Already at 11:30 am I started feeling the thrill.  At 11:55 I went on Gilt.com and started refreshing the page.  Finally it happened.  Exactly at noon, the site started another sale of luxury brands. 

I immediately went browsing with full force—my chance of owning an Ermenegildo Zegna, for 70% off, or just for a few hundred bucks.  Apparently, however, I wasn’t the only one there, and within minutes all that was left was empty online shelves.


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Gilt Groupe is an invitation only site that sells designer brands in up to 70% off their retail price.  Each sale lasts for 36 hours and is then removed from the site.  The sales are first come first served, and the number of items is limited, so typically many items are sold out a short time after the sale begins.


What has made a calculated guy like me go wild and be willing to spend hundreds of dollars on a whim on items that I am not even sure that I am going to wear?  What is that spell that Gilt casts on its members that pushes them to spend?  Gilt is using three powerful techniques that can help any advertiser get better performance and increase sales on his or her campaign:

• Perceived value – As the famous phrase of many infomercials go:  “you’re not spending, you’re saving.  Gilt provides their members the sense that they are getting a great deal that they cannot get anywhere else.
•  Time limit – Buy now or be silent forever.  As each sale is for a limited time, you are constantly under pressure to make the purchase immediately.
• Value of scarcity – There is limited stock from every item.  Items are also sold out pretty quickly.  Therefore, start practicing the art of browsing without blinking.  If you like a specific item, you need to make a decision on the spot, or it’s gone.

When combined, all of these techniques push even the most astute consumer to an online shopping spree.  Try any combination of these techniques in the message of your ads to push users to action now, and you too should be able to get users to pull out their credit card.



 

Ariel Geifman | Principal Analyst, MediaMind Research






 

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Can the same food taste different when served in a five star restaurant from when it is served in a fast food joint? Obviously environment matters, and when we taste, we consider not only what is on the plate, but also the décor, environment, the ambiance and the crowd. A recent OPA study shows that we engage in the same process when considering our attitude towards an online ad.

In a recent research, “A Sense of Place: Why Environments Matter”, the OPA suggests that the manner in which an individual perceives the site has an impact on the manner in which he or she perceives the brand featured in the ad, and determines whether the user will respond to it. OPA sought to understand how users’ perception, rather than the mere quality of content, affects the responsiveness of users to advertising on that page. The OPA conducted quantitative and qualitative research, analyzing participants’ perceptions of the site’s content and examined the correlation with their opinion on the brands advertised on it.

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When 90% of car buyers now begin their research online, it only makes sense that more and more budgets find their way to Display. A recently released study by MediaMind Research shows that despite the decline in car sales, there has been an increase in the average number of impressions per automotive advertiser in 2009. This recession resilience signals a move from less effective advertising channels to online display.


An analysis of billions of automotive global impressions by MediaMind revealed the following highlights:
• Rich Media doubles Conversion Rate and nearly triples CTR.
• Mobile banners are performing well for automotive, achieving a similar Conversion Rate to Expandable Banners and Polite Banners.
• Synched Ads increase Conversion Rate by 67%.
• MediaMind’s Automatic Optimization, which uses a sophisticated algorithm to deliver the most impactful creative, increases Conversion Rate by 79%.
• The Cash for Clunkers program in America boosted Conversion Rate threefold, and increased users’ responsiveness to automotive ads to a peak.

The research addresses key questions facing advertisers:
• Which sites/environments deliver the highest Conversion Rate and Dwell Rate?
• Which ad formats proved most effective in past campaigns?
• How can mobile ads boost your performance?
• Why do Automatic Optimization and Synched Ads deliver superior results?

Online advertising provides great value for the automotive industry, and advertisers are voting with their dollars. When users are looking for their next car online, losing or gaining a prospective customer may be just an impression away.


To download the full Analytics Bulletin: Making Display Advertising the Engine for Automotive Growth, click here.

This month’s Blast features a range of innovative formats from the Glider to a Taste-o-Meter to Silverlight to the first iPad campaign. 

