at 8%; for comparison, 94% of marketers use Facebook. There is a difference in whether the campaign is a one-shot (Taco Bell) or ongoing for a period of time (McDonalds).
The 2016 Taco Bell Cinco de Mayo campaign thrust Snapchat into the marketing world when it garnered 224 million views in a single day. It was expensive, using a Snapchat lens (an animated geofilter) to convert the user into a taco. This campaign was featured in the SMM text in the Mobile Marketing chapter because we thought it wasn’t large enough at that time for detailed coverage in the platforms chapters.
In 2014 the Danish branch of the World Wildlife Fund created The Last Selfie campaign to spotlight endangered species. The message of the video was that their existence was as ephemeral as a snapchat post. The WWF extended the campaign into a second week, stating that it achieved more attention than they expected and was a fundraising success.
The elections in the UK in 2017 inspired the Electoral Commission to create a Find your voice voter registration drive that was available throughout the UK. The filter offered several images for the user’s image and a reminder of the number of days until the election at the bottom. It partnered with Snapchat in the week-long get out the vote campaign,
To the present day, this time in New Zealand. McDonalds has run numerous small scale (or perhaps a better term would be location-specific) campaigns over the past few years including one to recruit new employees. In the current campaign a person can activate the McDonald’s geofilter when she is in a store and create a snap to share.
How Marketers Can Learn to Use Snapchat
A good short explanation of marketer uses of Snapchat makes the point that it updates so often it is useless to give detailed instructions on how to use it. Point well taken, but there are a number of generic ways to reap benefits from the app. This list is divided by organic growth and advertising.
Marketers can drive organic growth on Snapchat in a number of ways:
• Use a Snapchat Story to create awareness of your brand. For instance, conduct a quick, fun-filled walkthrough of your business operations
• Post some behind the scenes content from your workplaces or about your products
• Be responsive to every message. Thank your viewers. Give them a shout out in your snaps. Share something they’ve snapped.
• Post regularly, at least once a day.
• Above all, be consistent with your brand’s voice and mission.
Once the marketer has become comfortable using Shapchat, she may want to make use of Sapchat ads. Some examples include:
• Use Snap Ads to leverage audio visual content for marketing your brand.
o Use Context Cards to add additional information like product availability locations
• Sponsor a lens; identify how a user would engage with your product, and apply the insights to a lens (for instance, a lens that lets users ‘drink’ your energy drink)
• Use themed geofilters like the in-store McDonalds filters.
There’s an important reason for separating organic growth from advertising on Snapchat. Brands can create their own filters and lenses and can learn a lot by doing that. Snapchat advertising gets expensive pretty quickly. The Taco Bell Cinco de Mayo lens was rumored to cost about $750,000—for one day! The New Zealand McDonalds chain filter is going to be expensive because it’s going to be available for a year and will be changed to reflect other promotional activity. I couldn’t find a cost for The Last Selfie campaign, but you can see the basic costs for sponsored lenses in the chart below. It’s not clear whether the WWF got a price break because it’s a non-profit, but it is clear that Snapchat supported the Find your voice campaign for the UK Election Commission. Otherwise, a spokesman notes that the nation-wide filter would have been “quite pricey.”
It’s always wise to check, but these are recent estimates of ad costs, some verified by several sources, others from one good summary:
Snap Ads. This is a DIY ad format using Snapchat’s Ad Manager. Not surprisingly, it works uch like Facebook ads. Sponsored Lenses. The quoted price varies by day with weekdays being $450,000, $500,000 for Fridays and Saturdays and $700,000+ for holidays and special events. Nationwide Sponsored Geofilters. This is a new product but estimates suggest about $100,000. Discover. These are essentially banner ads that appear at the top of the screen and cost about $50,000 per day. Snap to Unlock. This is also a new ad format in which a link in another site or channel unlocks a Snap filter. Snap to Unlock Codes. This is another new ad format which looks like Snapchat’s version of a QR code. It is estimated to have a price just higher than local geofilters. Sponsored Local Geofilters. The cost for a local geofilter can be as low as $5, per day apparently. One source quotes the cost for an annual contract for a local geofilter at “a few hundred dollars.”
These are basics and some are estimates. Snapchat’s rates are based on CPM but it also offers goal-based bidding, which is a pay-per-action format. If viewers interact with the ad, they become members of a Snap Engagement Group that can be retargeted.
Why is the New App Policy So Important?
The preceding section makes it clear that Snapchat ads are pricey. What may also be obvious is that the platform has kept a tight rein on its advertising options. The new Snap Kits for developers cracks that door open a bit, and that’s why it’s important.
Even so, the opening is limited. The new products allow developers to include Snapchat features like Bitmojis and stickers in their own apps, embed Stories as content on other sites and sign in with their Snapchat identification. The platform says it will share only display names and Bitmoji avatars with developers—no demographic data or friends lists. For the present, all applications will receive human scrutiny prior to approval, which one assumes includes a careful look at adherence to privacy standards.
CEO and co-founder of Snapchat Evan Spiegel likes to goad Facebook about Snapchat’s stronger privacy protection and the fact that it hasn’t been susceptible to Russian interference. He often suggests that Facebook should copy Snapchat privacy standards. Speaking about the developer kits, a member of the legal staff says:
"Under no circumstance do we allow anyone to ask for your friends list or contacts directly," says Katherine Tassi, Snap's deputy general counsel. "[Mobile] platforms do give developers the ability to ask for contacts, but that will be on their own." Tassi added that third-party developers also won't be able to see people's messaging activity—though there is anonymized, aggregated usage data shared between Snap and the developer.
This is still the age of Snapchat experimentation. Brands that have teens or the broader 18-24 demographic in their target market should be experimenting now. As with any platform, there will be a learning curve. Now is the time to jump on!
