Engaging Hyundai Interactive

When it comes to interactive campaigns and online advertising, there is one simple rule. It's got to be engaging. If it's not, people just won't take notice. But there is a line that you shouldn't cross - like I just experienced with the Volkswagen GT island on www.carsales.com.au - why in the world would anyone want to pretend to change fake gears on your banner ad? Or is it just me?!

This month we launched the Hyundai Mid Year Sale interactive campaign complete with the whole array of online advertising; Flash banners, Content ads, Search Marketing and Landing pages.

With initial campaign preparation we very carefully experiment with the level of engagement needed to lure in the customer. We complete a few concept banners and have internal test groups view demo pages with the concept banners in place, we get their feed back on what drags their eyes to the banner and then make adjustments to get the right feeling from our banners before sending off the best concept to client.

One thing we almost always steer away from is tacky interaction between the user and our banners in online advertising. The whole "click to use the gearstick" of the latest Volkswagen campaign is one of the poorest executions I've seen in a while and it not only doesn't interest me to play with their gear stick but is completely non engaging - it's a static, boring, pointless banner. At the end of the day, that is a waste of their online advertising budget.

The Hyundai Mid Year Sale campaign banners use animated flowing lines to draw the users attention, while featuring simple clear and concise text to give the user a exactly what they are after - simplified, direct information that gives them everything thing they need to know before clicking that ad. (you can view our ads on all the car sites with a great example being the island on the home page of carsales.com.au)

Clicking through brings you to the new Hyundai Offers Landing page. Where we addressed an issue that would be important for all car companies, including Hyundai - that's getting the entire range to look good on a single page, be engaging and usable and interactive.

Hence our interactive team came up with a 3D perspective wheel that allows us to show off every car in the range on a single screen with some interactive eye candy to boot! The Hyundai Offers page gives users the ability to select the car of their preference to see the latest offers on that vehicle, with functionality to book a test drive, order brochures and compare cars against other brands!

Our search marketing component provides a steady flow of traffic to our offers page through strategically targeted key words and ad copy. We are careful not to be too generic and balance a campaign to be effective on both volume, exposure and conversion. It's also important to note that research and strategy play an enormous part in the success of search marketing, which is one of the fastest evolving industries on the planet.

One of the major advantages of a successful campaign is a rounded experience for the user and ensuring that at every click they are comfortable with the process being directly related to the original call to action. This means that once a user clicks your web banner or Google ad that the page must replicate similar content to that of which they expect to see, and not go straight to the home page or worse too deep into the website.

This is where landing pages are extremely valuable and are loaded up with the most relevant content to engage users and provide them with options to further explore and take the next step. Get this all right and your user will be funnelled down the path of your choice.

Why Crowd Baiting Doesn't Always Work.

The Social Networking boom has certainly created a multitude of new Online Marketing techniques, strategies and locations. Take Digg.com for example. It's a social networking website (news & articles) that is powered by user created content. You can submit, share, comment, vote, promote and discover anything from anywhere.

For marketers, it's better than blogging & myspace combined. Digg.com is a promotional paradise, waterfront with penthouse styled 5 star marketing opportunities. This website has millions of people log-in on to look for something to read. Not only that, articles are ranked so the more diggs you have, the more traffic you get, the more people want to read your article to see why so many people before them digged your article!

Obviously, this gives marketers a juicy platform to launch any style of campaign they like and get server crashing traffic! BUT. Be warned. As with any campaign, at the end of the day it's about sales - not traffic. And if it's about sales - it's about people, not just clicks.

Digg.com delivers traffic in the bucket loads, but they are only there for a caffeine fix, not the friendly chat that goes with it. And since your bottom line requires your campaign to increase sales, it's now about building relationships - something Digg.com users don't have time for.

There are 2 important lessons learnt here;

1. Traffic Doesn't Always Generate Sales
2. Choose Your Social Media Platform Carefully

Next time you're investing time into social marketing, don't just jump into high-traffic websites. At the end of the day, it's about sales - not clicks. And as we see the change in online marketing with mediums such as PPC bids getting increasingly expensive, optimisation will become one of the most important factors in sales generation. Spend less - Get more.

Web Banner Advertising Grows 17.5%

While we are talking about stats, In the AdAge 2007 digital marketing report they note a very solid 17.5% growth in Online Web Banner Advertising which is now up to a $9.77 billion annual online spend across all industries that feature visual online advertising (animated flash web banners). And it's being driven by a number of factors;

1. Increases in Broadband uptake
2. More consumers spending time online
3. Websites & Advertising now need to be more engaging
4. Marketers are opening their wings to experience new media
5. Cost effective high visibility advertising
6. More portals and targeted websites to place advertising

As more brands become awear of the benefits in moving large percentages of their advertising budgets online we will continue to see solid growth year on year and with web2.0 booming there are more than enough new targeted websites being established to cope with the demand for targeted marketing opportunities.

New Media Online Spending Statistics

The 2007 New Media Online Spending Statistics released by the American Advertising Federation (AAF ) paints an interesting picture for new media, some predictable, others are a little more eye opening.

We all know that Search Marketing has been attracting a growing % of marketers budgets, but these statistics might just confirm why everyone believes Google purchased YouTube as its test ground for online video advertising.



The surge in online video spending is almost something of a craze. Marketers can get a little wrapped up in all the hype and throw cash to media companies just waiting to spend their $$. While online video is booming, I'm not yet convinced that online video advertising is at an influential stage - and I stress "yet".

While broadband is kicking into gear with fantastic adoption rates of recent times, the general public still has its "L Plates" on when it comes to watching video advertising online. After all, that's why we switch TV channels or have turned to downloading our favourite shows - to avoid waiting through the ad break. I don't want to wait for a 60sec Ad to load & play before i can start to watch my desired clips.

As Google has put it, YouTube is a testing ground for video advertising. This will give them (and the world) a perfect test case for video advertising. From ad lengths to implementation, this project will one day set the guidelines for successful online advertising. And one of the key questions will be - are we be able to fast forward or skip the ads?

Social Network spending sitting in at 7.7% was a surprise for me, I suspected a much larger increase in its spending towards the 10-12%, obviously not the case this year. Podcasts are catching blog spending and mobile spending is sitting at around 5%.

Mobile Advertising is predicted as another "next big thing" although there are numerous issues to be solved before it will be adopted. While it's gaining popularity across England, I feel it's 2+ years away from being adopted by users here. Taking note - there are some fantastic blue tooth technologies being developed and will probably be seen in shopping centres over the next 12 months that detect blue tooth on mobile phones and offer to send them the latest offers and discounts.