“Taking advantage of the global launch of Kinect, ONTWICE developed an extraordinary campaign based on the Key Features of the new hardware for Xbox 360. The main purpose of the campaign was to transmit the innovative characteristics of Kinect, such as movement and fluidity, but also give awareness of the interactivity the console will offer.”

Xbox Kinect Glider Homepage Takeover, Spain
Format: Homepage Takeover
Interactive Feature: Glider
Media: MSN
Creative: ONTWICE Interactive
Vertical: Gaming
View demo

New & Notable Campaigns

Hyundai Taste-O-Meter, US
Media: CBS Digital Media
Creative: Creative Eye
Format: Homepage Takeover
Interactive Feature: Taste-O-Meter
Vertical: Auto
View demo

This is a ground-breaking HTML5 campaign that can be viewed on an iPad for Amstel beer.

Amstel iPad, US
Media: Click Here
Creative: Click Here
Format: Polite Banner
Vertical: CPG
View demo

MediaMind now supports Microsoft’s Silverlight. This format can serve and track Silverlight content and does not delay the page loading.

Visual Studio with Silverlight Player, JP
Media: McCann Erickson
Creative: McCann Erickson
Format: Polite Banner
Vertical: Tech
View demo

This homepage takeover for NIKE lets the user choose their favorite player to watch a featured video and to download wallpaper.

Click here to see the full issue of The Blast.

Here at MediaMind, we enjoy a clever quip and a speedy response, so this week we take a look at The Story of 2010 in Australia thus far and the response astute advertisers have had to the political shake up. The recent leadership spill, which resulted in the appointment of Australia’s first female Prime Minister, caused a bona fide media frenzy. From live and continuous coverage on television and radio networks, a special midday edition of the major mastheads, to the explosion of mass Twittering, Blogging and video streaming online, the media storm the leadership spill caused was nothing short of phenomenal, with Fairfax Digital announcing that it became their biggest-ever online news story. It’s also an advertiser’s playground.
Though many felt sorry for departing ex-PM Kevin Rudd (affectionately known as ‘Mr. Sheen’ by some), few could deny the hilarity and cleverness that ensued as we relished in the fast ‘comebacks’ issued by copy writers around the country. The ads below, taken from The Australian 28^th June, details some of the timely advertisements that quickly appeared in newspapers alongside the coverage of Kevin Rudd’s leadership demise and the rise of Gillard.

It’s fantastic to see creative react so quickly to topical news events; they are eye catching, inspire word of mouth discussions, and have managed to play on the Australian’s love of humour. However, due to the production schedule of newspapers, the delivery of these fantastic quips was delayed by a full day. This is where the beauty of digital advertising comes into play. Digital campaigns can be updated simply and almost immediately; within minutes, an editorially responsive advertorial is served up hot and fresh to information hungry consumers. Take, for example, the Pepsi “Joy it Forward” campaign served by MediaMind in 2009. Using MediaMind’s Smart Versioning tool (which was already enabled) the Pepsi team responded swiftly when the saddening news broke of Michael Jackson’s untimely passing. The live campaign transformed from this:

To this:

In a few short moments.
Another example of quick turnaround can be found in the Team Suzuki campaign run by its agency Questus, who were presented with the challenge of updating the team’s ads with fresh race data. In the past, changes were made via a delayed and cumbersome process that could often take hours. However, since having their ads served by the MediaMind Smart Versioning technology, the team can now quickly create, serve and measure all dynamic content ads:

Back in APAC, a recent Diageo-Johnnie Walker sponsorship of Fox Sports coverage of the Ashes between England and Australia demonstrated how effective timely advertorials can be. The ads were updated daily based on the team’s results, with one of the messages proudly exclaiming, “Here’s to the next victory”:

Using this technology, agencies can save time and money whilst delivering fresh and relevant content, which in turn can strengthen the brand’s relationship with consumers. Has anyone out there seen some particularly clever and timely advertisements online lately? We would love to hear about them, so do comment below.

* Editor’s Note: This story originally appeared on MediaMind’s APAC Blog.